Animal experiments in higher education

Dr Corina Gericke DVM, Dr Martina Kuhtz DVM

The Hippocratic oath which is valid for all medical doctors obliges to preserve life. Most veterinary surgeons take up this profession to heal animals. The motivation for the studies of biology is the interest in nature with all its life-forms. But the basic principle of the great respect for life is breached, when students are forced to take part in animal experiments - against their conscience.

Dissections of animals and organs, but also experiments on living animals are supposed to teach the students the basic concepts of the anatomy of animals and the function of organs. As an example, in the zoological course rats, snails, insects and other animals are killed and disseced to learn about appearance and position of the organs. Animal experiments are widely conducted in the physiology courses. Here we can find the notorious »frog experiments«. The head of a frog is cut off, then organs including nerves, muscles or the heart are removed. The organs still react to electrical stimuli or the application of certain drugs, even when the organs are already detached from the body.

If a student conscientiously objects to take part in this so called »animal use«, he or she will not be able to complete the studies successfully. Due to years of constant protests of students against being forced to take part in animal use, the range of teaching methods without using animals is increasing. The situation is changing slowly but surely. Today many medical schools do without animal use or at least do not make the animal use compulsory for the students. Still, these experiments are regarded as indispensable at most universities in the field of human medicine, biology and veterinary medicine. At least 60.000 animals are killed every year in Germany for the compulsory courses of these three faculties only.

The pros and cons

»Natural sciences can not only be learnt by books and films.«

The practical part of the training is in fact very important and is very much neglected in most studies anyway. But experience should be gained on animal and human patients, not on animals killed for this purpose.

»Knowledge from experiments is easily remembered.«

For example, students who have to draw the internal organs of an earthworm often do this by using illustrations of books, without looking at the readily dissected earthworm where they can hardly recognize anything anyway. Video films in slow motion or close-up have the advantage, in contrary to the experiment, that they can be repeated again and again. By this the chances of remembering is much higher than in an experiment which often fails anyway. Besides, the learning success will not be great, if a person is forced to do something against his/her conscience.

»Before certain operations on patients can be carried out, the skills must be learned on animals.«

In the beginning a surgeon learns to operate by exercising on dead animals, who died in a natural way or have been put down for medical reasons. The future surgeon then learns by watching and assisting an experienced surgeon, until he or she has finally gained the skills to operate on a patient - first of course under supervision. This is the only way to learn surgery.

»Students, especially veterinary students, have to get over their scruple of killing and they also have to learn to suffer.«

A student certainly does not learn to suffer by carrying out animal experiments, but the opposite is the case. The ability to feel compassion and sympathy gets often destroyed within the first study year when students participate in animal experiments. Animal experiments lead to brutalisation, bluntness or indifference towards life and suffering.

»Animal experiments are an indisputable part of the academic freedom.«

The academic freedom has to end where the infringement of the law begins, not only since the animal protection has been included in the German Constitution. The Animal Protection Law requires a reasonable reason for animal experiments or the killing of animals. The decision, if such a reason is given, cannot be left with the lecturers only.

»The historical way of the researcher has to be followed.«

Research methods of the past decades can be followed without carrying them out (for example studies of history). Besides, the future should be more important than the past.

Teaching methods without using animals

Video films

Video films of experiments or demonstrations are the easiest and most basic alternative. Important sections can be repeated and explained in a close-up or in slow motion any time.

Computer simulation

Physiological experiments can be mimicked remarkably realisticly by modern computer programs. Data of experiments are processed on the computer. A graph, for example for the stimulus frequency, is now not plotted by the twitching frog muscle, but by the virtual laboratory on the computer. Many programs use digitalized images and are highly interactive. They demand active cooperation of the students, so they can easily remember the teaching objectives. Computer simulation are not only usefull for physiological experiments, but also for dissections, pharmacological experiments and many more.

Self-Experiments

Physiology can be experienced on your own body by harmless experiments on yourself - a teaching technique with a very high memory factor. For example muscle and nerve function can be examined by a teaching tool called 'Myograph'. Instead of using a frog muscle, the arm of a student can be used.

Naturally died animals

It is absolutely not necessary to kill animals for dissection purposes. Instead, animals from veterinary clinics which have died or have been put down due to medical indications can be used for this purpose. There are no objections to this from the legal point of view (epidemiological law). Insects, earthworms and other animals which were found dead are suitable for biology students.

Plastinations, Models

Plastination is a process of transferring animals or organs into a rubber-like, long lasting condition without loosing its form and colour. Plastic models of animals and organs illustrate the basic anatomy. Silicone models are suitable for learning how to give injections, to take blood samples or for surgical procedures.

Others

Students of veterinary medicine can be taught treatment and diagnostic examinations (ECG, giving injections, reflexes etc.) on animal patients like it is common in human medicine.

Basic changes within the training are necessary

The Witten/Herdecke medical school teaches a holistic view of medicine. The attention is centered around the human patient with his impaired health. There the students are not overburdened with dull theory, instead they learn righ from their first year how to take the history of patients, practice operations on dolls, learn about philosophy - always accompanied by an experienced doctor of the hospital. Because of this basic position the university refrains from animal experiments.

The legal situation

According to Article 10 of the German animal protection law, procedures on animals which involve pain, harm or suffering, are only allowed to be carried out for training, if its purpose can not be achieved in another way. According to previous interpretations, the lecturer was, due to his Constitutional right of academic freedom, the only one to decide on the use of animals in his courses. Since the inclusion of animal welfare into the German Constitution in 2002 animal welfare is no longer inferior to other Constitutional rights. Individual cases can now be weighted up between two Constitutional rights.

A case from 1993 shows how little possibilities regarding higher eduction there were for the implication of the Animal Protection Law. The regional authority of Gießen prohibited a lecturer from Marburg to carry out experiments on rats in a compulsory course for zoology students. The teaching objective could also be achieved by showing a film which was confirmed by an expert. Because there was an alternative available, the experiment breached Article 10 of the Animal Protection Law. As animal welfare was not included in the Constitution at that time, the Administrative Court of Kassel decided that the ban of the experiment was not rightful.

With the changed Constitution the animal welfare law can no longer be regarded as inferior to basic rights like in this case. Future court case will hopefully be decided according to the new situation in favour of the animals.

Also there is now an increasing chance that complaints of students will be granted if they conscientiously object to animal experiments. So far they based their complaints on the Constitutional right of freedom of conscience and freedom of occupation. The lecturer had on his side the right of academic freedom. Now on the side of the student weighs also animal welfare.

Conscientious objection

Since experiments on animals for teaching purposes began, there has also been a resistance against this. Thanks to the tireless protests from students, an increasing number of universities turn towards animal friendly teaching methods. This trend can be seen mainly in human and veterinary medicine. Unfortunately in biology hardly anything is changing.
Some students even choose to take their universities to court. So far only two of those lawsuits have been won by students. A biology student even went before the Federal Constitutional Court. Unfortunately the Court denied the student the right to conscientiously object to animal use in her study.

The federal association SATIS (Student workshop against animal use in higher education) rejects animal experiments and animal use for training purposes for ethical, scientific and didactical reasons. SATIS helps conscientiously objecting students with information and expertise.

Further information: 

• SATIS www.satis-tierrechte.de (in German)
• InterNICHE www.interniche.org  
• East-Europe projetcs of Doctors Against Animal Experiments