The Elephant (and Mouse) in the Room

The Elephant (and Mouse) in the Room

Educating the public about the vital role animals play in research can be daunting, but it must be done. 
By Christine Yu

Eryn Dixon, PhD, describes herself as a non-confrontational person. The postdoctoral research scholar at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis doesn’t normally like to go toe-to-toe with someone, especially when it comes to controversial subjects. It’s in part why she didn’t always share that her lab research involved working with animals. She would sidestep the topic if she could, simply saying she studied kidney disease but not mentioning exactly how she investigated it. If she talked about her cell model, she would omit the fact that the cells were derived from mice. She wanted to avoid heated debates.

But a visit to Capitol Hill in 2018 changed her mind. As a member of the American Physiological Society’s Animal Care and Experimentation (ACE) Committee, Dixon and her colleagues were in Washington, DC, to talk with congressional staff members about the role animals play in advancing the understanding of health and disease in both humans and animals. During one conversation, a staff member remarked that if scientists involved animals in their biomedical research studies they must hate animals. 

Dixon was taken aback, shocked by the assumption that scientists lacked human emotion and empathy for other living beings and by the inadequate understanding of the scientific process. Yet, at the same time, she understood where some of those misconceptions came from. 

Dixon is an animal lover. She grew up in rural West Virginia surrounded by dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and horses. Her initial perception of animal research was largely influenced by negative portrayals of the practice in the media. Family members and friends had mixed feelings about it, too. “The research aspect was kind of scary,” she says.

When Dixon entered graduate school at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, she wanted to avoid using animal models. Yet, as her graduate studies progressed, Dixon’s perspective changed as she saw firsthand that animals were indispensable to understanding disease pathways.

For her dissertation project, she worked on an in vitro model system for cyst formation in polycystic kidney disease. “The kidney is so cellularly complex that at this point, even with all the technology we have, we are unable to model it in culture,” she says. There are so many variables to take into account—not just how cells, tissues and organs communicate with each other but also how whole-body factors, such as hormones, circadian rhythms and metabolism, can influence those interactions. “We still need these animal models to push our understanding of the kidney or any other organ forward,” she says. And that understanding is not only vital for improving human health but animal health, too. 

But it was the experience on Capitol Hill that lit a spark in Dixon. She knew she had to speak more openly about how and why animals are involved in research. “I need to be able to talk about this because if people don’t know what we’re doing and it’s not normalized, then there’s still going to be this huge barrier between the public and the biomedical research community,” as well as continued misinformation, she says. 

Scientists are often caught in a precarious position; they must balance the urgency of finding scientific and medical breakthroughs that could advance health with the public’s discomfort with animal research.

According to a 2018 survey from the Pew Research Center, Americans are split on animal research, with 52% of Americans opposed to it. Within the current political environment, the scientific establishment continues to come under attack, seeming to lose the public relations battle around animal research. Animal activist groups persist in winning favor among politicians and threaten to stymie research efforts, claiming that the practice is cruel, unnecessary, a waste of money and doesn’t lead to meaningful treatments.

Across the scientific community, institutions, universities and scientists recognize that they need to do a better job engaging and educating the public and politicians about the vital role animals play in biomedical research. Yet, scientists are often caught in a precarious position; they must balance the urgency of finding scientific and medical breakthroughs that could advance health with the public’s discomfort with animal research. It’s an emotionally laden topic, one that can land scientists on the radar of activists. And, it can be overwhelming at times. 

A Public Relations Problem

Scientists don’t just have to square their personal feelings for animals with the need to advance science. They must also contend with a general public that has mixed feelings about animal research. 

Part of the problem is that the public doesn’t have a good grasp on how animal research builds the foundation of basic science and helps researchers understand living systems. Those basic science findings have led to virtually every major medical breakthrough—treatments, vaccines, surgical interventions and diagnostic procedures that people depend on. “There’s this tremendously long pipeline that occurs before you get a medication in a bottle, and key portions of that process involve animals,” says Jim Newman, director of strategic communications for Americans for Medical Progress. 

Take the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, for example. While the vaccines were developed and approved in record time, they were built on several decades of research with animals, points out Jeff Henegar, PhD, director of animal care and quality assurance and the Office of Animal Resources at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Those proof-of-concept studies showed that mRNA technology works, which then allowed scientists to apply it to a new context and fast-track the vaccines.

But when it comes to discussing the pros and cons of animal research, scientists aren’t the loudest voice. “We scientists don’t do as good a job as we could promoting what we actually do and how what we’re studying is important to the human condition or to the animal condition,” Henegar says. Instead, activists and animal rights groups have stepped into the informational void and have defined animal research on their own terms. 

“They deliberately craft a message intended to horrify you,” says Cindy Buckmaster, PhD, director of public outreach for the National Animal Interest Alliance and host of the GetReal! podcast. “The full context is deliberately left out so that your imagination can fill in the blanks using their half-truths, overstatements and outright fabrications.”

“We scientists don’t do as good a job as we could promoting what we actually do and how what we’re studying is important to the human condition or to the animal condition.”

Jeff Henegar, PhD

Now, when scientists try to counter the narrative, they face an uphill battle. The scientific community’s reticence to discuss animal research has largely been in response to tactics used by activist groups opposed to animal research. “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the animal activists were directly targeting individuals by harassing people at home, and they even damaged property by setting fires, flooding homes and using graffiti to intimidate and frighten scientists,” says Paula Clifford, executive director of Americans for Medical Progress.

When Clifford attended conferences earlier in her career as a veterinary technician, she was advised to remove her nametag when leaving the conference hall and not talk to protesters to avoid being a potential target. Today, groups continue to protest in front of some scientists’ homes and workplaces and bombard neighbors and colleagues with phone calls and emails. The fear of backlash has led some institutions to discourage scientists from speaking openly about their work. 

Despite their passion for their research, there’s the very real possibility that scientists and veterinary care staff will opt out of the profession. They have to weigh the mental health costs along with their passion for their work. Larry Suva, PhD, professor and head of the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology at Texas A&M University, shares the story of a colleague who became a target of an activist group’s campaign a decade ago: “It has negatively impacted her research productivity because she was nervous and afraid of what might happen if she continued to do this work,” he says. “She’s traumatized. She’s fantastic, smart as heck, and that’s a loss.”

“If we continue to let the opponents define what we do, then [animal research] won’t occur much longer,” Newman says. If harassment from activist groups is allowed to continue, Buckmaster worries it will drive animal studies to other countries where protections aren’t as stringent, potentially jeopardizing the safety and well-being of the animals themselves. 

A Way Forward

Despite the challenging times, the pendulum is starting to swing the other direction. And it needs to. Henegar says without animal research, “We will lose a ton of time to get to that next solution to a medical problem,” the therapeutics that the public demands for themselves, their family and their pets.

If the goal is a kind, humane and ethical biomedical research system that supports stronger science, faster cures and fewer animals, there is a way forward. Buckmaster says it involves all parties—including activists if their goal is truly to protect animals and improve science and human health—coming to the table in good faith to develop a comprehensive strategy. 

It should include deliberate investment in non-animal alternatives, such as tissue-on-a-chip, mathematical models or computer simulations that have valid, predictive value. While researchers agree that these methods can’t completely mimic the complexity of living systems, they can be used to answer questions about biological pathways or as a screening tool. In doing so, it could help reduce the number of animals involved in research. 

In the lab where Dixon is conducting her postdoctoral research, scientists are creating public catalogs of genetic information based on their research. This collaborative, open-science platform could also reduce the use of animals and streamline the research process. “They don’t have to redo the models, redo the sequencing, redo the analysis. It’s all right there, and they can use it,” she says. 

Clifford believes there’s an opportunity for the scientific community to close the information gap with more education and outreach to the general public and politicians about the why, when and how of animal research. But scientists also need more support and training so that they feel comfortable speaking about their work in simple, compelling ways. 

Most importantly, the public deserves transparency. “They absolutely should know how I’m spending their taxpayer dollars on my federally funded research and am I doing anything to animals that’s inappropriate,” Suva says.

The research community has an animal research openness initiative designed to help more institutions contribute to meaningful conversations with the public about their work with animals. There are formal agreements in place in several countries in Europe, such as the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the U.K., and in New Zealand. A group in the U.S. is working on something similar.

Ultimately, it’s a group effort to protect and advance animal research, one that needs to involve scientists, universities, drug companies and public health officials. 

“We really respect the opportunity that we have to do this because we know it’s important work,” Dixon says. 

This article was originally published in the March 2022 issue of The Physiologist Magazine.