Animal Research Quotes & Sayings

If abandoning animal research means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it ... We have no basic right ... not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to. — Tom Regan

We must support and protect individuals and companies engaged in life saving medical research — Tony Blair

My own experience of over 60 years in biomedical research amply demonstrated that without the use of animals and of human beings, it would have been impossible to acquire the important knowledge needed to prevent much suffering and premature death not only among humans but also among [other] animals. — Albert Sabin

The use of animals in medical research remains absolutely essential ... — John Savill

Similarly, some of the more recent research on serial killers and child abuse demonstrates an analogous attention to definition and methodological precision. This is a highly positive development given the fact that child abuse has been cited as a developmental precursor to antisocial impulses and that these same impulses have been suggested to be precursors to both animal abuse and violence directed against humans. — Linda Merz-Perez

If you walked into your local convenience store and bought a package of cigars, you would notice that it carries a label warning of the potential dangers of cigar smoke. Yet research suggests that cigar smoking poses a hazard only to moderate to heavy cigar smokers, who comprise less than 1 percent of the adult population. More than 97 percent of American adults, however, eat animal foods, and despite much research demonstrating the connection between the consumption of animal products and disease, we are not warned of these dangers. — Melanie Joy

Animal research has lead to advances in the treatment of many conditions ... Where there is no alternative available, we will continue to ensure that the balance between animal welfare and scientific advancement is maintained. — Andy Burnham

New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine. — Daniel Akaka

The excuse or toleration of cruelty upon any living creature by a woman is a deadly sin against the grandest force in nature - maternal love ... In not a single instance known to science has the cure of any human disease resulted necessarily from this fallacious method of research. — Elizabeth Blackwell

To continue to be one of the world centres for scientific research, we have to stand up and be counted in support of researchers, go on marches and demonstrations, and back even tougher action by the police and the courts against these terrorists. — Jack Straw

Optogenetics is a real technology currently used to control animal brains for scientific research. — H.A. Ormziar

Animal research is essential to tackling major 21st century health problems such as cancer and heart disease. Without the use of animals it would be impossible, in many cases, to develop drugs or any sort of medical treatment. — George Radda

I became a vegetarian at 15. I was always an animal lover and, as a teenager, became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of eating meat. It was then that I started to research vegetarianism. — Laura Mennell

We remain of the view that in many areas of research we are still reliant on primates to achieve our goals for improving human health — Colin Blakemore

We live longer and healthier lives than ever before. Animal research has improved the treatment of infections, helped with immunisation, improved cancer treatment and had a big impact on managing heart disease, brain disorders, arthritis and transplantation. — Robert Winston

Given the choice of apathy or someone liberating mink, burning down a research torture-laboratory, or killing a vivisectionist or other DIRECT murderer of animals, I will choose the aforesaid actions over apathy any day of the week.- — Gary Yourofsky

a significant amount of Conventional Wisdom about healthy eating is marketing fodder that grossly distorts the fundamental truth that humans thrive on natural plant and animal foods or that relies on gimmicks to support the dogma of flawed, manipulated "research. — Mark Sisson

If the age of the Earth were a calendar year and today were a breath before midnight on New Year's Eve, we showed up a scant fifteen minutes ago, and all of recorded history has blinked by in the last sixty seconds. Luckily for us, our planet-mates
the fantastic meshwork of plants, animals, and microbes
have been patiently perfecting their wares since March, an incredible 3.8 billion years since the first bacteria ... After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. — Janine Benyus

There are men charged with the duty of examining the construction of the plants, animals, and soils which are the instruments of the great orchestra. These men are called professors. Each selects one instrument and spends his life taking it apart and describing its strings and sounding boards. This process of dismemberment is called research. The place for dismemberment is called a university. — Aldo Leopold

The survey of more than 100 waterways downstream from treatment plants and animal feedlots in 30 states found minute amounts of dozens of antibiotics, hormones, pain relievers, cough suppressants, disinfectants and other products. It is not known whether they are harmful to plants, animals or people. The findings were released yesterday on the Web site of the United States Geological Survey, which conducted the research, and in an online journal, Environmental Science and Technology. — Andrew Revkin

The elimination of horrible disease, the increase of the quality of lives (for humans and for animals) achieved through research using animals is so incalculably great that the argument of these critics, systematically pursued, establishes not their conclusion but its reverse: to refrain from using animals in biomedical research is, on utilitarian grounds, morally wrong. — Carl Cohen

The very desire to preserve animals was a subjective sentiment of fail in the animal's intrinsic worth. It was a feeling possessed by most of the scientists there, who regarded the wildebeeste migration with the same awe that others feel for the Mona Lisa, but they would not admit this sentiment into their arguments because it could not be backed up by facts; the right and worng of aesthetics being imponderables not open to scientific analysis. At the end of the meeting there was a consensus of opinion on only one fact, that there was an urgent need for research before taking any hasty action. — Iain Douglas-Hamilton

Immanuel Birmelin, an ethologist at the Society of Animal Behavior Research in Germany, explained how patient he'd had to be in order to run a test to see if cats can count: "One of the cats would do the test once in the morning - only!" he recalled. "Another would do it once in the afternoon - only!" It had taken him four years to show that cats can count to four. — Virginia Morell

Scientists have reported that elephants grieve their dead, monkeys perceive injustice and cockatoos like to dance to the music of the Backstreet Boys. — Hal Herzog

Research performed on animals is, by definition, scientifically unsound. — Moby

Knowledge acquired in biological research is seldom directly applicable to human beings ... The results of scientific research, obtained under these conditions, cannot be applied directly to human beings who vary widely in their hereditary make-up, in their environment, and in their past health record. — John Boyd Orr

[A primate ban] would force us to abandon research that could lead to treatments for Alzheimer's, motor neurone disease, strokes and many other illnesses — Tipu Aziz

Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes. — Ingrid Newkirk

Medical research is "immoral even it it's essential." — Ingrid Newkirk

My interest in protein breakdown as a research problem began in l955 at about the time I joined the Biochemistry Department of Yale University. It was known that proteins break down intracellularly in the mature animal. — Irwin Rose

I watched a TV documentary about how animals are farmed, killed and prepared for us to eat. I saw all those cows and pigs and realized I couldn't be a part of it any more. It was horrible. I did some research to make sure I could still obtain enough protein to fight and, once satisfied that I could, I stopped. I'll never go back. — David Haye

Even granting that we [humans] face greater harm than laboratory animals presently endure if ... research on these animals is stopped, the animal rights view will not be satisfied with anything less than total abolition. — Tom Regan

I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? Why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality? — Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

If killing [animal research scientists] is the only way to stop them, then I said killing them would certainly be justified. — Jerry Vlasak

It is sad that while science moves ahead in exciting new areas of research, fine-tuning our knowledge of how life originated and evolved, creationists remain mired in medieval debates about angels on the head of a pin and animals in the belly of an Ark. — Michael Shermer

Animal research saves lives, but wherever possible alternatives should be used — David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury Of Turville

Anybody can claim to be a member of the ALF when rescuing animals, destroying "tools of torture" (such as research equipment) or financially depleting a corporation that abuses animals. — Charlotte Laws

Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons?
Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible). — Gunther Bloch

Getting a handle on why wolves do what they do has never been an easy proposition. Not only are there tremendous differences in both individual and pack personalities, but each displays a surprising range of behaviors depending on what's going on around them at any given time. No sooner will a young researcher thing, 'That's it, I've finally got a handle on how wolves respond in a particular situation,' than they'll do something to prove him at least partially wrong. Those of us who've been in this business for very long have come to accept a professional life full of wrong turns and surprises. Clearly, this is an animal less likely to offer scientists irrefutable facts than to lure us on a long and crooked journey of constant learning. — Douglas W. Smith

A significant number of research studies have documented that heart disease is easily and almost completely preventable through a diet rich in plant produce and lower in processed foods and animal products. — Joel Fuhrman

Around the world, about a thousand dolphins are held in captivity, while millions have been killed in purse seine tuna nets and drift nets. Tens of thousands of others have been "sacrificed" in the name of scientific research, some marine mammals merely to find out what they've been eating. — Richard O'Barry

A zoo is not an ideal place for an animal - of course the best place for a chimp is the wilds of Tanzania - but a good zoo is a decent, acceptable place. Animals are far more flexible than we realize. IF they weren't, they wouldn't have survived. But my opinion about zoos came after research. Initially I had the opinion that most people have, that they are jails. — Yann Martel

I'm not some crazy party animal. That's OK. If you say you want to be the best, you have to do what the best do - train, research, eat right, take care of yourself, and be. Don't pretend. — Shameik Moore

Without animal research, polio would still be claiming thousands of lives each year. — Albert Sabin

Not that it isn't sometimes fun to mention things for no reason. The platypus, for example, is not actually a terrestrial animal but a bioengineered probe designed to blend in amongst the planet's other creatures, sent to Earth by aliens who did not do enough research. There's no reason at all to mention that right now, but wasn't it fun? Don't make that face; it's rude. — Michael G. Munz

However, current research in animal cognition, and on protolanguage, protomorality, ritual, and levels of consciousness, has shown that we may not be as unique as we think we are (cf. Peterson 1999: 283ff.). — J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen

American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. — Christine O'Donnell

Yes, all of life is sacred, including plants; and yes, there is research that demonstrates that plants have feelings - they feel it when their leaves or stems are ripped - and there is scientific evidence that while plants do not have brains and nervous systems like animals, they nevertheless actively work to ensure their survival - they want to live, thrive, reproduce, evolve. — Sharon Gannon

One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Just as animal research tells us that gluttony and sloth are side effects of a drive to accumulate body fat, it also says that eating in moderation and being physically active (literally, having the energy to exercise) are not evidence of moral rectitude. Rather, they're the metabolic benefits of a body that's programmed to remain lean. — Gary Taubes

I wish I could do it again, only I wish I could take all of the animals out of the environmental fur farm ... I have absolutely no regrets, and I hope the same thing continues to happen at MSU and every other college campus that does animal research. — Rod Coronado

The United States government continues to pour billions of dollars into research on cancer, while it also subsidizes the tobacco industry. Much of the research money goes toward animal experiments, many of them only remotely connected with fighting cancer - experimenters have been known to relabel their work "cancer research" when they found they could get more money for it that way than under some other label. — Peter Singer

If an 'animal abuser' were killed in a research lab firebombing, I would unequivocally support that, too. — Gary Yourofsky

Animal research and testing has played a part in almost every medical breakthrough of the last century. It has saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide ... — Joan Ryan