Thedefendersofanimalexperimentationarefondoftelling
usthatanimalexperimentationhasgreatlyincreasedourlife
expectancy. Inthe midstof thedebate over reformof the
British law on animal experimentation, for example, the
AssociationoftheBritishPharmaceuticalIndustryranafull-
pageadvertisementintheGuardianundertheheadline“They
saylifebeginsatforty.Notsolongago,that’saboutwhenit
ended.” The advertisement went on to say that it is now
consideredtobeatragedyifamandiesinhisforties,whereas
inthenineteenthcenturyitwascommonplace toattendthe
funeralofamaninhisforties,fortheaveragelifeexpectancy
wasonlyforty-two.Theadvertisementstatedthat“itisthanks
largely to the breakthroughsthat have beenmade through
researchwhichrequiresanimals thatmost ofusareableto
live into our seventies.”
Such claims are simply false. In fact, this particular
advertisementwassoblatantlymisleadingthataspecialistin
community medicine,Dr. David St. George, wrote to The
Lancetsaying“theadvertisementisgoodteachingmaterial,
sinceitillustratestwo majorerrors intheinterpretation of
statistics.”HealsoreferredtoThomasMcKeown’sinfluential
bookTheRoleofMedicine,publishedin1976,^133 whichset
off a debate about therelative contributions of social and
environmental changes, as compared with medical
intervention, in improvements in mortality since the mid-
nineteenth century; and he added:
Thisdebatehasbeenresolved,anditisnowwidelyaccepted
that medical interventions had only a marginal effect on
population mortality and mainly ata very late stage, after
death rates had already fallen strikingly.^134