Research Paper

Research Question:
What is more important, the development of critical drugs or animal welfare?

Wohlsen, Marcus. "Animal Rights Protesters Torment Scientists." Hanford Sentinel 7 Jul. 2008: n.p. SIRS Researcher. SIRS Knowledge Source. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307-0-3726&artno=0000279901&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&title=Animal%20Rights%20Protesters%20Torment%20Scientists&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=Y> .

Marcus Wohlsen is an Associated Press writer who attended UC Berkeley which is the institution this article is discussing. This article states that actions taken against professors who do animal experimentation are becoming increasingly radical and dangerous. A website has even been set up which gives names, addresses, and alleged cruelties to animals for the general public to see, but no serious injuries have yet been reported. This article is important to my research because it offers the negative side of protecting animals by systematically terrorizing scholars and attempting to stunt medical research. Many call these protestors terrorists and one professor claims that it is, "the greatest threat to academic freedom that I've seen in the history of this campus." Yet the animal-rights protectors maintain that they are only revealing these researchers for their moral bankruptcy as a duty to society because animals have a right to live.

Rucker, Philip. "Med School Is Asked to Stop Animal Use." Washington Post 2 July 2008: B.1. SIRS Researcher. SIRS Knowledge Source. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307-0-3879&artno=0000284810&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&title=Med%20School%20Is%20Asked%20to%20Stop%20Animal%20Use&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=Y>.

Philip Rucker is a staff writer at The Washington Post and was previously interned at The Washinton Post, at the Times-Picayune, in Corporate Communications at Humana, and in Economic Develpment at Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce as well as being a legal assistant at Russel M. Stookey, P.C. This article discusses the use of live animals for training at the Uniformed Services University. Apparently live ferrets and pigs are killed in a way that "inherently and unavoidably causes pain, distress, and suffering to those animals." This article repeatedly highlights that these actions are not neccessary and avoidable, but it is pointed out that they are not very frequent, only occuring at 8 of the all 154 of these schools in the nation. The dean of medicine points out that thousands of times more pigs are slaughtered on a daily basis in places such as Iowa for food, so the attention that they are getting is diproportianate to the actual cause and unneccessary. Altogether, this article contrasts from the piece in the Hanford Sentinel because it focuses more on the cruelty to animals and does not mention any irrational actions taken by opposers to these actions. It helps back up the pro-animal side of the argument.