Talk:Animal testing

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Good article Animal testing has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
March 22, 2008 Good article nominee Listed
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[edit] Pain section

I've removed this as it doesn't really seem to say anything:

The 1990 Assessment and Control of the Severity of Scientific Procedures on Laboratory Animals, to "aid communication between all those concerned with the use and welfare of laboratory animals", presents a detailed severity index metric for the operational assessing and controlling of pain and distress in laboratory animal procedures based on numerically assigned evaluations of the following considerations: consciousness, anesthesia, preparation, restraint, duration, tissue sensitivity, organ risk, mortality, pain, distress, deprivation, and frequency. Operational control of severity considerations include: management practices, psychosocial influences, disease, objective measurement and record keeping, training, procedure design practices, basic husbandry considerations, and planning for emergency and humane end-points for each procedure.[1]

SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It is a bit jumbled, I don't think it adds much to the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I added that to explain to the reader that "pain" is a complex subject that has numerous aspects and has distinct and seperate componets that are evaluated and weighed in the planning of animal experimentation and during the operational phase. For example the 1990 Assessment and Control of the Severity of Scientific Procedures on Laboratory Animals, was written to "aid communication between all those concerned with the use and welfare of laboratory animals" and it presents a detailed severity index metric for the operational assessing and controlling of pain and distress in laboratory animal procedures based on numerically assigned evaluations of the following considerations:
  1. consciousness,
  2. anesthesia,
  3. preparation,
  4. restraint,
  5. duration,
  6. tissue sensitivity,
  7. organ risk,
  8. mortality,
  9. pain,
  10. distress,
  11. deprivation, and
  12. frequency.

Operational control of severity considerations include:

  1. management practices,
  2. psychosocial influences,
  3. disease,
  4. objective measurement and record keeping,
  5. training,
  6. procedure design practices,
  7. basic husbandry considerations, and
  8. planning for emergency and humane end-points for each procedure.

I suppose the data is densely packed, but nowhere else in the article do we present any actual details about what the "on the ground" criteria are concerning pain management in animal testing. I think it is important not to just wave our hands and talk in complete generalities. The source is there for anyone who wishes to expand on or better understand the listed considerations. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

I combined some refs in the lead and removed some blue to make it look less frantic. I also combined two pargraphs, and put the sentence "the topic is controversial" (which I changed to highly controversial) at the beginning of those paragraphs. Previously it had been at the start of the third paragraph, which suggested that only that paragraph - the anti-paragraph -- contained the controversial points, whereas it's both the pro and the anti positions that are controversial. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Forgot to say that I also removed the thing about Nobel prizes, because it was really just repeating that these were major advances. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Tim, I don't see the point of saying in the lead that we're not including fruit flies, except in a footnote. We say vertebrates, and we link to what it means. And the lead is a summary of what the article is about, not what it's not about. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is about animal testing, it is not about animal testing in vertebrates. Our coverage of animal testing in invertebrates needs to be expanded, if anything, due to the importance of this group of animals in current science. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is about animal testing in vertebrates. When people talk of animals, they don't mean fruit flies. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No, animal experimentation or "animal testing" as we dub it in this article is the use of animals in research. Insects are animals and they are used in research - hence they must be discussed in this article. The use of this inexact term "animal testing" as the title of this article is a constant problem, as noted many times above on this talk page, but since that is what we seem to be stuck with, that is what we have to work with. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Just looking at toxicology testing alone, there are a wealth of sources on the use of invertebrates in animal testing.

  • Lagadic L, Caquet T (1998). "Invertebrates in testing of environmental chemicals: are they alternatives?". Environ. Health Perspect. 106 Suppl 2: 593–611. PMID 9599707. 
  • deFur PL (2004). "Use and role of invertebrate models in endocrine disruptor research and testing". ILAR J 45 (4): 484–93. PMID 15454687. 
  • Williams PL, Anderson GL, Johnstone JL, Nunn AD, Tweedle MF, Wedeking P (2000). "Caenorhabditis elegans as an alternative animal species". J. Toxicol. Environ. Health Part A 61 (8): 641–7. PMID 11132694. 
  • Vogel EW, Graf U, Frei HJ, Nivard MM (1999). "The results of assays in Drosophila as indicators of exposure to carcinogens". IARC Sci. Publ. (146): 427–70. PMID 10353398. 

That is before you examine the importance of invertebrates in pure research, where flies and worms are by far the most important species. Is your argument for excluding invertebrates from this article that you think people don't usually consider flies as animals? Tim Vickers (talk) 01:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

My argument is that the word "animal" does not include insects; that the sources who discuss animal testing don't dicuss insects; that the government bodies who regulate animal testing don't regulate the use of insects. We go with the sources on these issues. This article isn't about pure research; it is specifically about the issues surrounding animal testing, and there are no issues surrounding the use of insects. Perhaps there ought to be, but there just aren't. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Tim, regarding your use of primary sources, you need to distinguish between sources that constitute animal research (the studies, the writing up and analysis of the studies), and sources who write about animal testing. It's the latter that are more useful in this article. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  1. Animal - animals are a group of organisms that includes insects. People learn this at school, so I don't think our readers will be unaware of this.
  2. The secondary sources I provide above (you will notice they are review articles if you read them) show clearly that sources that discuss "animal testing" and "animal experimentation" do discuss invertebrates.
  3. The law is only a small part of this article which is instead discussed at Animal testing regulations.
  4. Most importantly, this article is not about "the issues surrounding animal testing" it is about animal testing. This is the core of the problem we are having here - you wish to write about the controversy, not the subject. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you show me a source that discusses animal testing and fruit flies -- not particular studies, or particular uses, but a meta-discussion on the role of the fruit fly in animal testing. Just one will do. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You might also find these links interesting:

Couple these with almost one million Google Scholar hits for Drosophila and you have a very notable organism. As I said before, this article isn't about the controversy, it is about the subject. Flies and worms are vital to modern animal experimentation, we can't miss them out, and we probably need to talk about them more. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. You're right, and I take it back. I would have liked to read the one that looked at the moral implications (the interscience.wiley.com one), but it said I don't have cookies enabled, though I do. I'll try and fiddle with my browser later on to make it work. But otherwise, please do ahead and mention them in the lead if you want to. :-) SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 02:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Great, thank you. I have a friend who works on Drosophila, she got very upset and angry when I once "dissed" her organism. Once you've listened to the impassioned defense of "why flies tell us everything we need to know" for half an hour it tends to stick in the memory! :) Tim Vickers (talk) 02:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You simply need to google the title, SV, though unless you have a subscription you will only be able to read the abstract. See also [1] [2] If you want I can try and get you a reprint of the wiley paper. Rockpocket 03:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll see what I can do to get it myself first, then maybe I'll ask you.
BTW, I'm hoping to add some material to the pain section later today or tomorrow, as I found quite a good discussion of some of the issues. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quote

Tim, can you provide a source for "impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects ..." The page you linked to doesn't show it. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The specific quote is "At present, it is impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects for some aspects of research." [3] Rockpocket 22:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Can I ask why the quote was changed? No knowledgeable organization would say it is "impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects." SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
And this is a quote from the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, not the United States National Academy of Sciences? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The ILAR "functions as a component of the National Academies to provide independent, objective advice to the federal government, the international biomedical research community, and the public." Basically it is the arm of the National Academy that deals with animal testing. Rockpocket 22:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. We should attribute the quote directly to them, in that case. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
We don't have an article for them, and one should probably redirect to the academies page. The quote comes from a report from the National Academies. As with most of their reports, are prepared by one of their offices (in this case, the ILAR) [4] Rockpocket 23:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
If we say "A National Academies of Sciences report" then we can link to the NAS article. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"Some people also claim that it is unnecessary for animals to be used as research subjects and that computer or other nonanimal models could be used instead. In some cases this is true, and scientists strive to use computer models and other nonanimal methods whenever possible; however, many of the interactions that occur between molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and the environment are too complex for even the most sophisticated of computers to model. At present, it is impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects for some aspects of research." - edit conflict, its page 1 and 2. The longer quote might be better, what do people think? Tim Vickers (talk) 22:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you say why you changed it? -- because you changed its meaning too.
Also, who does this quote actually orginate with? See above. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Tim, please provide a link showing where you got this -- a direct link to the page it is on. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Googling "At present, it is impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects for some aspects of research." yeilded http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10733&page=1 Half is at the bottom and the other part is I assume on page 2 which Tim provided as his source above. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
NAS is one of the most authoritative sources you could possibly find on the subject, so I replaced a less-notable and important group with an opinion from one of the premier scientific organisations in he world. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Just throwing this out there. If this is problematic, we could always use the Royal Society (they take a slightly different tone):
  • "We have all benefited immensely from scientific research involving animals. From antibiotics and insulin to blood transfusions and treatments for cancer or HIV, virtually every medical achievement in the past century has depended directly or indirectly on research on animals. The same is true for veterinary medicine. Modern biology, with all its contributions to the well-being of society, is heavily dependent on research on animals." [5]
  • "Humans have benefited immensely from scientific research involving animals, with virtually every medical achievement in the past century reliant on the use of animals in some way. Developments in the treatment of diabetes, leukaemia and heart surgery transplants, amongst others, have been made possible through the use of animals in scientific research. The majority of the scientific community consider that the benefits that have been provided by the use of animals in research justify this use." [6]
Rockpocket 23:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'd hate to choose between the two! Both are extremely authoritative, but since most of are readership are probably Americans, I'd be tempted to cater for parochialism. Especially since most people who have heard of the Royal Society will have probably have heard of the US-NAS, but possibly not the other way around? Tim Vickers (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Its just the the ILAR doesn't mean much to the average reader, unless you are aware it is an office of the NA. The alternative, I guess, is linking it and redirecting the ILAR page to the NAS. Which seems a bit weaselly. If we are going to do that we may as well just call it a NAS report. Rockpocket 23:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
It's from a book published by the ILAR, I thought. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
"Science, Medicine, and Animals and the Teacher's Guide were written by the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research and published by the National Research Council of the National Academies." since the ILAR is "The Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) is a program unit in The Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS) of the National Academies." (see NAS organisational chart. So it was written by an organisation that is part of the US-NAS and published by the Academy. I can't see what is wrong with describing the report as "A National Academies of Sciences report" Tim Vickers (talk) 23:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
You know what is wrong with it. First, it's not accurate. It was written by the ILAR, period. That they are part of this, or part of that, is irrelevant. Secondly, you want to name the umbrella organization because it will sound less POV. If it suited your POV, you'd be strongly arguing in favor of naming the original source. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Since almost all of our readers won't know that the ILAR are part of the National Academies, I took Rockpocket's excellent suggestion and substituted the Royal Society report instead. It is just as authoritiative, and hopefully there won't be any confusion about authorship. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question about the quote; please answer

Tim, can you please answer the question about why you changed the quote? This is the kind of thing that poisons these pages and turns them needlessly into battlefields, so I would really like to pin it down. Do you honestly see no significant distinction between: "it is impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects," and "At present, it is impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects for some aspects of research"? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The two have the same meaning, since it is written in the present tense. It would change the meaning to say ""it has been impossible" or "It will be impossible" but saying "it is impossible" and "At present, it is impossible" means precisely the same thing. For the extension of the quote I thought that if it is "impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animals" whether this use is wide or narrow doesn't change the statement that it is impossible to do this without using animals. That interpretation is a bit less clear though, so you might be right that shortening that end of the quote was unwise. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
"At present, it is impossible" does not mean the same as "it is impossible." It is impossible for 2 plus 2 to equal 4, and not only at present. Also, their claim that it is impossible for some aspects of research is clearly relevant, because even they concede that it is not currently impossible for all aspects of research.
Can you please in future stick very closely to what the sources say? There's no need to quote all the time, but they must be represented accurately, so that they would look at what you wrote, and would agree that they had said that thing.
All that's happening at the moment is that, because I know sources are not being represented well, I don't trust your edits, so I feel I have to check everything. This leads to endless back and forth between us, poisons this page, and makes us distrust each other. It would be great if I could know I didn't have to check your edits when I see your name crop up. Even if I disagree with something, I'm still able to recognize it as a quality edit (and welcome it), and similarly I can recognize a bad edit even if I agree with it (and don't welcome it). These disagreements I have with you have nothing to do with POV. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quote changed again

The previous quote was good, because it's the first time we've actually had anything explanatory in the lead. It cited the source as saying: "'[a]t present, it is impossible to advance biomedical science without the use of animal subjects for some aspects of research,' because interactions between molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and the environment are too complex for even very sophisticated computers to model."

The current quote goes back to say nothing, and seems to have been changed only to make the source sound more respectable, rather than with the aim of giving the reader information. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. Your summary of the US-NAS report was quite informative. We can have both, without gaining any length, which fits quite well. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
ILAR speaks for the National Academies in matters of laboratory animal research. They are composed of National Academy members (the council is, and there are additionally administrators who are not NAS members), and their mission is to prepare "authoritative reports" on subjects of importance to the animal care and use community for the National Academy of Science (among other things). Further, they also write the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" which has additional importance in that it defines the guidelines for IACUC function by law. The National Academies of Science do not speak about laboratory animal research EXCEPT through ILAR - that is its function. You can see that its mission statement says "ILAR functions as a component of the National Academies". It is fair to say that if ILAR publishes a report, then it is just as equally a National Academies report. There is no separablility between the two - ILAR is just the portion of the National Academies that works on issues related to animal testing. --Animalresearcher (talk) 11:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animal welfare groups

Thinking about the notability of the groups we quote in the lead, I think WP:UNDUE should really apply here. Why are the opinions of the larger Animal welfare groups not cited. The US Humane society and the RSPCA are obvious examples. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

How would their views be any different? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 02:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Americans For Medical Advancement doesn't seem a very notable group. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking at what the mainstream animal welfare groups say, their statements appear more balanced and less extreme than those of PETA and Americans For Medical Advancement. Describing the mainstream scientific view, while only describing the extremist animal welfare group position - and omitting the mainstream animal welfare groups statements - seems to be giving undue weight to a minority opinion. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  • "As do most scientists, The HSUS advocates an end to the use of animals in research and testing that is harmful to the animals. Accordingly, we strive to decrease and eventually eliminate harm to animals used for these purposes." HSUS Statement on Animals in Biomedical Research, Testing, and Education
  • "The RSPCA adopts a constructive and practical approach, judging every issue individually, critically questioning the necessity and justification for animal use and striving to reduce the conflict between animals and science wherever possible." RSPCA Research animals home - Research animals
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Tim. All opponents of animal research will argue at least one of the following: that it's unnecessary, cruel, poor scientific practice, never reliably predictive of human metabolic and physiological specificities, poorly regulated, that the costs outweigh the alleged benefits, or that animals have an intrinsic right not to be used for experimentation.
Some argue all of these points; others focus on particular issues. That's why it was written this way. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 02:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I tried adding the RSPCA quote to show the range of opinion on this topic amongst the mainstream animal welfare groups. It seemed the less woolly of the two, and as this is certainly one of the most important of such groups, its nuanced position is very important. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it opposes animal testing, so please don't add it among the opposition opinions, unless you can find a clear statement that it does. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The article, and the lead, should summarise not only opposition to animal testing, but the positions of each notable group of people involved in the issue. The opinions of the more extreme abolitionist groups such as PETA should certainly be discussed in the article, but they should not be given undue weight. Both the RSPCA and the US-HS have clear positions on the issue, and these are very large and important groups of people. To cite Americans For Medical Advancement, which appears to be a one-man organisation, and ignore the largest animal welfare groups in the world, is inconsistent with our policies. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, how good to see you again. You always seem to turn up to help when we are having difficulties. What are your thoughts on this matter? Tim Vickers (talk) 03:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Tim, I hope you are being sincere. It seems to me that given the space constraints in the lead, we need to focus on just the two sides: pros and cons. The other, less clearly positioned groups can be detailed in the article body if needed. Hence the Welfare groups are not appropriate, as they don't add critical information. Crum375 (talk) 03:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
That's an interesting perspective, Crum375, but what do you think about my concern that giving prominence to the smaller and more extreme groups doesn't fit our policy on undue weight? That the largest animal welfare groups do not oppose animal testing on principle seems a very important piece of information. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
It is only the most notable welfare group in the UK; not even clearly the largest. It's not clear that they don't oppose animal testing, Tim. And it's not clear that they do. They don't really have a position because they don't have much to do with the subject, unlike the specialist groups. So it's odd that you would want to place them in the lead. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
(ec) The issue is controversy, and to describe it in a summary fashion it is best to mention the opposing sides and their views. That there may be huge amounts of people with intermediate views does not shed light on the controversy. Crum375 (talk) 03:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that is right, Crum375, the subject of the Animal testing article is not "controversy", that would be the subject of the Animal testing controversy article. Here, we need to summarise for the reader the positions of the notable groups that have taken a position on the issue. Saying some support, some oppose in some cases, and some oppose in all cases, gives a good idea of the actual thoughts of the organisations involved, rather than presenting this incorrectly as a black-and-white issue. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The RSPCA isn't a notable group involved in animal testing. They have almost nothing to do with it, and it's not even clear what their position is. The controversy paragraph needs to summarize the controversy, obviously, which is arguments in favor, arguments against, in brief. By all means remove American thingies -- nothing hangs on their inclusion. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed them, the very definition of fringe! Since both organisations have position papers and large areas of their website devoted to the issue, they obviously have a view on the matter. What would you summarise this as, SV, reading the material I linked to above? We should be able to summarise this in a sentence or two. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The views in the final sentence of the lead need to be attributed. How about:

Animal testing is a controversial issue. Scientific societies such as The Royal Society support animal testing, arguing that is has been valuable in the past and remains necessary for some areas of current research. Some animal welfare groups, such as the RSPCA and the US humane society, aim for the eventual removal of animal testing and try to ensure that research is as humane as possible. Other groups, such as PETA, call for an immediate end to such research, arguing variously that it is cruel, poor scientific practice, never reliably predictive of human metabolic and physiological specificities, poorly regulated, that the costs outweigh the alleged benefits, or that animals have an intrinsic right not to be used for experimentation."

Comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 16:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

No objections to substituting this into the lead? Tim Vickers (talk) 00:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I would prefer BUAV, because they specialize in testing, where PETA is a general animal rights group. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, done. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
That appears to be very neutral and includes all viewpoints equally. Cla68 (talk) 00:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
It also attributes all the viewpoints, which I think is also important. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
As previously discussed, I don't see the difference between animal welfare groups and animal researchers — they both presumably believe the testing is justified and has to be done humanely. I think to clarify the controversy we need to describe both sides of the debate: pro and con. I don't see what the welfare groups add. Crum375 (talk) 00:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
This change shows the reader what various notable groups think about animal testing and attributes these opinions to each organisation. As I noted above, this isn't a black/white for/against issue. Edit - I added this section after reading SV's comment. If you object to it strongly Crumb375 we could remove it again and discuss this some more. What do you think? Tim Vickers (talk) 00:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
My assumption is that there are many other groups, from all parts of society, with diverse opinions on this issue. But to clarify the controversy, all we need are the two clearly delineated sides. Crum375 (talk) 01:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
We can't list every possible position, and it seems particularly odd to want to include the RSPCA when they have never advanced a clear position, or had much to do with animal testing. Every organization claims to want to see the number of animals reduced, supporters and opponents, so to say that is to say nothing. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
You're probably right that the US Humane Society is a better example, considering their deep involvement in this issue. How about Tim Vickers (talk) 01:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Animal testing is a controversial issue. Scientific societies such as The Royal Society support animal testing, arguing that is has been vital in almost every medical achivement in the 20th century and that it remains necessary for some areas of research. Some animal welfare groups, such as the US humane society, aim for the eventual removal of animal testing and work with scientists and governments to try to ensure that research is as humane as possible. Other groups, such as the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, call for an immediate end to such research, arguing variously that it is cruel, poor scientific practice, never reliably predictive of human metabolic and physiological specificities, poorly regulated, that the costs outweigh the alleged benefits, or that animals have an intrinsic right not to be used for experimentation."

No, Tim. Please leave it as supporters and opponents. What you are trying to set up here is that the pro-view is scientific, the anti-view extreme, and reasonable welfare groups are in the middle. But the divide just doesn't work that way. Please leave it as supporters and opponents, and develop more detail in a new section if you want to. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What I am concerned about is that since the largest animal welfare group in the world has a clear position on animal testing, this should be at least mentioned in the lead. The focus on the views of the smaller and more extreme groups is indeed an issue I am concerned about. If you don't wish to add the mainstream animal welfare groups' positions to the lead, how do you suggest we can make the lead adhere to WP:UNDUE in this regard? Tim Vickers (talk) 01:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea that the position of the HSUS differs significantly from that of the BUAV, say? To the very best of my knowledge, they are both equally opposed. I may have misunderstood, of course, but I see nothing supportive of it (even slightly) in the HSUS literature. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

"As do most scientists, The HSUS advocates an end to the use of animals in research and testing that is harmful to the animals. Accordingly, we strive to decrease and eventually eliminate harm to animals used for these purposes." HSUS Statement on Animals in Biomedical Research, Testing, and Education

Versus

"It is simply morally indefensible that in the 21st century some of the most advanced laboratories in the world are still pouring tens of millions of public money into the type of research that belongs in the dark ages. For example, there was a 107 per cent increase in cosmetic research on animals. We now as a society must insist that our politicians listen to the overwhelming voice of European citizens and act now to end the suffering." 2007 BUAV Statement

You don't see a difference there? As the draft currently states - "Some animal welfare groups, such as the US humane society, aim for the eventual removal of animal testing and work with scientists and governments to try to ensure that research is as humane as possible. Other groups, such as the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, call for an immediate end to such research" Tim Vickers (talk) 18:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
That there is a big difference seems to be your own OR, Tim. HSUS make clear, for example, that in their view experiments on primates should stop immediately. BUAV has elsewhere made clear that, in certain very limited circumstances, some types of studies could be justified. Opposition positions are often more nuanced than you might think. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the difference is that Tim is mistaken that HSUS is an animal welfare group. They are not. They are an animal rights group, equivalent in mission to BUAV and perhaps even more anti-testing than PETA. They just market themselves differently. If you look at their action campaigns and how they spend their money it is clear. I think it is worth mentioning that the British Parliament and US Congress have each written official summary statements on testing and support its use, and that this contribution (which I added and Slimvirgin opposed and deleted) would help with WP:UNDUE. Whereas there is too much material in this to add it to the lead en todo, sections of it could be added to clearly indicate this is the view of the representatives of the majority, which would address WP:UNDUE. That section read like this...--Animalresearcher (talk) 10:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Official statements from representative bodies

The US Congress, in 1985, held a series of hearings on animal research. In it, they heard testimony from veterinarians, doctors, scientists, and animal rights activists including Alex Pacheco. They wrote a summary of their findings on animal research into the law commonly called the Animal Welfare Act. They wrote

(1) the use of animals is instrumental in certain research and education for advancing knowledge of cures and treatment for diseases and injuries which afflict both humans and animals;
(2) methods of testing that do not use animals are being and continue to be developed which are faster, less expensive, and more accurate than traditional animal experiments for some purposes and further opportunities exist for the development of these methods of testing;
(3) measures which eliminate or minimize the unnecessary duplication of experiments on animals can result in more productive use of Federal funds; and
(4) measures which help meet the public concern for laboratory animal care and treatment are important in assuring that research will continue to progress.

The principles outlined in these findings guide the law in the USA, as well as guiding the oversight of animal welfare in laboratory research.[2]

One moral basis for animal testing was summarized by a British House of Lords report in 2002: "the whole institution of morality, society and law is founded on the belief that human beings are unique amongst animals. Humans are therefore morally entitled to use animals, whether in the laboratory, the farmyard or the house, for their own purposes."[3] Some researchers also believe animals may suffer less during throughout the testing process than human beings would because they have a reduced capacity to remember and anticipate pain.[4] The House of Lords report further made the following statement about research experiments using animals "There is at present a continued need for animal experiments both in applied research, and in research aimed purely at extending knowledge."[5]

[edit] Intro

The "controversy" section only constitutes about 25% of the article, but references to the controversy currently occupy 50% of the intro. Also, the intro doesn't really summarize the "Reasearch classification" section even though it is a major portion of the article. Cla68 (talk) 02:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right, the lead does a poor job of summarising the article as a whole. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I would say that an article of this length could probably support a four paragraph intro. The first paragraph could include the standard lead-in and the definition of animal testing, the second history and animals used, the third research classification, and the fourth controversy. Cla68 (talk) 02:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Animals used could also go in the first paragraph, I think, leaving the second paragraph completely to history. Cla68 (talk) 02:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
And what brings you to this article, Cla68? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 02:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Have you forgotten the 3RR accusation that drew everyone's attention to this article?[7] I've been watching since then, and have been hoping for over a month that the massive External link farm would be pruned per WP:EL, WP:NOT soon; it's one of the worst I've seen. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
It just has been pruned. I aim to start looking at the remainder to make sure they're relevant and still working. But again, Sandy, what brings you here? Why the sudden interest? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
As I just said (above), I've been following this article since it was brought to my attention on December 17 via a surprising 3RR warning to Tim (whose talk page I have had watched for a very long time). Since I just saw a partial prune (finally) of a massive external link farm,[8] it seemed a good time to ask that the job be finished. I found several Dmoz categories that could be used in place of the external link farm, but I'm not sure which is best to use, as there are several; you might want to do a DMOZ search, and use the DMOZ cat in place of all the external links, which is a technique used on many medical articles to avoid the WP:NOT a support group issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
For example, see the External links at Asperger syndrome. The article is comprehensive, and since DMOZ contains all the support group links that were always being added, we were able to prune them all by linking to DMOZ instead. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I did ask on AN/I a while ago that more people put this article on their watchlists, since this is an area where a diverse set of opinions is very valuable in correcting each editors' inherent POV. I'm pleased to see so many people are interested. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
But what has happened instead is that two people who oppose me over other issues have turned up, one of whom regularly wikistalks me, neither of whom has edited this article before, and neither of whom has any specialist knowledge. I don't really see that as helpful, Tim. In fact, it looks like an attempt simply to get some numbers on your side, which was the kind of attitude I was hoping we could move away from. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Your question has been answered, please stop the conspiracy theories. No one owns this article, and many people have watched this article since the 3RR accusation. I edit across a *very* broad range of medical articles (this is a medical article); I don't know a thing about Tuberculosis, but that didn't stop me from working with Tim to keep it featured, because I do know how to edit medical articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Don't start up here, Sandy. This is not a medical article. This is about animal research, and requires very specific knowledge. It certainly isn't helped by enemies arriving with insults about conspiracy theories. Or do you feel that this exchange is helping the article?
Tim, I think we need mediation if this is the kind of atmosphere you want to edit in. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
That seems a bit of an overreaction to my suggestion that DMOZ can be used to help prune the external link farm. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC) Also, would you consider please rephrasing your use of the word "enemies" above? I don't consider myself an enemy of anyone; are you saying you consider me an enemy? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
It's a reaction to you turning up here, an article you've never edited before, after our situation over Zeraeph. It's a reaction to you turning up with Cla68, who has been regularly wikistalking me for what must be about a year, and who has never edited here before either. Yet here you both are within seven minutes of each another. Please forgive me my conspiracy theory. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
For goodness sakes. I've had to cover my eyes for six weeks, every time I've looked at the worst external link farm I've ever seen, you just started to prune it, so I offered a suggestion. I'll be happy to be quiet now if my presence bothers you so, but please strike the "enemy" comment, unless you consider me an enemy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way, more input from the community is always helpful in solving problems. For example, Crum375 has just appeared, who is always a useful editor to have around. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
More input from people who know about the subject is helpful. How does it help us to have input from people who don't? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Please stick to content and avoid personalizing issues; my suggestions to use DMOZ to help trim the external link farm is above. It's been troubling me for six weeks, since I first saw this article on Dec. 17. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
What's DMOZ? Tim Vickers (talk) 03:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
An internet directory (the internet directory). Look at the external links in Asperger syndrome, autism, Tuberculosis, Tourette syndrome probably any medical article I've worked on. It solves a whole lot of WP:NOT WP:EL external link farm issues. Often, there is more than one DMOZ cat that can be used. I was going to do that back in December, but there are several potential cats, so it's best someone else figure out which to use. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Would it be possible to add several categories? Crum375, what do you think of this idea? It could help make that section more manageable. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you can add as many DMOZ categories as you need. For example, on many medical articles, I add the main DMOZ category, as well as the Support group category. That helps get around the WP:NOT a support group problem that always occurs on medical articles, where everyone wants to add their group. Look at Tourette syndrome; I think I have both there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, I don't think I've ever edited the same content article that you were editing before, so I don't understand your accusation either. I think the use of such a label is unfortunate and counterproductive. If you think I'm "wikistalking" you (whatever that really means), I invite you to bring it up on the appropriate forum and we can exhaustively discuss each other's behavior and ethics. My attention was also drawn to this article because of the 3RR warning you gave Tim on his talk page and I've been watching it for some time. In the past I've also gotten involved in other controversial subjects, including Global Warming, Sea of Japan, and Gary Weiss. Anyway, back to my original thought...the intro as written doesn't presently match the article that follows below it. Cla68 (talk) 04:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't you mean Sea of Korea? Tim Vickers (talk) 03:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I was always careful to call it the East Sea when I lived in Korea! Cla68 (talk) 03:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Back to the subject. I was going to suggest a second paragraph for the intro that summarized the "History" section of the article, but I found that that that section doesn't really cover the history of animal testing. Instead, it appears to present a history of criticism of animal testing. I believe that criticism of animal testing should go in the "Criticism" or "Controversy" section. Can we please rewrite that section so that it actually gives a history of the use of animals in experiments? Cla68 (talk) 01:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I suggest the following paragraph for the intro to summarize the "classification" section of the article:

Animal testing classifications include pure and applied research, Xenotransplantation, and toxicology, cosmetics, and drug testing. Animals are also used for education, breeding, and defense research.

Cla68 (talk) 01:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

That seems a very good suggestion, thank you, I've been bold and added this to the lead. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I notice that this paragraph has been reverted by Crum which wasn't probably the best course of action since no one had actually objected to it here. I'll readd it and ask that Crum, who is always useful to have around, respond here to discuss it before removing it. Cla68 (talk) 00:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I think SlimVirgin objected to it below, saying: Also, to put a paragraph in the lead about pure v applied research when we were debating the point of those sections is odd. However, I don't know what sections she was referring to. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DMOZ proposal

How about replacing all the external links with:

Comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 03:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I personally like to have a few well chosen external links (if needed at all) vs. big link farms of any kind. Crum375 (talk) 03:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The problem with using DMOZ that I've seen on other articles is that these lists can be highly POV, and we don't control the content. They're usually not used for that reason on contentious pages. The EL guideline used to say that, but perhaps it's been changed. In any event, it's not a good idea for a subject like this. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Primary sources

Can I ask again that we stop using primary sources so much? What's happening is that people are saying "primates are used to study visual disorder," and are linking to one paper in which they were so used. But if we were to link to every paper about studies that had used a non-human primate, we would need to open our own wiki. Therefore, it's better to use secondary sources who give an overview, discussing how they're used, how many, mostly in what areas etc. Otherwise, we're effectively engaged in OR, randomly picking research papers to satisfy the sourcing requirements, without really looking to see if what they say is directly relevant. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 02:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

On that note, the pure research section may require resourcing, since there are a number of primary references used there. I'm a little busy at the the moment, but I'd be happy to tackle that over the next week or so. Rockpocket 03:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I think both those sections (pure and applied) need to be rewritten, but there's no rush, obviously. I'm not sure I'm in a position to do it properly, so I hesitate to try. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I could write pages on those subjects, but the area is so incredibly diverse, its near impossible to do anything other than explain what the type of research is and then give a few example in the space we have here. It would be a bit like describing physics or chemistry in paragraph. Rockpocket 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Are there specific differences in the kinds of animals used, or the way they're used? If there aren't, I wonder if it's even worth highlighting the distinction. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Not really. I mean one could generalize — non-rodent mammals are perhaps more likely to be used in applied research than pure research, for example. I'm just not sure of a better way to give a flavor of what animal testing actually is, from a practical perspective, than select one or two disciplines with examples. If some one can come up with any ideas, then I'm very willing to do what I can to help. Rockpocket 06:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
That section is still stuffed with non-review references. I made a start replacing some of them a while ago, but there are a lot left to deal with. The Royal Society and National Academies reports might be particularly good sources for this section, although a bit focused on the historical aspects. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty confident I can replace most of the primary sources with appropriate review articles. I'll try and complete it by the weekend. The, I guess, we can see where the text can be improved. Rockpocket 18:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Why the call to limit the use of primary sources? Wikipedia's policy doesn't limit the amount of primary sources that can be used, only that they be used with care. Cla68 (talk) 00:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
That's correct. And "used with care" also means limit, and preferably use them alongside a secondary source. In controversial articles, it's even more important to rely as much as possible on secondary sources, since they provide perspective and interpretation. Crum375 (talk) 00:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
When I originally referenced these, I provided primary sources as a specific example of the studies about which I was writing. This isn't particularly helpful for readers wishing to learn about the use of animal models in evolution, for example, in general. I think secondary sources such as academic reviews are better for this sort of article, unless we are talking about a specific experiment. Rockpocket 00:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely correct. Individual papers and reports of experiments are too sensitive to our choice of those experiments out of a wide field of alternatives. Relata refero (talk) 10:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Where a primary source would be particularly apt is stating such things as "the regulations say" or "the protocol requires", here linking to the document itself can be preferable to linking to somebody else's interpretation of the document. However, this does need to be done with care, and I agree with Rockpocket that peer-reviewed academic reviews are certainly the best source for describing the science involved. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Mediation

A Request for Mediation on this article has been opened here. Cla68 (talk) 04:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Basic problem

As I see it, the problem with this article is that, if someone who knew nothing about animal testing were to read it, they wouldn't know much more once they'd finished, because most of it is waffle. What can we do about that? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 05:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

We need to focus on the subject, not the controversy. Easy to say, hard to do. Tim Vickers (talk) 05:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The two can't and should not be separated. I was reading a very good book last night about this, written by a specialist (pro-testing), who writes about researchers' attempts to "scientize" the subject, as though living beings were not involved. He writes about how they carefully choose certain language, all the issues we have seen on this page. I would have added some of it tonight, but as usual I was too busy arguing petty non-issues with you. I don't know where you find the time or energy to engage like this, Tim, I really don't. We are supposed to be writing articles. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 05:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I think we need to focus on what secondary sources say about Animal Testing. This is not an Animal Testing How-to — it's what reliable secondary sources have published about the topic. Crum375 (talk) 05:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Those two points of view are the core of the problem. I see this article as primarily about "animal testing" - history, methods, aims, and results - with the controversy as one sub-section no more important then any other. In contrast, It seems to me that for you the controversy is the subject, and everything else is seen in the light of that issue. I would recommend this question as the core subject for an RfC. Tim Vickers (talk) 05:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflit with Tim as always) Crum, that's exactly right, but for some reason it's impossible to get this across. We don't fill the article on the Arab-Israeli situation with press releases from both sides. We fill it with newspaper articles, books, and scholarly papers about the conflict, written by people on all sides who offer an overview. That doesn't mean that primary sources can't sometimes be used too, but we shouldn't have whole sections, or key issues, relying on them. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 05:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Tim, once again you miss the point. You don't produce secondary sources about animal testing either, never mind about the controversy. You rely on your own interpretation of primary sources, but you are not an expert on animal testing. We want to hear expert views about the primary sources, not yours, with respect. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 05:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
As a general point, Wikipedia articles are not there to give you everything under the sun having to do with the given topic, but what the secondary sources have published about it, from the top level view. Crum375 (talk) 05:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Here is an analogy. Imagine we were writing an article about knitting. Tim is giving us the equivalent of:
Blue pullovers are knitted in the UK.<ref>"Knitting pattern for a blue pullover" by Mrs. Smith of the UK.</ref> Pink cardigans are also knitted there.<ref>"Knitting pattern for a pink cardigan" by Mrs. Jones of the UK.</ref>
That's OR, uninformative, and not what's wanted. Wikipedia articles should be like this:
Professor Needle of Knotingham University's Department of Popular Pastimes reports that ten thousand blue pullovers were knitted in the UK last year, overtaking the previously more popular pink cardigan.<ref>''Knitting in the British Isles from 2001 to 2008'' by Professor Needle.</ref>
Tim, do you see the difference? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 05:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Indeed I do, which is why I try to use peer-reviewed academic reviews as sources. Such as diff 1, diff 2 diff 3, diff 4. Hopefully much more of the article will be sourced to such highly reliable sources in the future. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Can I just check that we have indeed come to agreement here on your concern about sources? As this was one of the main issues you raised in your request for mediation, I want to make sure it has been resolved to your satisfaction. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The pain section needs help

The pain section needs help. I suggest:

Pain is a complex subject that has numerous aspects and has distinct and seperate componets that are evaluated and weighed in the planning of animal experimentation and during the operational phase. For example the 1990 Assessment and Control of the Severity of Scientific Procedures on Laboratory Animals, was written to "aid communication between all those concerned with the use and welfare of laboratory animals" and it presents a detailed severity index metric for the operational assessing and controlling of pain and distress in laboratory animal procedures based on numerically assigned evaluations of the following considerations:
  1. consciousness,
  2. anesthesia,
  3. preparation,
  4. restraint,
  5. duration,
  6. tissue sensitivity,
  7. organ risk,
  8. mortality,
  9. pain,
  10. distress,
  11. deprivation, and
  12. frequency.

Operational control of severity considerations include:

  1. management practices,
  2. psychosocial influences,
  3. disease,
  4. objective measurement and record keeping,
  5. training,
  6. procedure design practices,
  7. basic husbandry considerations, and
  8. planning for emergency and humane end-points for each procedure.[6]

I suppose the data is densely packed, but nowhere else in the article do we present any actual details about what the "on the ground" criteria are concerning pain management in animal testing. I think it is important not to just wave our hands and talk in complete generalities. The source is there for anyone who wishes to expand on or better understand the listed considerations. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm in the process of expanding that section, as I said above. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, and I was pleased to read that. I'm hoping for some specifics, and the above was the best I was able to come up with. You appear to be indicating you intend to come up with something better. What exactly is done to limit pain? is the question I want answered. I hope you find further material we can use. By the way, the above source is part of a very large assemblage of sources gathered specifically to teach about this and related subjects. http://oslovet.veths.no/fag.aspx?fag=60 seems authoritative and NPOV with regard to both ethics and science. But you probably already know of other equally good sources. I'm eager to see what you come up with, but if there is too much delay, I'll just put in the above until someone comes up with something better. WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Not much is done to limit pain, and the source explains why. He is a pro-testing source, so it's interesting to read. He doesn't defend the practice, but also doesn't attack it with invective, so you feel as though you're being educated rather than fed propaganda. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
"Not much is done to limit pain" is the exact opposite what what reliable published sources say. Perhaps you mean to say that "Not enough is done to limit pain". Using flies instead of people to advance scientific knowledge is doing something to limit pain. Do you not understand that the information you removed above explains in detail how pain is in fact limited and the specific considerations used in making sure that pain is the minimum necessary to achieve the specific goals of the experiment being evaluated and/or operated? Or did you delete it because you disagree that it is accurate. You said you deleted it because "it does not say anything". I thought you just did not understand it. Are you saying it does not say anything you want to hear? I'm confused. Do you have evidence this is not a reliable source? Or is the evidence that it says something you disagree with? Help me out here. What's going on? WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed it because it doesn't say anything. Words without meaning. Nothing anyone could or would ever read. Tell me in your own words what this sentence means: "It presents a detailed severity index metric for the operational assessing and controlling of pain and distress in laboratory animal procedures based on numerically assigned evaluations of organ risk." No handwaving please. Imagine you were writing it for the simple English Wikipedia, and that your life depended on your readers understanding the sentence. What would the translation be?
It's interesting that you're criticizing what I'm about to write before I've even written it. That's a new one even for this page. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are interested in mainstream press sources, this might be useful. Rockpocket 20:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very helpful. I was about to add a section on euthanasis, but I only had one good source. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
""It presents a detailed severity index metric for the operational assessing and controlling of pain and distress in laboratory animal procedures based on numerically assigned evaluations of organ risk." - is equal to - "It presents a detailed and practical way for assessing and controlling pain. This is based on seeing which organ is involved, and then referring to a scale that grades how painful manipulations of this organ usually are." Tim Vickers (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Tim, but I asked WAS, because I wanted to know whether he understood what he proposed to add to the article. But you see how stupefying that kind of writing is. And even though your translation appears on the surface to be much clearer, what does it actually say? What is the detailed and practical way of assessing and controlling pain? How can painful manipulations of an organ translate to a scale? These handwaving summaries miss the point that none of these issues are understood by anyone, not by researchers, not by medical doctors, and not by philosophers. Whenever we add anything like this, we have to show the reader that we're familiar with the background, and not just cut and paste material that we don't understand ourselves. Otherwise the reader will be just as puzzled at the end of the sentence as she was at the start of it.
Here is another example of dense writing: "Scientists studying mechanisms of evolution use a number of animal species, including mosquitos, sticklebacks, and lampreys, because of their niche physiology, morphology, ecology, or phylogeny."
Again, for the simple English Wikipedia, what does it mean? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe I wrote that. It means scientists choose specific species to study evolution, with examples, because they have unusual body functions, body shapes, interactions with their environment or positions on the evolutionary tree of life. If you wish to replace the technical name for those things with a more simplified explanation, instead of simply linking them as I did, then feel free. Rockpocket 00:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Please don't refuse sources because you don't like the style of English that they use. A reliable source is a reliable source. Selectively refusing sources might give the appearance of POV-pushing, which is something that should be avoided. Cla68 (talk) 23:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Cla, if you have something productive to add to the discussion, please do so. To explain to a veteran editor, who has significantly contributed to many of Wikipedia's existing content policies, what a source is, or how to use it, can be viewed by some as trolling. Crum375 (talk) 23:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The issue here is on using that source for the pain section. WAS and Tim appear to believe that it is reliable and can be used. Slim apparently doesn't like the way it's written, but isn't addressing whether it is a reliable source. That's the discussion here, not whether anyone of us is "trolling". Please keep comments here related to the content of the article and the sources used and how they are used. Cla68 (talk) 23:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The issue here is that we have editors trying to find the proper way to present properly sourced and balanced information about a controversial issue. If you'd like to make suggestions, e.g. help clarify the language, or find betters sources, please do so. Anything else is counter-productive. Crum375 (talk) 00:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that commenting on the inclusion of a source under consideration is counter-productive at all. How else will we reach a decision on whether to include it or not? I'm sure you support open and honest discussion on all aspects of this article's content and I appreciate it. Cla68 (talk) 01:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Now, back to the article discussion...I join WAS and Tim in supporting that source under discussion as a reliable source that can be used for the Pain section in the article. Cla68 (talk) 23:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The issue is not whether it is "reliable" or not. We are trying to stay away from primary sources, or sources that are too obscure for the average readers. No one is saying that that source is unreliable. Crum375 (talk) 00:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I see SlimVirgin you simply reverted all changes in your last edit, including the addition of a review that specifically dealt with the subject - "Assessing animal cognition: ethological and philosophical perspectives." It seems that simple reversions are indeed a bit too common on this article, I will replace the material you removed and hope you will not repeat your reversion. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for readding the material, Tim. I'm sure Slim reverted it by mistake. Anyway, back to the discussion on primary sources...I looked at the relevant policy [9] and it doesn't say that there is a limit to the amount of primary sources that can be used in an article, only that they should be used with care. We're satisfying that requirement by extensive discussion on this talk page. WAS, Tim, and myself have reviewed that source and believe it is appropriate for the section in question in a way described above. I believe all objections have now been addressed? Cla68 (talk) 00:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
PSTS is written to ensure that primary sources are minimised; otherwise, as SV says, we have no way of knowing whether a particular primary source is representative or not, and in fact are conducting our own original research.
On the other hand, if we're talking about the 1990 Assessment, that's a secondary source. Relata refero (talk) 10:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PMIDs and dois as links

I noticed you having problems with that social behaviour article Rockpocket. PubMed IDs formatted as PMID 1234 are automatically made into a link, for articles that aren't in PubMed you can use their digital object identifier (in this case DOI=10.1111/j.1740-0929.2006.00363.x) and put this into [10] to get a permanent link. Hope this helps Tim Vickers (talk) 01:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, Tim. I knew there was some way of using the DOI, I just didn't know exactly how! Rockpocket 01:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There seemed to be some kind of hidden character in the title that messed with the format, once I deleted all the spaces and then replaced them it worked fine. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Usually I use this tool to generate pre-formatted citations, but citation templates don't seem to be the house style in this article. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, thats nice - I have bookmarked it, thanks. Thanks also for fixing that for me. Rockpocket 02:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I might be being a bit dim, but where is the section covering the arguments for and against animal testing other than the lead? I'd also like to point out that the section on "Pain and suffering" is a mess - the pointers to dualism and Descartes are bizarre at the very least, and a large part of it is dedicated to the views of one Larry Carbone for no obvious reason. --Coroebus 14:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, appears to be here, any reason? I was wanting to insert something from PMID 14988196 --Coroebus 14:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Go ahead and be bold, this review also studies the same question. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to strip out a lot of that Carbone stuff, it is far too detailed, focuses entirely on this one guy's opinions, and large parts are quite irrelevant quotes and opinions. --Coroebus 13:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
It does read a bit like a book review at present. I tried to remove the historical discussion, which might help with the excessive detail, but I was reverted. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I attempted to remove the anecdotes and speculation as to why scientists might be failing to use analgesia (presented without any evidence that they do in fact fail to do so) but was reverted by Crum because "Please do not remove reliably sourced material". Apparently some stretch of text having a source is all that is necessary for it to be included in the article. That may explain why so many of our articles read so badly. Clearly what we really need in this article is a series of quotes from various individuals on 'both sides' to bring it down to the level of some many other great wikipedia articles. --Coroebus 16:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
If you can provide a secondary source of equal or better quality to Carbone (who is pro Animal testing), which espouses a different view, it should be considered if it adds new information. The advantage of relying on Carbone is that by being a secondary source on the pro testing camp, yet trying hard to see the con side, he is helping us create a neutral presentation, which is our goal. Crum375 (talk) 23:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not consider Carbone in the pro-testing camp. I have firsthand knowledge of his work as an IACUC vet, and as a university clinical vet. I could get very detailed into my reasons why but will refrain for obvious reasons. The point I am trying to make is that if you showed most researchers the conduct of Larry Carbone on the job, and that of other primate specialist vets, I don't think many researchers would choose Larry. He is very knowledgable and resourceful and smart, but his demeanor seeks more to punish researchers than to help mutually advance animal welfare and scientific goals. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
It may surprise you to know that we are not obliged to include any and everything we can find a source for. I object particularly to the section beginning "Researchers may remain reluctant to dispense pain medication for a number of reasons...", as it is question begging. George Bush may be covering up that the CIA carried out 9/11 because it was part of a global Jewish conspiracy to attack Iraq, but relevant articles do not need speculation of that nature because we have no reason to believe that they did do it! Similarly we can't have a section speculating as to why researchers don't give analgesia if we don't have any evidence that they don't. --Coroebus 15:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The situation is a bit more complex than a yes/no question. Researchers do give analgesics, but as pain is very difficult to diagnose in animals, they may not always give enough. See:
  • Karas AZ (2006). "Barriers to assessment and treatment of pain in laboratory animals". Lab Anim (NY) 35 (7): 38–45. PMID 16807565. 
  • Stasiak KL, Maul D, French E, Hellyer PW, VandeWoude S (2003). "Species-specific assessment of pain in laboratory animals". Contemp Top Lab Anim Sci 42 (4): 13–20. PMID 12906396. 
So this Carbone quote, while entirely speculative, does address a possible problem. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
But that (the difficulty in diagnosing pain in animals) is an entirely different question to Carbone's claim/speculation that they are not used because of expense, red-tape, human resources, side effects, and the bizarre idea that by avoiding giving analgesia they don't feel like people that inflict pain. --Coroebus 17:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, but this is may be a genuine problem, so it would probably be best to incorporate the new references and condense the speculative sections of the text, rather than simply removing it entirely. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
This "problem" is clearly identified in the "Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals" when it makes it clear that professional opinions on species specific indicators of pain are required. In practice, that means that either the researchers must defer to veterinarians with species-specific expertise on issues where pain is possible, or that they themselves must become experts in recognizing the species-specific indicators. The latter is very very difficult to justify to the USDA, so our IACUC, and that of many other institutions, refer all possible pain issues to veterinarians. If you follow my logic, it means that under current regulations, researchers are not doing a whole lot of decision-making on analgesia. The vets call the shots. And this is certainly how Larry Carbone operated. The "Guide" is the defining text for the IACUC function, so this is legally binding in the USA. In practice, it can become a problem of what constitutes adequate signs of pain for the researcher to bring in the vet for a professional opinion. But with good faith efforts on both sides it tends to resolve itself pretty quickly. --Animalresearcher (talk) 19:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes

These are not an improvement. The "ethics and usefulness" section isn't well written and basically consists of a list, whereas we had just managed to get rid of the list-like quality of some sections. We need material that people will read.

Coroebus, the idea that people underestimating pain deliberately doesn't belong in the pain section is obviously strange. We can't have POV-forks sections where everything bad is lumped together.

Also, to put a paragraph in the lead about pure v applied research when we were debating the point of those sections is odd.

Finally, the "allegations of abuse" section header is POV because it is only researchers who would regard this as abuse, as opposed to use. Those opposed to testing see these incidents as inevitable. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion the wholesale reversion of three different editors changes to an article seems to be another example of "overreliance on reverting as an editing tool, rather than collaboration". This is particularly true of sections where your major criticism is not the content, but only the way they are written. Could I suggest that if you think something could be better phrased or formatted, that it would be a better idea to just rewrite it or format it, rather than delete it. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:59, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I've rewritten the first part of the ethics section to remove the "list" format. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The rest of it is still just a list, Tim. I thought we were trying to make this article more readable. How can the "usefulness" section be rewritten when it's unreadable, and what does "usefulness" even mean? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:33, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. Do you not understand the concept of "usefulness" in general, or just in this specific instance? Tim Vickers (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It's poor English, it's not clear what it means in this context, and it's highly POV. E.g. "The most vocal proponents of animal testing have vested interests in maintaining the practice." How is that an example of usefulness? E.g. "Drugs and vaccines produced through animal testing are vital to modern medicine." Yes, but the argument is they could have been produced without animal testing, so it begs the question.
This is just poor writing and editing. We agreed a few weeks ago to get rid of a section like this that was a throwback to several years ago, because it was so poor. So why has it been resurrected? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I have been trying to follow changes to this page. There has been an orderly and discussed evolution among several editors. I wish I knew more about the topic to contribute more. But the last day or two, the entire article was revamped. I agree with Slim that this is too many changes all at once - or over a one day period. When I read the current article, it seems more POV and less clear than when it was being worked on at a more reasonable pace, but it's confusing trying to see who or why the changes were made. Maybe the active editors could agree to work on one section at a time, or at least discuss and agree on changes prior to the entire article changing. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 23:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. This article used to be reasonably stable, with evolutionary changes, whereas now it seems to have more revolutionary changes, in one direction. This is clearly a controversial topic, with one side arguing AT is an atrocity, while the other defends it as a justified and necessary evil. Let's make changes carefully and be sure they all reflect both sides of the debate. Crum375 (talk) 23:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Just a point: if there's a choice between having a list and reducing a subjective 'readability', and replacing a list and reducing encyclopaedic usefulness, I would hope we would go with the list. Relata refero (talk) 11:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] reference links

I checked each of the reference/further reading links - many no longer worked, two led to search engine results. NOTE: I did not note if removing these links affected the balance of views in the references. Below are removed links w/reasons:

  1. Yahoo! - Animal Experimentation directory category.
  2. Open Directory Project - Animal Experiments directory category
  3. Animal Welfare Gateway, a collection of international links related to laboratory animals - redirects
  4. "Tod im Labor" a film made by Animal Aid and Ärzte gegen Tierversuche (Doctors against Animal Experiments) 404
  5. "Planet of Covance", a German film opposing animal testing – no longer at this URL
  6. Unhappy Anniversary: Twenty years of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986", Animal Aid, retrieved July 15, 2006. – page no longer there
  7. "An introduction to primate issues", Humane Society of the United States. – page no longer there
  8. "The benefits of animal research", Seriously Ill for Medical Research], retrieved October 23, 2005. – page not there —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob98133 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, that "Animal rights" template in that section is still poorly-formatted though. It would be much better in a banner, rather than column format. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reference removals

Hi there, I noticed "Covino, Joseph, Jr. Lab Animal Abuse: Vivisection Exposed!, Epic Press, 1990" was published by the vanity publisher Epic Press and is therefore not a reliable source. I removed this reference. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I also removed "Diaries of despair", xenodiaries.org, Uncaged Campaigns, retrieved June 18, 2006. since this was a redundant reference and did not appear to be a mainstream media website. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Lantern Books are respected mainstream publishers. I asked about this at the WP:RS noticeboard and they recommended that an unbiased mainstream media source would be preferable. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The section in "Ethics" on The focus of public debate on this issue is also questioned, with over 10 times more animals are used by humans for other purposes... needs a source that makes this claim, at present this is original research. Most of the links were also broken or not relevant. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that sentence is a bit spurious, since I checked around a bit and didn't find any reference to this as a focus. In any event, the following couple of referenced statements really aren't germaine to the topic - the number of animals killed in shelters, by cars, for food, etc.,don't relate to the ethics of animal testing. I think those could be removed, and this sentence left something like: The focus of public debate on this issue has been questioned, since more animals are used by humans for other purposes.Bob98133 (talk) 19:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree, however, unless we can find a notable organisation actually making such an argument in support of animal testing, this sentence should really be removed. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animal liberation front reference

I also removed a link to the Animal Liberation Front website. Since this organisation has been described by two governments as a terrorist organization, I don't think we should link to their site as a source for the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Do not remove animal rights sources just because you don't like them, Tim. The ALF is used as a source for something the ALF did, and so clearly it's appropriate. And Ingrid Newkirk is an RS when it comes to these issues. You can't purge the article of the AR perspective. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Please assume good faith, as concerns about sourcing were one of the major points raised in the request for mediation, I am trying to improve the article by removing unreliable sources. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The mediation hasn't started yet, and the concerns raised were about your reliance on primary sources that you seemed unfamiliar with. It's hard to assume good faith when you're trying remove Ingrid Newkirk as a source. That POV can't just be erased from this article. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Newkirk's book is still in the article, but an additional mainstream source would be preferable. I notice you have replaced xenodiaries.org I did not think this website was a "respected mainstream publication", but I may be wrong - who are the authors of this material and what is their editorial process? Tim Vickers (talk) 21:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't need an additional source to give information about something Newkirk has direct knowledge of. Uncaged campaigns is a well-known anti-testing group in the UK that's frequently used as a source by the mainstream media, and in this case was the Observer's source for the article used in the same section.
Tim, please read the policies. The idea of an "appropriate" source is important. We don't use Ingrid Newkirk to explain how to breed fruit flies, and we don't use a fruit fly expert to explain how the ALF removed an animal from a lab. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This inclusion of this reference is being discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Lantern_books. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New sections

The problem with the Ethics and Validity sections is that they don't really say much. For example:

Proponents of animal research argue that drugs and vaccines produced through animal testing are vital to modern medicine, that there have been several examples of substances causing death or injury to human beings because of inadequate animal testing, and that there are no known alternatives to many kinds of animal testing. They claim that anti-vivisection activists manipulate and fabricate facts so that their claims are not reliable.

This level of generality isn't exactly educative. We should be writing the article so that people know more after reading it than they did before. We seem to be swinging between writing that's too dense and too specific to writing that's almost devoid of content. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You are right, the ethics section should mention Peter Singer at the very least. It needs better references and more specific discussion. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:49, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't say Singer needs to be there, because he hasn't said anything that's specific to animal testing, that I know of anyway. It just needs to be more specific, based on good secondary sources who have written about the ethics. At the moment, it looks as though someone has written it without having read anything about the subject.
I'd say there shouldn't be an ethics section at all, because the issue of ethics runs all the way through this subject. For example, the Animal Care and Use Committees are designed to provide an ethical backdrop by asking certain questions about projects before they ever get started (is the use of this species really necessary, and so on).
What this article does badly is paint a picture of how animal testing actually works. I think anyone reading this who didn't know to begin with wouldn't know after having read it. I have some material I'd like to add from Carbone where he describes who works in labs, what their roles are, who they have to approach for permission to do certain things.
I think one of the things we should decide is who our readership is. When I write, I try to pitch things at an intelligent 18-year-old who has (or has access to) a large and sophisticated, but not a technical, vocabulary, and who knows nothing about the subject. Does that sound about the right approach for our average readership? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
The definition of audience sounds reasonable, although key technical terms should still be used if linked and/or defined - if knowing these terms will be important for the reader in any further research on the topic. However, describing who works in labs is a bit redundant, animal testing is just a lab technique, so details on who scientists are and what their role are needs to go in a higher-level article. After all, we don't describe who uses SDS-PAGE or affinity chromatography in those articles. The best ethics resources I have come across recently are:
(edit conflict) BTW, just to clarify, when I talk about 18-year-olds, I mean young undergraduates, rather than high-school students. We definitely do not want high-school writing, which is my worry about the tone and content of the Ethics and Validity sections. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I think a section describing who does what and what permissions need to be applied for would be useful. Carbone provided it for the same reason. Not sure what you mean by a "higher level" article. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
We used to have a section on animal research regulations, but as I recall it was moved to a sub-article. Anything specific should go there, but anything general on who carries out particular areas of research shouldn't go in an article on a particular experimental technique. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

A good general review of this area is in "A companion to ethics.", (Blackwell) edited by Peter Singer. The chapter on "Animals" by Lori Gruen discusses the various positions. I'll read this again over the next few days. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Practical example?

I was thinking about the difficulty raised above that this article only talks in general terms about animal experiments. What would people think about putting one detailed example in, showing an application in a bit more experimental detail? I could write a 1 - 2 paragraph summary of PMID 17170305 if people were interested, possibly with a figure showing a virulence assay? Tim Vickers (talk) 16:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Any practical example would have to be from a secondary source offering it, not an editor's interpretation of a primary source. As I said earlier, I have an example ready from Carbone, though when I suggested it you said you didn't think it was a good idea. He describes who the personnel are and what regulations they have to follow. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
It would depend on how well and verifiable your description represented animal testing in general. Walking through the general process in a specific case with attention to it being an illustration of the general case. Perhaps something like:
  1. identify a question to investigate
  2. identify a test procedure to investigate the question
  3. identify relevant laws, scientific knowledge, financial and management concerns
  4. apply and create an appropriate protocol for the test
  5. execute the protocol (do the test)
  6. evaluate the results WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It used a genetic cross carried out by feeding two strains (virulent and avirulent) of Toxoplasma to a cat, isolating cysts from its faeces, and then examined the virulence of the progeny in mice. This allowed the identification of a previously-unknown virulence factor. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking we might be best off with three examples showing invertebrate animal testing, a non-pet-type animal testing, and a pet type animal testing; and here you have one experiment with all three! WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately toxo isn't an animal, it's a protozoa - certainly a eukaryote, but not part of animalia. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

See http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artjun99/rhname.html for a good (and fun) read about this clasification. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
"particularly not in German biologists" :) ROTFL - superb! Tim Vickers (talk) 20:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Death is not considered by policy makers to be an issue that harms laboratory animals."

Could I ask for a source for this rather strange statement? A good one would be a policy maker stating that "Death does not harm animals." - although I doubt if you will ever find somebody saying this. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I inserted the source after that sentence. It's well-known that death is not considered a harm to lab animals. I think it was one of the issues BUAV requested a judicial review of in the Cambridge case. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I see from reading the source I just added that you are quite right, but that this relates to the legal, rather than common-sense, definition of "harm". What do you think of the new formulation? I think readers would have been severely confused by reading that death doesn't harm something, so this might be a bit clearer. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It isn't a legal issue, but a practical and philsophical one. If animal researchers assign value to animal life, they would arguably have to stop their research, or would at least have to come up with some kind of value criteria, and say what they were based on. This leads into the problematic areas that Peter Singer covers e.g. why would you assign a greater value to, say, a human being in an irreversible coma than to, say, a young, healthy baboon? For these reasons, policy has never assigned a value to laboratory animals lives, only to their pain and suffering. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Tim, you're engaging in OR again. Please don't change edits to suit your personal opinion. You can't add "immediate" unconsciousness when there is no such thing; you would have to be specific (and I'm about to add an example). You can't change "methods regarded as acceptable" to "methods used," because all kinds of methods are used, acceptable and unacceptable. The ones listed are the ones regarded as acceptable. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

To quote the source you provided "These methods must cause immediate loss of consciousness through physical trauma to the brain." - p 298 Recommendations for euthanasia of experimental animals: Part 1 - please do not accuse me of original research when you have simply not read the sources you choose to cite. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a confusion between two points. First is that animal life has no value to research or researchers, which is obviously wrong and not directly related to the edit. The second is that euthanasia is not considered a regulated part of pain and suffering for animals - and this is a valid perception. I would hesitate to list the acceptable forms of euthanasia - because there are many caveats and it would be extremely easy for a layperson to misrepresent the process. Yes, physical methods alone are acceptable, but only for neonatal rodents younger than a certain age because studies have demonstrated that there is no more humane method available for this type of animal, After deep anesthesia, almost any life-ending method is acceptable, including a physical method. Overdoses of barbiturates are acceptable, but only if death is verified by a physical method (this is why many were alarmed at the PETA animal kills which used a barbiturate overdose with no physical method). The guidelines are here http://www.avma.org/resources/euthanasia.pdf. This document also contains a synopsis on euthanasia. I think it is more appropriate to state that animal welfare consideration of pain and suffering is adequate if euthanasia falls within accepted guidelines for animals no longer contributing to research goals. And yes, in a sense, if an animal is not working out for research goals, it will be sold, donated, or euthanized. Unless it is a chimp - euthanizing chimps is not acceptable in the USA just because they are no longer contributing to research goals. --Animalresearcher (talk) 11:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, I hesitate to include a "right to life" argument. Whereas I do not debate that some people hold this view, the ethical "right to life" position is not in the Animal Procedures Committee citation, and interjecting it substantially alters the meaning of the reference. The reference is more appropriately cited as saying that others, including animal rights organizations, argue that MORE cost should be associated with animal death that policy makers include, and gives a variety of reasons why the cost should be increased. If animals have a "right to life", then euthanasia is unethical with infinite cost to animals. --Animalresearcher (talk) 17:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
The text didn't say that the counter-argument was that animals have a right to life, but that their lives have "intrinsic value" - which is the phrase in the source. The last version was a bit opaque to read, what do you think of new version? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
The text before I edited it said "right to life", which, as far as I can see, was not an argument included in the Animal Procedures reference. The new version is fine. I think it is notable that euthanasia is not considered a substantial cost in research - to a first approximation, suffering matters, but euthanasia does not count in animal welfare considerations - as is referenced. --Animalresearcher (talk) 12:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
We shouldn't make it read like animal testing as a society-approved process is any different in its moral evaluations on killing animals is than other society-approved processes. Insecticides, rat poison, beef and pork on the dinner table, putting animals to sleep rather than providing the kind of health care that would be used for humans in the same condition. In general, society uses animals. Even pets are trained for the benefit of their owners rather than as part of an enrichment designed to make the animal's life more fulfilling. Humans use humans to a great extent also; a lot of what passes as free choice was actually carefully manipulated to benefit others. And a lot of human training is for the benefit of others rather than to help people to know how to be happy; how can you have a hardworking population if you teach them how to be happy with less? In short, animal killing in animal testing is just like it is in the rest of society. WAS 4.250 (talk) 02:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes 2

The recent changes have turned this article, that used to be reasonably neutral, into a very one sided presentation. This contradicts WP:NPOV and WP:V. For example, if an editor thinks that view point A is the "dominant" one, and B is the "minority", then he must provide a reliable source saying so. Crum375 (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV states quite clearly that distinguiging majority from minority points of view is desirable, and that viewpoints held by a very small majority need not be stated at all. In my edits (which were not the only ones reverted), I clarified majority from minority points of view in the LEAD controversy paragraph, and in the ethics section. By the WP:UNDUE section of WP:NPOV, this is highly desireable. The section on animals coming into testing from "circuses, zoos, and animal trainers" refers to a very very tiny fraction of primates (chimps), the last "claimed" case was in the early 1980s (as cited on the primate testing page), and the source for the reference does not meet Wikipedia reliability standards (the anti-vivisection society does not have a reputation for accuracy and fact checking). You deleted the relevant section on actual standards applicable to pain and suffering in testing (which are as NPOV as you get, they are government documents that actually regulate the process). You removed a condensing of euthanasia methods which makes it much tougher to read. And your massive integrative revert also impacted at least a half dozen edits by others made with careful consideraiton. All in all, undoing such a substantial portion of work by a revert for unjustified POV rationales is highly unprofessional.--Animalresearcher (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Distinguishing minority from majority is fine, and encouraged, if properly sourced. But you can't decide that your own view is "dominant" without attributing that conclusion to a reliable source. Otherwise, you'd be engaged in original research and violating the neutral point of view policy. Crum375 (talk) 17:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
They are attributed to legal statements by representative governments. In both the cases of the US and Great Britain (and the EU) these statements occurred after hearings including contirbutions from a broad spectrum of citizens. The references point at the consensus summaries (UK) and at the newly written law (new in the mid 1980s) in the case of the USA. In the case of the Ethics section, I also included the most salient difference between the US and UK systems - the cost-benefit analysis. --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I am sure there are governments that would call George Bush a "war mongering terrorist." Yet, we can't include that, without quotes, in Wikipedia. Similarly here — if some reliable source states that a certain point of view is "dominant" and another view is "minority," then we need to quote and attribute that statement. Otherwise, it would as if Wikipedia itself is taking a position on the issue, which violates WP:NPOV. Crum375 (talk) 20:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
In the case of governments name-calling - that is a very different issue. In this case, after protracted hearings, legislators wrote summaries into law to be used as guiding principles in the regulation of animal testing. As I also pointed out, these are summaries from REPRESENTATIVE governments. There is a need for the representation of viewpoints in Wikipedia to reflect their prevalence outside Wikipedia. Whereas the animal rights viewpoints are particularly tenaciously proferred, there have not been major representative governments that have given rights to animals beyond limited rights for some primates (as noted in the Ethics section currently). Surely if the majority viewpoint were something else, there would be SOME major government that did not approve of animal testing to advance medical and scientific goals provided animal suffering and use is otherwise minimized?

Also, the vast majority of "rights" arguments were not deleted - only a very few very minor arguments that are held and argued by very small minorities. The major animal rights arguments are still included, although it is now noted which ethical position is occupied by the majority. --Animalresearcher (talk) 21:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, your attempt to replace the ALF links is unacceptable. This is against policy and against consensus. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The ALF links is one item of many. But specifically, I don't see that link as being either against policy or consensus. Crum375 (talk) 18:04, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
None of the uninvolved editors who commented at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Animal_Liberation_Front_references agreed with the idea of including these links. You and SlimVirgin are alone in your opinion and cannot try to push this extreme view into the article against this consensus by revert-warring. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I see no "consensus" there. A more logical place to discuss this issue is here, in any case. Crum375 (talk) 18:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a Reliable Sources noticeboard specifically so that policies on sources can be held across the whole of Wikipedia. Extremist sources are to be avoided EXCEPT in articles on the extremist group themselves, and even then should only be used with caution - and they should NEVER over-ride a source with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
See my comments about PETA and PetaTV below. Crum375 (talk) 23:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The mass revert by Crum375 is an example of the "overreliance on reverting as an editing tool, rather than collaboration" that brought this article to mediation. Six days of good-faith edits [which I'm not saying are beyond criticism] by three long-standing editors of this article have been dismissed without prior discussion or agreement. In contrast, Tim's removal of the ALF "source" was based on discussion at Reliable_sources/Noticeboard where the argument for its inclusion was not only lost, but also made moot by the addition of an AP news item as a source. The link is now redundant and its restoration about as welcome as online pharmacy spam in an article on erectile dysfunction. Colin°Talk 21:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

If you agree that the edits are not "beyond criticism," you can hopefully see that they have shifted the article away from the reasonably neutral balance it had before. It would be helpful if you could suggest ways to restore that balance. My suggestion is to start at the point to which I reverted, which was a relatively stable version, and to scrutinize each addition for neutrality. Regarding the Britches video, as I noted elsewhere, there are good sources for it that hopefully we can all agree on. Crum375 (talk) 21:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I would dispute that my edits were biased - and indeed my rationale was clearly set out - it is pretty blatant WP:OWN to revert several editors back to your own preferred "stable" version. --Coroebus 18:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
There are three, short, AP newswire articles on the Britches incident that come from reliable sources. Everything else is "what ALF told PETA" and was reported as such by the major news sources. Wikipedia contains five times more material on Britches than everything ever published about the topic in a major newspaper or magazine. I am 100% in agreement that "What ALF told PETA about Britches" does not meet standards for reliable sources or verifiability. --Animalresearcher (talk) 22:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps my comment wasn't clear. By saying they were not "beyond criticism" I was merely saying that I neither supported nor rejected all the edits. Judging whether the article is neutral or not would require far more experience of the subject matter than I have. You'll have to sort that one out between yourselves. Colin°Talk 22:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

No Crumb375, this is an unreliable source produced by an extremist organisation. It has no place whatsoever in this article. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that PETA is not a reliable source? Crum375 (talk) 22:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
It was shot by the ALF, sympathetically edited by a campaign group and hosted on a blog. Which part of WP:V do you think this satisfies? Colin°Talk 22:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The "shooter" or reporter is not an issue. It's the publisher that matters for meeting WP:V requirements. And are you saying that PETA or PetaTV are not a reliable and verifiable source? If they are, then we can't pick and choose what part of their published material is reliable. Crum375 (talk) 23:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
This ALF video is a ALF video if it is hosted on a blog, and it remains an ALF video if it is hosted by PETA. However much lipstick you try to put on this pig, you ain't convincing anybody that its Madonna. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you need to watch out with that metaphor on WP nowadays. ;^) But joking aside, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of WP:V. Once a publisher is accepted as verifiable and reliable, we can't pick and choose its material. In this case, we have a video shot by the ALF, published by PETA on its PetaTV site. Since PETA and PetaTV are accepted as verifiable and reliable, their material, regardless of who prepared it for them, is acceptable also, including the Britches video. Note that Wikipedia does not strive for truth, but verifiability, so all we need to establish here is that a reliable source published this video and claims it shows Britches being rescued. Crum375 (talk) 23:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Other discussions by disinterested parties on this page do not consider PETA to be a reliable source. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_3#stopanimaltests.com_as_source. In addition, the claim MUST be put forth that by the nature of the ALF, no one at PETA or PETA_TV could have any knowledge about the accuracy of the materials in ALF videos. The sources offers the video with no fact-checking or accuracy. Therefore I conclude that publisher cannot be considered reliable or verifiable. Given that the university has publicly claimed that sections of the video were staged for effect, it is unclear how the video can be used. On top of all that, it is a primary source. There are at least three AP newswire articles on the event, they DO meet the standards for reliable sources (as a major newspaper), the Wikipedia presentation of Britches should stick closely to what THEY say about the events. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Let's start with establishing PETA as a reliable source. It is a 501(c)(3) organization with 2.7 million members, founded 28 years ago, with a legal liability for libel or fraud. If it tells us that a video it publishes shows X, we are allowed to say that PETA says that video shows X. We don't need to establish that X is "true." You are incorrect by implying that a reliable source must be a major newspaper — it depends on the situation. If the university claimed that the video was doctored, then we can (and should) add that sourced statement. But once we establish PETA's reliability and verifiability as a publisher, all its material can be included as reliable. I think your basic mistake is that you are assuming that "reliable" or "verifiable" mean "true", where in fact all they mean is that we can be sure that the source really said it, and that the publisher generally has a legal liability, and multiple vetting layers for accuracy (not a one person operation like a blog). PETA clearly meets those requirements. Crum375 (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The criteria are not about legal liability. "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy....In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is." AND "Questionable sources:Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources."
You see the criteria have nothing to do with legal liability for libel or fraud. They have to do with having a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This specific video is a GREAT example why PETA is not acceptable as a source. They published an anonymously produced video without any fact-checking. There cannot be any fact checking when the producer of the video is anonymous. Even the reporting on this particular incident by major newspapers (which ARE considered among the MOST reliable sources) would not back the claims of PETA/ALF - they merely reported that PETA had stated something to them in a phone call. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The criteria are for fact checking, and any organization that has been around for many years must do so to survive, especially in the very litigious environment of the US. You say "nothing to do with libel or fraud", but Wikipedia says: "the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is." [emphasis added]
Clearly PETA meets all these requirements. The liability aspect is most important over time, because if a publisher gets its facts wrong, it gets sued (in the US anyway). If you can point to a history of PETA getting its facts wrong and losing suits for inaccurate information over its 28 years, please provide the sources. Crum375 (talk) 00:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I suggest, that for recent history, you can read the issues related to "Primarily Primates" and PETA. Also, in the Silver Spring monkey case, they were accused of staging photographs by the laboratory involved. In nearly every one of their undercover cases, they have been accused of misrepresenting the facts and staging photographs, whether it be Covance, or Huntingdon, etc. But in the Primarily Primates case there are many witnesses from PP that testified as to the manipulation of the animals by PETA and staging of photographs, including throwing dirty materials into enclosures to take pictures of the filthy living conditions - and these were chimpanzees. That case was dismissed because of misrepresentation and fraud by PETA operatives. --Animalresearcher (talk) 01:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Allegations are easy to make, and are common in contentious areas. My request to you is to provide a source that shows that PETA has a history of being successfully sued for libel, in relation to publishing inaccurate or false information. If you have a reliable source showing this, please provide it, and not a list of unsourced allegations. Crum375 (talk) 01:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
We're wandering away from the point here, wherever this ALF video is hosted, it can't be regarded as a reliable source, since its authors are an extremist/terrorist organisation. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Tim, you are again confused. The publisher is PETA, which is a reliable and verifiable source. Their published material is the video prepared by X. We don't care about the photographer or producer, any more than we do about a specific author at any publisher, which may even be anonymous. It is the publisher that makes a given source reliable and verifiable, not the author of the material. So in our case, if PETA says the video shows Y, we may say that according to PETA the video shows Y. We are not claiming Y is true, only that PETA says it. This is what reliability and verifiability is all about on Wikipedia. Crum375 (talk) 02:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
There is nothing reliable or verifiable about a video with anonymous admittedly criminal producers. The publisher did not perform ANY fact checking and its reliability is questioned by non-anonymous officials at the University of California, Irvine. It would be hard to admit there were any standards for reliability or verifiability if the video is referencable at all except on the Britches page itself. --Animalresearcher (talk) 03:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
If ABC News received a video showing an Al Qaeda operation, let's say, and decided to include the video on its website, you could still include it on Wikipedia and say here is a video of Al Qaeda operation X, published by ABC News. The point is that ABC News staff, in procuring and vetting the video, have checked it out for us, and we then accept them as the source. Same with PETA — they procure the video, check it, and stand behind it by publishing it on their website. Again, what matters for WP's verifiable and reliable sourcing purposes is not the author but the publisher. Crum375 (talk) 05:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
And if some other reliable source then questioned the authenticity of the Al Qaeda video, we would include that information also, as we could include the university's reliably sourced comments about the Britches video. Crum375 (talk) 05:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
If PETA had a reputation for fact checking and accuracy I think you would have a point. --Animalresearcher (talk) 10:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, I have never seen anyone so totally misunderstand sourcing. Is the Catholic church a reliable source for "Is the Pope Catholic?" Is the Catholic church a reliable source for "Did the Catholic church conspire with Nazis?" WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, this discussion is moot because we have a reliable source for the text in the article. To press for its inclusion when it is neither needed nor wanted is just wasting everyone's time. Secondly, I am amazed at the question "Is [a publisher] a reliable source".

  1. "A reliable source" is not an on-off switch that means a particular source can be used to support any statement based on it. A video by Al Qaeda on ABC News shows only that Al Qaeda have made a video and said certain things. It in no way can be used as evidence that an Al Qaeda operation did what they claim it did. A responsible news organisation will make it clear that this is propaganda, and would probably heavily edit it and/or talk all over it.
  2. A publisher's reputation is only one of many factors used to decide whether a source is reliable for certain purposes. Channel 4 News is highly respected as a TV news program. Immediately afterwards, is some rubbish featuring Gillian McKeith. Is Channel 4 a reliable source? It isn't an appropriate question. They are a relatively responsible broadcaster, subject to regulatory standards and punishment if they fail. That doesn't stop them publishing nonsense from time to time. Is Penguin Group a reliable source? Is Elsevier a reliable source (publisher of The Lancet and Medical Hypotheses to take two extremes)?
  3. The "libel or fraud" test is largely irrelevant as few publishers have deep enough pockets to dare fall foul of that one. (Tabloid newspapers may see this as a business expense and publicity.) It is quite possible to tell mountains of lies and remain within the law. It is called Marketing.
  4. As a campaign group, almost everything PETA produces is "promotional in nature" (which is one of the "questionable sources" tests in WP:V). The video is propaganda and should be treated with suspicion (as should a press release from an animal testing lab). This is why such sources should generally be avoided when used as evidence for worldly facts. We need to cite an independent third party with a reputation, blah blah. Animal testing is a big enough subject that scraping the barrel for the dregs is unnecessary. If it is a notable fact, someone good will have written about it. If they haven't, it probably isn't, and we probably shouldn't either.

Colin°Talk 13:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Does this then imply that major restructuring of some sections on the page is desired, because it consists principally of sources from BUAV, PETA, ALF, or a direct scientist reply to the same? In each case, the source is either propaganda or marketing in response to propaganda. --Animalresearcher (talk) 14:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Any organization promotes something is not a neutral source on that something. The Democratic party is not a reliable source on the honesty of the Republican party. Animal rights groups can be counted on to promote animal rights. For profit groups can be counted on to act to promote their profits. News organizations will over emphasize the attention getting aspects. Researchers will over emphasize the research value. Governments will over emphasize how everything is under control. Etc. One must read a variety of sources, take biases into account, then use the best sources for the most credible claims. WAS 4.250 (talk) 15:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
In general I agree with WAS here. There are two separate independent issues with sources: their reliability/verifiability, and their neutrality/impartiality. In addition, each source must be weighed for its particular use on Wikipedia. If a source is an advocacy group (i.e. non-neutral), but is otherwise reliable and verifiable, we can use it to present its point of view. If it publishes images it or its representatives took in connection to their activities, then we are allowed to present them, properly attributed. Crum375 (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
For the particular source in question, you are proposing to use PETA as the publisher of the ALF video, because it hosts the ALF video, unedited, on its web server. As has been pointed out numerous times, PETA did not edit the video, and it was given to them anonymously by a group that is clearly extremist by any reasonable definition of the term (ALF) and has no reputation for fact checking or accuracy. I do not think this constitutes a source that should be used in Wikipedia, There are three articles in mainstream newspapers on the event (reliable, third-party sources). Some of these newswire articles were carried in slightly edited versions in different newspapers. Those are sources that should be used to refer to the event in question. Here are the three articles, in their entirety, from the Chicago Tribune. The section on Britches would still need to be editing substantially to bring its POV in line with these third party sources. Also, the mainstream press carried only slightly less than 300 words on the incident (the third article, 80 words, was indirectly about the incident. You can note in the second article, for example, that the third party source takes responsibility for the accuracy of the statement that years of medical research were lost, and for referring to the smashing of equipment and theft of the animals. --Animalresearcher (talk) 16:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, PETA is a reliable source to publish a video shot by the ALF, which depicts the ALF's rescue of Britches. If another reliable source disputes the authenticity of that video, or claims it was doctored in some way, that should be also included. Crum375 (talk) 16:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
You are missing the entire point on sourcing. Potential crap should not be referenced in Wikipedia. Just because more potential crap refutes the initial potential crap does not mean both should be published. If something is stated by a good source on the topic, it should be included. Otherwise, it is just a crap-flinging war. --Animalresearcher (talk) 19:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

(od) I fully agree that "crap" shouldn't be included. But one editor's crap is another's gold, and that's why we have the content policies that try to be more specific. In this case, PETA is the world's largest animal rights organization, with nearly 2 million members, founded 28 years ago. They have multiple fact checkers and legal counsel, to ensure their published data is accurate. I have asked you above for a single reliable source showing they have ever been successfully sued for libel, or that they have a history of losing libel suits. I am still waiting. Crum375 (talk) 19:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I may not be following this argument properly - but is Crum really proposing that lack of history of losing libel suits should be our criterion of a reliable source? --Coroebus 20:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Please read this thread in its entirety. In short, a reliable source has multiple people doing fact checking and legal scrutiny of its published data. Lack of both will, over time, result in losing libel suits. A clean history is proof of good work, especially when you publish a lot of controversial material over 28 years, as does PETA. Crum375 (talk) 20:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
That is a crock of shit. I'm not aware of the British National Party losing libel suits either, but that doesn't make them a reliable source (see here for some more fun discussion of what is a reliable source on animal testing articles)! --Coroebus 20:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the actual content being disputed here - Crum's crazy new criteria for allowing any old crap to be a reliable source not withstanding - I don't think we ought to object to PETA's video being linked to (as a primary source, showing PETA's allgation; and providing we can be sure that the website, which isn't PETA itself, is genuinely showing what it claims) but it certainly can't be cited as a reliable source reference to what we are saying did in fact happen (i.e. it is a 'see X for the claim that Y' type reference, not a 'Y is true (X)' type reference. --Coroebus 20:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Ignoring your poor and unhelpful choice of language, I am not advocating using PETA as a source for us to state that the videoed event actually took place — for that we need unrelated sources, such as news media. But to say "here is the video shot by ALF, during their claimed rescue of Britches, as published by PETA," is perfectly OK. Crum375 (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
And scarily enough I'm agreeing with you (although I think the cite needs reworking to look more like what you've written above, perhaps saying 'a video that PETA say was shot by...' or similar). --Coroebus 20:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
That there is a video shot by ALF is not noted by any reliable sources. If there was something significant in the ALF video, surely there would be SOME reliable source reference to it. If there is not, there is probably a good reason why - either it fails a reliable sources' test of verifiability, or it lacks significance. If it passes both, then SOME reliable source will include a reference to such a video. What is noted by reliable sources is that ALF took animals and vandalized the campus at UC-Riverside, and made phone calls to news sources claiming it was a rescue. There is similarly no reliable source for the transfer of Britches to a sanctuary, or for the outcome of any of the other hundreds of animals that were taken. --Animalresearcher (talk) 21:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I have seen several reliable sources stating that a video was shot by the ALF, and some sources claiming it was doctored, or that the original bandages or sutures were replaced, etc. It makes sense for us to rely on third party sources to mention that the video was taken, and to show the tape as published by PETA, alongside any reliably sourced criticisms. Crum375 (talk) 21:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The only source for the ALF tape is PETA. The only other references to the tape occur in Newkirk's book (PETA, once again). If you have a reliable source that meets wikipedia standards saying that ALF gave a video tape to PETA, then it would be a referencable event. I have dug long and hard for third party references to the Britches event, and the only references I found are already included below (each of these may appear in slightly edited versions in other newspapers on the same days as they were newswire stories). Prior to my editing of the Britches event it was largely transcribed into Wikipedia from the PETA website and Ingrid Newkirk's book. That it was an event of marginal significance should be obvious by the fact that less than 300 words, total, were devoted to the event by reliable third party sources. Yet there are over 900 words on the Britches page (mostly derived from books written by Newkirk and Steve Best). The entire event should be removed from Wikipedia. Alternately, we could go the other route, and include 1000 words on Hanzie, Pablo, and JoJo from http://www.neavs.org/programs/brochures/brochures_chimp.htm. Currently the Britches event in Wikipedia is a glorification of a poster-child for the animal rights movement that bore marginal significance in third party references. This is obvious from the fact that three times as much text is devoted to the animal as all reliable references combined. --Animalresearcher (talk) 21:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

(od)I think we are in agreement, that if we mention the Riverside ALF break-in, and the removal of Britches, we can use the sources that refer to the video. The Best book includes references to the ALF video, and the university sources also refer to it, claiming it was doctored. So as part of the Riverside ALF incident in the Animal Testing article, we need to present the video as published on PETA's website, as well as the reliably sourced criticisms. Crum375 (talk) 21:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The name and character "Britches" do not exist outside of PETA propaganda. There are no reliable third party references to "Britches". There are third-party reliable references to a breakin at UC Riverside, theft of animals, and smashing of equipment. The story of Britches was created, produced, and edited by ALF and/or PETA. The Britches page is not what writing an encyclopedia is about. This is in stark contrast to other controversy incidents such as the Silver Spring monkeys about which many thousands of words were written in reliable third party sources. The UC Riverside breakins were a very minor event, and Britches was a non-event in the context of animal testing, or in the context of third-party reliable source reports. --Animalresearcher (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The book, Terrorists Or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals, by Steven Best, Anthony J. Nocella, published by Lantern Books, is a reliable source. It specifically mentions the Britches incident and the video shot by the ALF and presented by PETA. Crum375 (talk) 23:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Steven Best is a former Press Officer for the Animal Liberation Front. As I stated before, the ONLY places you can read about Britches are PETA, ALF, and their agents. And WIkipedia. There are NO reliable third party sources on Britches. --Animalresearcher (talk) 23:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Again, a reliable source is the publisher, not the author. So unless Lantern Books is owned by ALF or PETA, this source is perfectly acceptable. Crum375 (talk) 23:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
A publisher with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which is not Lantern Books. The only primary source for Britches is the Animal Liberation Front. Anyone who uses the video as THEIR primary source fails the test of being a source concerned with fact checking. And any publisher who publishes material that rely on anonymous extremist videos as their primary source does not meet Wikipedia standards for a source under WP:V. This is not really a difficult issue. If Britches were a significant incident, surely there would be SOME third-party reference on Britches. But there is not. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Let's separate out the issues of notability and source reliability. If we mention the Riverside incident at all, then clearly the Britches video becomes relevant, if we can establish via a reliable third party source that there was such a video. You say that Lantern Books does not fact check its published

books, can you substantiate that with a reliable source saying it? Crum375 (talk) 00:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

If you published something that included a reference to the Britches incident in which you referred to the incident as anything other than something included on a video made by anonymous extremists, I would consider you an unreliable source too. In this incident, the only primary source for Britches is a video made by anonymous extremists. I dispute that if we mention the Riverside incident at all that the Britches video becomes relevant. The third party sources on the Riverside incident do not refer to the video, nor do they refer to Britches. But there is more to this, also. If you go into any major animal testing center, and ask them to tell you about the Riverside incident, or ask them to tell you about Britches, they will have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what you are talking about. Even at UC Riverside many current animal testing faculty have no idea who Britches is. Those same people know EXACTLY what the Silver Spring monkey incident is, because it was enormously significant. Historically the Riverside incident shows up in reliable third party sources as three very short newswire articles which I have included below so that everyone can see the full scope of the third party reporting on this incident. It is also tiny and insignificant compared to the U Penn raids (which were also quite notable both at the time and in historic context). Another main issue is WP:UNDUE. There are less than 300 words published on the Riverside incident by reliable third party sources. And 900 on Wikipedia. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

(od) AR, in Wikipedia we follow reliable sources, not our personal likes and dislikes. I asked you a simple question: can you substantiate your claim that the Lantern Books publisher does not fact check its published books? I have read your above response, and can't find the answer there. Unless you can prove that Lantern is unreliable, it is a good source, and hence we follow it. And if Lantern tells us that the Britches video, taken by ALF and presented by PETA, was part of the Riverside incident, then we present that on Wikipedia. This is what WP:V is all about. Crum375 (talk) 00:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As I pointed out, any source that refers to the details of the Britches video is not reliable by Wikipedia standards, because the only primary source for the Britches incident is a group of anonymous extremists. Reliable third party accounts of the Riverside incident exist, and those sources should be used, and any sources that refers to the details that are accessible only in the ALF video as facts should not be used. And if Lantern Books published books by Ingrid Newkirk and Steve Best that referred to the details of the Britches incident as facts, then they are unreliable. And at this point I will stop mudwrestling the pig. You only get dirty, and the pig likes it. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
AR, you are wrong on all counts. First, primary sources used by a secondary source are not a criterion of reliability, only whether the source does fact checking, legal scrutiny, etc. That a publisher has previously published information that a Wikipedia editor disagrees with, is also not a factor in our policy. So again, we focus on the publisher, Lantern Books in this case, which is a reliable source unless you can provide a reliable source telling us Lantern doesn't do fact checking on its published books. Once we accept Lantern as our reliable source, then the Britches video, made by the ALF and presented by PETA according to the Lantern book, can be included. Crum375 (talk) 01:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, will you stop repeating this nonsense that "a reliable source is the publisher". I wont repeat what I said above, which gives examples of why this is ridiculous. If you wish to change WP policy such that we only examine the publisher in order to determine whether a source is reliable, please post your request to the relevant policy page. The issues surrounding Lantern books were handled very nicely at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Lantern books references. Colin°Talk 07:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Colin, you are simply wrong here: the reliability and verifiability of a source is predicated on the publisher, not the author. In fact, the author may even be anonymous, but if we find the publisher reliable, the source is acceptable. The link you gave above adds no new information to this point. BTW, a source being POV, e.g. supporter of one side of an issue, assuming it is otherwise reliable, has no bearing on its reliability unless the publisher is widely considered as "extremist." Crum375 (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Let me also emphasize, again, that accepting a source as reliable or verifiable doesn't mean that we accept as gospel what it says, only that we believe that the publisher has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Also, any reader should be able to access this published information to verify what it says. All we are really saying is "X said Y", not that Y is true. Crum375 (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. Therein lies the difference. If you are completely comfortable saying "Y is true" and referencing it to a publisher, that is because that publisher is reliable. When you have to say "X said Y is true" and reference it to the publisher, it is because the publisher is not reliable - you don't trust their fact-checking and accuracy enough to write it in your own words. The encyclopedia entries should all consist of statements such as "Y is true", and references that require saying "X said Y is true" should simply not be included. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
"The encyclopedia entries should all consist of statements such as "Y is true", and references that require saying "X said Y is true" should simply not be included." — in that case, AR, how would you handle a situation of some big political conflict, say, where you have two opposing camps, both with reliable sources (big reputable publishing houses), one saying Black, the other White? If all we are allowed to include here are statements that we as editors believe are true, we'd end up with a very small encyclopedia, I suspect. Crum375 (talk) 00:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
It is perfectly acceptable to include the source for an opinion or result generated by and attributed to the source. That is using a primary source ie: "BUAV says that animal testing does not yield reliable results". On the other hand, if HSUS publishes that there are 1500-1600 chimpanzees in animal testing in the USA, and Science magazine publishes an article written by some heads of the US primate centers that say there are 1133, you use the more reliable source and omit the unreliable (or in this case probably outdated) source. There is only one truth on any issue, and Wikipedia should report what the most reliable third-party secondary sources say it is. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
AR, I think you are totally confused about Wikipedia. I really suggest you take some time and read WP:V. You may want to pay extra attention to: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." When you come back, you may be better able to understand our issues here. Crum375 (talk) 00:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Quite right...inline citations for material most likely to be challenged. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
That's part of it, and yes, we need to identify the reliable/verifiable material, and provide citations if we feel it may be challenged. But "truth" is never part of the equation. Crum375 (talk) 00:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC

[edit] break 1

I dunno, I stop editing for a while hoping that all the POV pushing of the past would die down and we would have sensible people not trying to push their agendas by warping policies. But it seems that it is exactly the same as it was before. *Sigh*

Anyway, on the issue of whether organisations such as BUAV, PETA and the publisher 'Lantern Books' are reliable sources, it is quite simply acceptable that all 3 are. BUAV is used regularly by national media in the UK, along with a good number of national store chains in the UK (The Co-op being one of them). PETA, as has been said, is a large organisation with a long history. They do not have a history of getting facts wrong and as such this means they have a history of good fact checking practices. (And no evidence has been presented here to counter that). Lantern books is a 10 year old company which publishes hundreds of books in areas related to spirituality, the environment, rights issues, etc... If they didn't fact check their books, they as a publishing house would face significant legal problems when things were presented incorrectly. So, again, they are a reliable source.

Stating that simply because they organisations' interests lie within the subject area (ie. PETA is an animal rights organisation etc...) they are unreliable is nonsense. If this were the case then any research by a scientist in the field of neurology would be unreliable as that person has interests in their field!!

So, put simply, just because they aren't a national media organisation, scientific organisation or a government department doesn't mean they are unreliable.

The video hosted by PETA on their PetaTV site is as good a source as any simply because they are the publisher. Many programmes on tv are created by third party companies, but the source would be said to be the channel that aired it - as they are the publisher. This situation is just the same.-Localzuk(talk) 23:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

On the issue of whether organisations such as BUAV, PETA and the publisher 'Lantern Books' are reliable sources, it is quite simply acceptable that none of the 3 are for many claims, yet are acceptable for other claims. BUAV being used regularly by national media in the UK proves nothing for claims that the media has not seen fit to reproduce and the media, anyway, is a very poor source - note how many media sources have made mistaken claims about wikipedia or Wikia. PETA is an organization dedicated to promoting a specific agenda and is not reliable as an unbiased source about claims related to that agenda. "If they didn't fact check their books, they as a publishing house would face significant legal problems when things were presented incorrectly" is factually incorrect. WAS 4.250 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
You can't make those judgements though. By saying that, you are saying that national media itself could be classed as a poor source - for example, the BBC has published incorrect information on many occasions, but those occasions would still be acceptable as reliable sources due to their history. The false information would simply have to be countered by other reliable sources.
If you start making value judgements on whether a source is reliable on such a small scale then we will end up with huge and ongoing arguments.
Also, you are getting bias confused with reliable. An organisation can be biased but still be reliable - BUAV is one such organisation. Their research has been used as evidence in government reports in the UK on a few occasions. It has also been used in criminal trials, as has information from PETA.
And no, it is not factually incorrect that a publisher is held liable for the contents of books they publish. As the publishing house, they are responsible for the reliability of the material they produce. Read up on liable law and you will see this is the case. An example of a comparable situation - Channel 4 is held responsible for the material it airs, and not the people in the shows.
The key thing is that you simply have to attribute the claims that are made to the source. So 'PETA say', 'BUAV say' etc...-Localzuk(talk) 18:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
The key to sourcing is getting the best source for claims that a wide reading of relevant reliable sources indicates is a valid claim. It is mere wiki-lawyering to claim that a source is reliable and thus any claim from it is acceptable. As for book publishers checking the book for accuracy, I have read sources that say it is too expensive to do that and nowadays it is usually not done, but is left to the author to fact check. Do you have a source that claims every book maker fact checks every claim in every book they publish? Do you have any source on this topic at all? Or are you just repeating stuff other people here at wikipedia have claimed? WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Per WP:V, a publisher with a reputation for fact checking and legal scrutiny is considered a reliable source. This is unrelated to the publisher's POV — they could be advocating some specific agenda, but as long they are not a fringe "extremist" group (Stormfront is an example for that), they would be considered reliable for WP purposes. If they are new with no track record, or if they have a clear pattern of published misinformation with resulting lost lawsuits, that would probably rule them out as a source. If they are used as a source by mainstream media, that would generally increase their perceived reliability. Crum375 (talk) 19:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, as it is you (and AR) who are saying that these sources are unreliable but haven't provided any evidence to show this, I would say it is you who should be providing sources. On my side I have the fact that liability law states that if someone prints something about someone or an organisation that is incorrect that they are legally liable (ie. it is a crime to lie about a person or organisation in print). I also have the fact that the BUAV has been around for 110 years, and has been consulted by the UK government on the forumlation of animal testing policy/law and human rights.[11] We also have the fact that again, PETA has been around for 28 years, and I can't find a successful libel or defemation case against them. Can you provide evidence to show that these organisations are not truthful, and don't check their facts? Can you counter with any examples of failures to check their facts?-Localzuk(talk) 19:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
The evidence that PETA is unreliable in its making of videos about ALF raids in the 1980s is quite clear in third party references, which are now included on the Britches and Unnecessary Fuss pages. Briefly, an article in the ILAR journal (published by the USA National Academies) details how the Office for the Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) co-analyzed the video ALF took from U Penn in their raids, and the edited video "Unnecessary Fuss" which was produced by PETA (Newkirk and Pacheco) and has a Newkirk voiceover. OPRR identified 25 errors in the voiceover by comparing it with the unedited source footage, and clearly identified intentional attempts to mislead the viewer. Within AT LEAST the context of mid 1980s videos of ALF raids made by PETA, they are an unreliable source as established by a third party investigation, the results of which are published in third party reliable sources. --Animalresearcher (talk) 23:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
As a further point, reliability is a function of AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, and CONTENT. Ingrid Newkirk may be reliable and authoritative on the animal rights movements tactics, but she has a history of lying and misrepresenting things that occur in ALF raids. Or, even more specifically, she has a history of editing source footage to intentionally misrepresent the source, and of making errors of fact (ie: lying) in her voiceovers in the videos as documented by third party sources. However, as noted, unreliability is a function of author, publisher, and content. These unreliability issues occurred with respect to PETA's coverage of mid 1980s ALF raids. I think it is fair to say that PETA is an unreliable source across the board with respect to the facts that occurred in these raids (Silver Spring, Riverside, and Unnecessary Fuss). There are plenty of third party reliable sources on each, and it is a simple matter to stick to them. You will see though, on the Britches page, that Crum and SlimVirgin refuse to acknowledge this evidence on PETA's unreliability. --Animalresearcher (talk) 23:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
That is not "evidence of unreliability". Any organization or person can claim some information someone published is wrong. To legally prove it's wrong, you have to sue in court and win. Even if you do win, you'd have to show a pattern of deception, over time, since even mainstream news media get facts wrong and lose suits sometimes. Crum375 (talk) 23:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
When someone analyzes your source and your report and finds that you are intentionally misleading the viewer of the report, and making multiple errors of fact in your report, then, yes it IS evidence of unreliability. Reliable means that you are accurate and fact check. When someone finds not only that you are not doing that, but that it is clearly intentional, then there is a reliability problem.--Animalresearcher (talk) 23:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Virtually every contentious statement could have an opponent analyzing it and finding it "intentionally misleading." Just look at political campaigns. The only objective way to assess misleading statements is in court. Everything else is subjective and depends on the beholder. Crum375 (talk) 00:10, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
OPRR is not an "opponent". They are a third party. They were investigating issues that might relate to sanctions against U Penn, and sanctions followed (ie: they were not protecting U Penn, but investigating them). Their findings on the PETA reliability were not the primary purpose of their investigation, but no one from U Penn was in the OPRR investigation, and no one from PETA, only third party veterinarians (mostly from NIH). The Wikipedia standards of "third party reliable sources" claims PETA is unreliable in its presentation of those events. This is particularly strong evidence, because it is a very rare incidence in which some third party can examine both the source of a report and compare it to the report itself. It should also be clear that the OPRR did not consider PETA reliable, because it refused to proceed in its investigation of U Penn based only on the PETA video. If PETA was reliable, the investigation would have gone forward nonetheless. This unreliability (from OPRR's point of view) is a legal statement, because a legal investigation refused to consider a PETA report as evidence. They would investigate only on the source video. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
OPRR is not a court of law. To my knowledge, PETA was not able to cross-examine witnesses, to get discovery, or otherwise legally defend its material. In addition, the actual "25 errors" include things that seem very minor, such as a liquid being spilled which the researcher states is "acid", and Newkirk in the voiceover also calls acid. Later it turns out to have been water. This kind of "evidence" would get no attention in a lawsuit, and this is why the OPRR review of a PETA tape is far from evidence of overall lack of reliability. If you can point to someone suing PETA for publishing incorrect information and winning in court, and this happening as a pattern over time, you'd be able to show it's not reliable. I am still waiting to see evidence of one such lost lawsuit. Crum375 (talk) 00:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
If sanctions had been brought against U Penn based on the PETA video, then they certainly would have been sued for libel (and lost). However, you maintain that because no one took PETA seriously from the beginning, that they should be considered reliable? It fails at many levels, especially at common sense. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

(od) AR, this is Wikipedia. We don't judge reliable sources by what you like or don't like. We use objective criteria, spelled out in WP:V. PETA, a 28 year old publisher, the largest animal rights organization in the world, with almost 2 million members, including many celebrities, is considered a reliable source pending objective proof showing otherwise. The only objective proof in this case would be a history of lost legal suits over the publication of false information. I am still waiting for you to give us one such example. Note that "reliable" for us does not mean gospel truth, only that we may refer to it as a source. Crum375 (talk) 01:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, this is Wikpedia. It relies on third party reliable sources for its information. The criteria for reliable are that the source has a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Reliability is related to AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, and CONTENT. It is clear that a third party reliable source states that PETA is unreliable with respect to its reporting on ALF raids in the 1980s. Furthermore, the Wikipedia criteria, as expressed in WP:V and WP:RS make it clear that the reputation of reliability of the author and publisher with respect to the content is the criteria for assessing reliability, and not anything requiring a statement of legal liability (instead, it refers to a reputation for fact checking and accuracy). It is clear that third party reliable sources consider PETA unreliable with respect to its reporting on 1980s ALF raids, and there is not any counter-evidence. There is no third party reliable source stating that PETA was wrongly accused of being unreliable by OPRR. Nor is there any third party reliable reporting of PETA defending itself against such accusations. That is simply because the evidence is undeniable. Any reasonable person could analyze the source and the edited video. In fact, PETA could have sued OPRR if it was wrongly accused for defamation. But there was no lawsuit. The authors are Ingrid Newkirk, Alex Pacheco, and PETA. The publishers are Lantern Books and PETA and PETAtv. And the content is mid 1980s ALF raid reporting. In any case when these three occur together, the criteria for an unreliable source are met. That is not to say that Lantern Books is unreliable in its other publications, or that the authors are unreliable on theirs. But this is strong evidence, and good encyclopaedia practice precludes using it. --Animalresearcher (talk) 01:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Can you show me please where in our policies it says that "reliability is related to AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, and CONTENT"? And can you show me where it says that if we find a third party who considers a source "unreliable," that source is no longer a reliable source for Wikipedia? Crum375 (talk) 01:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Please see the footnotes in WP:V for reliability being related to author, publisher, and content. With respect to reliable sources, it says "The word "source," as used in Wikipedia, has three related meanings: the piece of work itself, the creator of the work, and the publisher of the work. All three affect reliability." There is not a clear policy on when a source is definitively considered unreliable. I have asked at the reliable sources noticeboard Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Britches_page for judgment regarding this specific issue, some time ago, and still have not received an answer. --Animalresearcher (talk) 01:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
That footnote is a recent addition, AFAICT, that says these components "affect reliability", but gives us no guidance how to judge those effects. In the main text, however, we are told that "as a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is." Since we only accept published sources, the reliability criteria are generally those of the final publisher, who is legally and financially liable for errors. Again, having a reliable source X does not mean that we accept what X says verbatim, only that we can say that "X said Y." Crum375 (talk) 01:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Crum, that is mere wiki-lawyering. Ignoring the point and spirit of the rules to made wikipedia a worse encyclopedia is against the rules, please stop it. Further your dismissal of policy and inventing your own unsubstantiated claims is beyond the pale. Just stop it. You are convincing no one and making yourself look bad. Stop it. Please. WAS 4.250 (talk) 02:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Nonsense WAS, that is not wiki-lawyering - it is pointing out that you and AR are wrong. Having one source, the OPRR, say that there were inaccuracies in one video from so long ago does not automatically make PETA an unreliable source. Otherwise we could say that about any organisation or media source, as they are all said to publish inaccuracies from time to time. The issue is that overall PETA has a track record of publishing accurate information, which is backed up by the fact that they have not been sued by the organisations they publish said information about. The same goes for BUAV (which it is plainly ridiculous to argue are unreliable). And again for Lantern Books. You have not shown any evidence that these sources are unreliable or that they don't have a history of fact checking and accurate publications. All you have shown is that one video was analysed by one organisation (which, by the way was specifically set up to protect research, so would have a bias on this issue anyway (but that doesn't mean unreliable)) and said to contain inaccuracies. Any further arguing that they are unreliable without any evidence is simply hot air and pointless. Please provide evidence that PETA have not got a track record of good fact checking, that BUAV have not got a good record and that Lantern Books haven't.-Localzuk(talk) 11:39, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

(OD)The source is not OPRR. They were the first party investigating U Penn that issued findings about PETA. The source has author, publisher, and content. The authors are three academic faculty PhD bioethicists. The content is an article on "Roots of Concern with Nonhuman Animals in Biomedical Ethics", and they are analyzing the contribution of incidents like the U Penn incident on the evolving ideas of ethics in animal testing. The publisher in the US National Academy of Sciences (it is ILAR journal). In other words, we have a highest reliability third party source stating that PETA is unreliable. Furthermore, there is no third party reliable source to provide any alternative explanation for the OPRR findings in the edited video tape. As I also pointed out, the degree to which reliability can be assessed in this case is extraordinary, because it is a very rare situation in which a legal investigatory body has both the source of a report, and the report itself, and opportunity to compare them. This does represent wiki-lawyering, because the evidence, and common sense, dictate that anything that is found in a PETA video about a 1980s ALF raid should not be considered to have been subject to much fact checking, and its accuracy can be expected to be intentionally misleading. That is against the spirit AND text of WP:V and WP:RS. I suspect that this situation is rare enough that the normal protocols are Wikipedia are not sufficiently strong to ensure adherence to policy, especially when multiple Wikipedia admins seem adamant about including unreliable sources. Wikipedia seems more tolerant of including both the unreliable source and the evidence that it is unreliable than not including it at all. --Animalresearcher (talk) 12:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You have missed the point - you are using a single example from ~20 years ago to say that PETA, as a whole, are unreliable. That is not sufficient.-Localzuk(talk) 12:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
It is not insufficient. It is limited in scope. The PETA of the early and mid 1980s is not the same as the PETA of today with respect to reliability. In the Silver Spring case, the U Penn case, and the UC Riverside case, allegations were made that PETA grossly overstated deficiencies in animal care programs. In the U Penn case this was proven to be true. In the UC Riverside case an eight month long investigation of the animal care program (by NIH) found it appropriate and not requiring correction. In the Silver Spring case multiple lines of evidence were introduced at trial to state that photos were staged and animal care was not as bad as Pacheco made it out to be. This is not to whitewash the animal care programs, because there were inadequacies found in Taub's program, and in the U Penn program, and action was taken against them. The point is that PETA unreliably reported the findings in each case, with very strong evidence in the U Penn case. Wikipedia policy dictates that in the cases when the author and content are PETA and 1980s ALF raids, that PETA be treated as an unreliable source. In cases in which the content is different, re-consideration of reliability would be required. --Animalresearcher (talk) 13:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is the relevant text from the Britches page which includes one reliable third party source on the unreliability of PETA.--Animalresearcher (talk) 23:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reliability of PETA videos about ALF raids

A similar film was released after the ALF raid on the University of Pennsylvania one year earlier. The Office for Protection from Research Risks ran an investigation on the incident, due to concern about animal treatment in the labs. The investigation included comparing the video footage taken in the U Penn raid with the Unnecessary Fuss video produced by PETA and containing Ingrid Newkirk's voiceover. The PETA video "presented the case history of only one of approximately 150 animals that had received whiplash. By clever editing and inaccurate voice over, the viewer was led to believe that the inhumane treatment depicted on the film was repeated numerous times. In actual fact, one baboon was badly treated, and the film repeatedly showed the particular mistreatment while the commentator narrated that the mistreatment was repeated on a long series of different animals. In all, OPRR identified approximately 25 errors in the voice over description of what was taking place."[7]

[edit] break last

260 TEST ANIMALS 'LIBERATED' FROM LAB Chicago Tribune (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Chicago, Ill. Author: Chicago Tribune wires Date: Apr 21, 1985 The Animal Liberation Front claimed the "rescue" Saturday of 260 laboratory animals from a University of California research center. "Early this morning, (16 members of) the Animal Liberation Front rescued 260 animals" from laboratories at the university's Riverside campus, Vicky Miller of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said. She said the university "has been using animals in experiments on sight deprivation and isolation for the last two years and has recently received a grant, paid for with our tax dollars, to continue torturing and killing animals." Campus spokesman Jack Chappell replied, "The claims of animal mistreatment are absolutely false. There will be long-term damage to some of the research projects," including those aimed at developing devices and treatments for blind people. RAID ON ANIMAL LAB 'SETS BACK' RESEARCH [SPORTS FINAL, C Edition] Chicago Tribune (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Chicago, Ill. Author: Chicago Tribune wires Date: Apr 22, 1985 Years of medical research were lost when a group opposed to animal experimentation raided a university laboratory, smashing equipment and taking about 260 animals, officials said Sunday. The raid, on Saturday, for which the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility, resulted in "several hundreds of thousands of dollars" damage, said Theodore Hullar, executive vice chancellor of the University of California's Riverside campus. "Research has been set back years," he said. Edward Carroll, an associate professor of biology, said the loss of about a dozen rabbits seriously undermined his research on fertility. CRACKDOWN URGED IN ANIMAL THEFTS Chicago Tribune (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Chicago, Ill. Author: Chicago Tribune wires Date: Apr 26, 1985 Thefts of laboratory animals by animal rights groups could be considered acts of terrorism and may require enactment of federal laws against such raids, says the director of the National Institutes of Health. "There are limits to civil disobedience we can tolerate as an expression of dissent," Dr. James Wyngaarden said Wednesday. He referred to a weekend raid by a group calling itself the Animal Liberation Front on the University of California's Riverside campus in which 467 animals were taken.

[edit] Of relevance to current discussion

Please see Talk:Britches_(monkey)#Proposal_to_move. --Animalresearcher (talk) 03:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Highlighted cases

I was considering replacing one of the older examples in this section with a brief outline of Dolly the sheep, probably the most notable example of a recent animal experiment, and one that raised several controversial ethical issues. It will also be useful that this experiment has been covered in many reliable sources, since it is much better-known than most of the other examples here. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I would start by fixing up her article — it seems a little ragged — see Death as example. Crum375 (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That was just some vandalism, reverted. Another one to consider is the discovery of embryonic stem cells in mice in the 1980s, this is also a highly controversial and relevant result from animal testing and the basis of the current animal research into stem cell treatments. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Dolly has been added. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Scientist

An opinion piece in the New Scientist may be of interest to editors here.

In it, he investigates the claim "virtually every medical achievement of the last century has depended directly or indirectly [on research involving animals]", which is noted in the lead of this article. I suspect his views aren't notable enough for his opinion to be worth citing, but you guys might be interested in his argument, particularly the need to provide evidence for ones claims: an issue we all struggle with. Apparently his investigation results are due to be published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Colin°Talk 18:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, I'll read it when it comes out, but I guess the nub is what you mean by "indirectly", for example if you consider the production and use of antibodies in some part of the research process as an indirect use, then animal use is probably vital to much of biomedical research, but if you focus on "animal tests" in the more narrow definition, this statement is probably untrue. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bernard Rollins

From what I've read Rollins seems to have extended Tom Regan's argument further then Regan originally contended, but I'm very conscious that philosophy isn't my subject. Could somebody check this is an accurate assessment of the two arguments? Tim Vickers (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination

Hi everybody, thanks very much for all your work over the last few months. I think this article is now reasonably neutral, stable and well-referenced enough to be nominated as a Good Article. Are there any outstanding issues people think we should deal with before I put it forwards? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

SHAC video gives me a 404 not found error, is this the same on other people's computers? Tim Vickers (talk) 23:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the article does look good. One problem I see is that the "History" section still seems to give more of a history of the animal testing controversy instead of the actual history of animal testing itself. Otherwise, the article looks good. Cla68 (talk) 23:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point, I added a note on mouse transgenesis and condensed the text a bit. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Cla68 still. The History section is problematic. It contains one timeline for science advances from animal testing, and another timeline for ethical debate and law changes for animal testing. This clue should make it obvious there are two topics contained in this history section, although this is not explicit. The ethical debate section relies far too strongly on empathetic quotations from specific people who do not speak authoritatively (ie: are not spokespersons for testing agencies or the law or animal protection agencies) on the debate in their time (particularly Charles Darwin and Edwin O'Meara), and is just disjointed. For example, it writes As the use of animals increased, so did criticism and controversy. In 1655, physiologist Edmund O'Meara is ... Notably, animal testing did not have substantial increases in the 1600s that are documented anywhere in any animal testing articles. If anything, advances in anesthetics made such studies far more common starting in the late 1800s. The American Physiological Society was founded in 1887 with 28 people. The Journal of Physiology (UK) was started in 1878. The section on the debate further completely ignores any history of debate or legislation outside western Europe, which is today a minority player in animal testing worldwide (and its presence is shrinking yearly as Asia ramps up its animal testing). --Animalresearcher (talk) 13:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I've added a paragraph on toxicity testing, and reworded that problematic introduction to the controversy paragraph. Some good sources on non-European animal testing in the 18th and 19th centuries would let us write about it, but I'm not sure if there is anything addressing that subject. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you will find the ILAR article http://dels.nas.edu/ilar_n/ilarjournal/40_1/40_1Roots.shtml provides a nice summary of the "modern" history of ethics in animal testing in the USA and UK. This is a broad summary written by academic biomedical ethicists. --Animalresearcher (talk) 19:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Also interesting and of historical note in the antivivisection debates in the late 19th/early 20th century. http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/c/cannon.htm --Animalresearcher (talk) 02:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of March 16, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: There is a section order issue, but I bring it up in the NPOV section because that is the policy I cite. Other than that, there were a couple little things I fixed. I might poke around and do some more copyediting. Take it as a very good sign that your most obvious breach of MOS is in image placement. If you're having trouble with dealing with this, I can take a crack at it if you want.The article violates some pretty basic principles of good image placement per WP:MOS#Images, if you have too many images to follow these guidelines some should be removed:
  1. Images should never be facing each other directly on either side of the text (like in Drug testing), it seriously impairs the readability of the text.
  2. Images shouldn't be stacked in long rows directly on top of each other. Please stagger them left and right or give some space between images placed on the same alignment. It can interfere with text formatting (depending on your browser I believe) and it just looks plain ugly.
  3. When making left-aligned images, please avoid divorcing headers and text (like in Toxicology testing), this can be solved by simply placing an image right on top of the header markup (in the edit window) instead of just below. That way headers and text are both shifted to make way for the image.
2. Factually accurate?: Utilizes reliable sources and makes more than sufficient (for GA) citations to such sources. Good work!
3. Broad in coverage?: Broad in coverage.
4. Neutral point of view?: I'm personally neutral on animal experimentation, and this article almost reads entirely so too. However, saying "and killed during or after the experiments" in the second sentence of the article feels like it's trying to influence the reader. It may be true, but whether or not they are killed is a moot point at that juncture in the article: to me the sentence is supposed to be conveying the simple size and prevalence of animal testing, not how it's conducted. Noting that many of them are killed seems to me like it should come in the last paragraph, as death (with suffering, of course) is one of the basic arguments against it. Most importantly, WP:NPOV unequivocally advises against separate Criticism and Controversy sections. The contents of the section should be subsumed in to the History section, and the header "Controversy" replaced or removed. I personally think that "Highlighted cases" is a sufficient title, but whatever you want. I cannot in good conscience pass the article when the Controversy section is segregated against the strictures of our NPOV policy.
5. Article stability? No edit wars, etc.
6. Images?: Meets the criteria, as all images are accounted for with license tags and fair use rationales (where necessary).


Overall, I'm very impressed at the stability and quality of this controversial article. You should be proud!

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. VanTucky 00:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

For readability, please place any comments or questions pertaining to the hold below rather than within the body of the review. Thank you!

  • I've broken up the stacks of images and the left/right image-flanked text and tried to ensure none of them separate headers from the text of a section.
  • Renamed the controversy section "Prominent cases", since it doesn't actually discuss the controversy directly, only lists some of the famous cases from the media. I've also moved the note in the lead on animals being killed to a separate sentence, but kept it in the first paragraph. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for all the hard work! I've passed it now. VanTucky 22:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Incorrect information in History of Animal Use

The history section states that treatments for leprosy were developed in armadillos in the seventies and then used in humans. In fact, treatment for leprosy is antibiotics (dapsone, first used in 1941). A vaccine for leprosy was in fact developed in armadillos and seemed to hold great promise - but was shown in 1992 to be ineffectual (you will note that the citation in the history section is from 1981). See "Armadillo leprosy and a failed vaccine" by H.P. Burchfield, the scientist who (controversially, as Eleanor Storrs also claims the honor) first recognized leprosy in armadillos, in World journal of microbiology & biotechnology ISSN 0959-3993 1999, vol. 15, no6, pp. 653-667 (2 p.1/4). Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dulcimerchristy (talk • contribs) 20:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

See : Scollard DM, Adams LB, Gillis TP, Krahenbuhl JL, Truman RW, Williams DL (2006). "The continuing challenges of leprosy". Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 19 (2): 338-81. PMID 16614253. 

M. leprae has never been grown on artificial media but can be maintained in axenic cultures in what appears to be a stable metabolic state for a few weeks (414). As a result, propagation of M. leprae has been restricted to animal models, including the armadillo (415) and normal, athymic, and gene knockout mice (222). These systems have provided the basic resources for genetic, metabolic, and antigenic studies of the bacillus. Growth of M. leprae in mouse footpads also provides a tool for assessing the viability of a preparation of bacteria and testing the drug susceptibility of clinical isolates (364, 414)

i.e. you need to cultivate the organism so you can find which antibiotics are effective. This review also discusses how effective the various forms of the BCG vaccine are against leprosy, and the state of vaccine research. I'll add this reference to the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Dapsone treatment pre-dates the use of the armadillo, but the emergence of dapsone-resistant leprosy, and patients who no longer responded to dapsone therapy, were troublesome. Multidrug therapy, which effectively cures most patients, is the current treatment, and it was first deployed on a broad scale on Malta in 1972 (before the armadillo) using rifampin, prothionamide, dapsone, and isoniazid (isoniazid is known to be ineffective today). The armadillo model was established in the 1970s (Leprosy in the Armadillo: New Model for Biomedical Research Storrs et al. Science 1 March 1974: 851-852). With the introduction of the armadillo model, large quantities of the bacilli were available for biochemical and metabolic research. Nearly all studies using "in vitro" supplies of M. Leprae after 1975 were using bacilli grown in, and purified from, armadillos. The drugs used on Malta were not the same as those recommended by the WHO in 1982, because cross-resistance of the drugs had not been evaluated although it was generally known that dapsone resistant leprosy was susceptible to rifampicin. The final choices of drugs by the WHO came in multiple stages - first laboratory tests on cross-resistance were done to refine the choices of antibiotics, and then these combinations were tested in clinical trials. The laboratory tests greatly expedited the process, and they used bacilli from armadillos. I agree the text could use refining, but the armadillo-sourced bacilli were used to develop the most common treatment of leprosy for the last 26 years. --Animalresearcher (talk) 15:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Incomplete description of primate research at UCLA

In the current entry about the primate research that was performed at UCLA, the experiments are described this way: "each monkey was paralyzed, then used for a single session that lasted up to 120 hours, and finally killed". This description makes one wonder whether the monkeys might have been in pain or distress during those 120 hours. It misses a key fact: the monkeys were deeply anesthetized (with sufentanyl, an extremely potent opioid) throughout the duration of the experiment. My suggestion is to drop the words quoted above, or if it is deemed best to keep them, at least to add the fact that the animals were deeply anesthetized.

Do you have a source that discusses this anesthesia? Tim Vickers (talk) 19:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
It is not anesthesia, it is analgesia. The preparation is discussed in depth in multiple peer review papers by the author in question. This link has a descripion http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/97/1/407 The preparation includes a full anesthesia to surgical plane by isoflurane for the surgical portion, which is generally the first 1-5 hours depending on the skill of the surgeon, and then the preparation is transferred to a paralyzed preparation, with ventilation, and a large dose of sufentanyl, for up to 120 hours. This paralyzation and analgesia manipulation is nearly identical to the procedures followed in human eye surgeries in which paralytics must be used to prevent eye movements or drift during surgery, and is a standard, approved, preparation for all investigators using this line of experiments (NYU, UCLA, UCSF, and others have all approved it as well as the USDA, AVMA, and AAALAC). --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
For those with journal access problems, here is the relevant excerpt from J Neurophysiol 97: 407-414, 2007. First published October 4, 2006; doi:10.1152/jn.00830.2006

All experiments were approved by the UCLA Animal Research Committee and were carried out following National Institutes of Health's Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience. Acute experiments were performed on anesthetized and paralyzed adult Old-World monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Initially, the animal was sedated with acepromazine (30–60 µg/kg), anesthetized with ketamine (5–20 mg/kg, im) in the cage, and transported to the surgical suite. Initial surgery and preparation were performed under isofluorane (1.5–2.5%). Two intravenous lines were put in place. A urethral catheter was inserted to collect and monitor urine output, and an endotracheal tube was inserted to allow for artificial respiration. All surgical cut-down sites were infused with local anesthetic (xylocaine 2%, sc). Pupils were dilated with ophthalmic atropine, and custom-made gas permeable contact lenses were fitted to protect the corneas. After this initial surgery, the animal was transferred to a stereotaxic frame. At this point, anesthesia was switched to a combination of sufentanil (2–6 µg/kg/h) and midazolam, or sufentanil (0.15 µg/kg/h) and propofol (2–6 mg/kg/h). We proceeded to perform a craniotomy over primary visual cortex. The animal was paralyzed (pavulon, 0.1 mg/kg/h) only after all surgical procedures, including the insertion of the electrode arrays, were complete. To ensure a proper level of anesthesia throughout the duration of the experiment, rectal temperature, heart rate, noninvasive blood pressure, end-tidal CO2, SpO2, and EEG were continually monitored by an HP Virida 24C neonatal monitor. Urine output and specific gravity were measured every 4–5 h to ensure adequate hydration. Drugs were administered in balanced physiological solution at a rate to maintain a fluid volume of 5–10 ml/kg/h. Rectal temperature was maintained by a self-regulating heating pad at 37.5°C. Expired CO2 was maintained between 4.5 and 5.5% by adjusting the stroke volume and ventilation rate. The maximal pressure developed during the respiration cycle was monitored to ensure that there was no incremental blocking of the airway. A broad spectrum antibiotic (bicillin, 50,000 IU/kg) and anti-inflammatory steroid (dexamethasone, 0.5 mg/kg) were given at the beginning of the experiment and every other day.

--Animalresearcher (talk) 20:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Would it be correct to say:

The researcher had received a grant to use 30 macaque monkeys for vision experiments; each monkey was anesthetized, paralyzed, used for a single session that lasted up to 120 hours, and then euthanized.[8]

Comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 20:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
It may come down to splitting hairs, but the experiments uses anesthesia first during surgical procedures, and then a combination of analgesia and paralytics during physiological procedures. So I might change, in your statement, "anesthetized, paralyzed, used for a " to "anesthetized, then paralyzed with analgesia for a single physiological experiment lasting up to 120 hours, and then euthanized". These are relevant salient points. Before, this class of experiment used to be performed with the paralytics and without analgesia. At that time, the same procedures were performed in some human surgeries. It was discovered that some of the humans remembered the procedure and were somewhat traumatized by the paralytics and surgical approach. In the human procedures they added a huge dose of opiates (sufentanil) and the trauma went away. Over time, this approach was adopted, with force and explicit wording in the Animal Welfare Act, that paralytics without analgesics are NEVER allowable. Through this meandering history these procedures use the combination of anesthesia and analgesia that are in use today. Some people may refer to this combination as anesthesia, but that is technically not correct. --Animalresearcher (talk) 19:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for updating the entry. It is much more informative this way. I am not completely in agreement with the word "analgesia" though. It is true that at low doses opioids are analgesics rather than anesthetics, but at those high doses most people would call them anesthetics. More importantly, the Methods section shown above by Animalresearcher indicates that in addition to sufentanil an anesthetic was given: either midazolam or propofol. So I would definitely say that the animals were under anesthesia, not just analgesia. [User:ProtectedModeOn]

The authors definitely refer to it as anesthesia. This combination used to achieve neuroleptanalgesia (mainly referring to the midazolam case) is not well vindicated as a proper anesthesia combination though. For those not used to dealing with such issues, an analgesic does not prevent conscious awareness of pain, but does prevent the pain from being distressing. Anesthesia prevents conscious awareness of the pain and any response to it. The two cases are sufentanil+propofol (propofol is an anesthetic by itself at the doses listed) and sufentanil+midazolam (my perception is that this is not an anesthetic by a neuroleptanalgesic not suitable for procedures requiring a higher surgical plane of anesthesia). But such hair splitting may be over the top. I think it is fine to refer to it as anesthesia. --Animalresearcher (talk) 16:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
On further followup, the combinations are both referred to as anesthesia in human surgical publications on the topic ie: Anesthesiology. 1996 Sep ;85 (3):522-35 Multicenter study of target-controlled infusion of propofol-sufentanil or sufentanil-midazolam for coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Multicenter Study of Perioperative Ischemia (McSPI) Research Group.

U Jain, S C Body, W Bellows, R Wolman, C M Mangano, J Mathew, E Youngs, R Wilson, A Zhang, D T Mangano --Animalresearcher (talk) 16:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV/Undue Weight

Hola,

I've been hunting around a lot of animal testing/rights articles on wikipedia, google, and pubmed (school research)... and quite a few of these articles seem to advocate the minority position. One that jumped out at me was the recent edit I made to this article, in the introduction, where originally the BUAV is said to question the scientific benefits of animal testing. The reference cites the BUAV website, and their website only goes so far as to equate animal testing with the continued presence of adverse reactions in humans. The attempted link is clearly an attempt at equating correlation with causation, which obviously isn't acceptable.

Further, there are no reputable, peer-reviewed sources (that i've found, please correct me if i'm wrong) which state that there are few or no benefits to animal testing/research. In my view, taking the BUAV's "word" on this is not credible, as science should only be refuted by science. This seems similar to the debate over creationism and Intelligent Design--proponents of ID choose to ignore the majority scientific consensus and twist (or outright ignore) the science to fit their pre-existing viewpoint.

In this case, I don't believe the BUAV's views deserve as much credibility as they are given in this article. I left their philosophical objections intact, however, as that is certainly open to debate.

-Monolith2 (talk) 08:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The BUAV are the oldest and most widely respected animal rights organisation in the world. Their views are taken into account, for example, by the UK government when they investigate animal welfare and rights related issues. Their word can be listened to just fine. Also, there are several mentions of BUAV in the article and their belief that animal testing is bad science. Which aspect are you referring to?
Also, there are a great many books available who make the same claim, that animal testing is bad science. Some authored by animal rights related individuals, and some by doctors. Why are you choosing the BUAV references in particular?
Finally, we provide an overview to a subject as the world as a whole sees it. This includes viewpoints that go against the scientific community, and as such can't simply be sourced from peer reviewed sources.-Localzuk(talk) 08:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)



I planned on going through the entire article at some point later this week; that one edit I made just seemed glaringly out of place so I edited it first.

I certainly understand the need to represent minority viewpoints, but much of this article seems to portray animal research/testing as going against the very principles of the people who practice it - i.e. the scientific community - which isn't true. This goes beyond simply representing a minority view.

I'm certainly open to a section on the ethical and moral concerns of animal testing, as that's all personal opinion. But it doesn't seem proper to state - in the introduction, no less - that a reputable counterpoint to published medical literature considers animal research "bad science." Indeed, the very source that sentence cited was to an FAQ on the BUAV website which didn't even declare animal testing bad science, but just attempted to present adverse drug reactions as something that animal testing hasn't prevented. The only peer-reviewed sources the FAQ lists for this section are studies which have nothing to do with the relation between animal research and safe drugs. The FAQ is full of weasel words and other nonsense that would not be tolerated on Wikipedia itself, so I don't see how it's a serious source or counterpoint to scientific consensus on the matter.

Minority opinions are certainly welcome to representation in this article, but how extreme should that be taken...? Should the article on evolution contain a section of bible quotes as a serious counterpoint to that theory?

-Monolith2 (talk) 09:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The lead should contain a summary of the main points of the article. Therefore, there should be mention that the scientific validity of animal testing as this is discussed in further detail in the main body of the article. Otherwise, the fact that is a controversial subject is not getting enough coverage in the lead (as it stands, the paragraph about the controversy is mostly about proponents which is bad enough). Also, there does not need to be a source for anything within the lead, so long as it is discussed within the main body of the article, so even though the particular website didn't really cover the issue sufficiently, the links later in the article do.-Localzuk(talk) 10:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)



Yeah... as I said, I plan on going through the whole article and trying to even things out a bit. Perhaps we could even create a separate page dealing with the ethics of animal testing and leave this page for the nitty-gritty undisputed facts of why animals are used, what types of animals are used, how these models are effective or ineffective, how successful or unsuccessful theyve been in research, the conditions the animals are held in, etc?

You're welcome to revert that edit I made until I get a chance to sit down and go over the whole thing. When I get around to editing what I think improves the article, should I just post the whole thing up on my talk page or something for us to discuss? Or is there some better way of going about it?

It might take me a couple weeks to get sorted, though. Next week is class finals, so i'm a lil bit busy. I shouldn't even be dallying around on WP right now, actually... i've got a paper due tomorrow morning. lol

-Monolith2 (talk) 12:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The controversy should be dealt with in this article not in it's own article as that would be classified as a POV fork. Also, it is best not to damage the flow of the article as it stands, as this flow was what lead to the article achieving good article status.
If you want to make major changes, I would suggest making a copy of the page as a userspace subpage and edit that, posting here when you're done, so we can have a look. Cheers, Localzuk(talk) 12:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The introduction needs to describe what these groups' believe, this isn't an endorsement of these views, but a description of what these views are. However, I've reworded this sentence a little to make it clear that it is describing the views of a broad range of groups, not just the BUAV. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Title Change to Animal Research

This piece should be changed to "Animal Research", with animal testing linking to it. The reason is that "testing" has strong connotations of safety testing, which is only a part (approx 1/3) of animal research. To, say, study the physiological properties of an animal's heart is much better explained by the word "research" than by the word "testing". 69.143.106.43 (talk) 21:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)London Prophet

This has been a frequent point of discussion in the past. Part of the issue is that terminology is different in the USA and UK. In the USA, the term "animal testing" gives strong connotations to safety/toxicology testing, and does not typically refer to research (say, physiological, for example). In the UK, however, the terminology is different. I do not know the capabilities of Wikipedia to have dual-titles, or a differentiator at the top to title the page differently in the header. I prefer the term animal research, but this debate is not about me, and there have been many debates on this exact point in the last few years, and there is a valid point that UK terminology is different. --Animalresearcher (talk) 12:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)