Soinreadingthefollowingpagesbearinmindthattheyare
drawnfromsourcesfavorabletotheexperimenters;andifthe
resultsoftheexperimentsdonot appeartobeofsufficient
importancetojustifythesufferingtheycaused,rememberthat
these examples are all taken from the small fraction of
experiments that editors considered significant enough to
publish. One last warning. The reports published in the
journalsalwaysappearunderthenamesoftheexperimenters.
I have generally retained
thesenames,sinceIseenoreasontoprotect experimenters
behindacloakofanonymity.Nevertheless,itshouldnotbe
assumed thatthepeoplenamedareespeciallyevilor cruel
people.Theyaredoingwhattheyweretrainedtodoandwhat
thousands of their colleagues do. The experiments are
intended to illustrate not sadism on the part of individual
experimenters but the institutionalized mentality of
speciesismthatmakesitpossiblefortheseexperimentersto
dothesethingswithoutseriousconsiderationoftheinterests
of the animals they are using.
Manyofthemostpainfulexperimentsareperformedinthe
fieldof psychology.To givesome ideaof thenumbers of
animalsexperimentedoninpsychologylaboratories,consider
that during 1986 the National Institute of Mental Health
funded 350 experimentsonanimals. TheNIMHisjustone
sourceoffederalfundingforpsychologicalexperimentation.
The agency spent over $11 million on experiments that
involveddirectmanipulationofthebrain,over$5millionon
experimentsthatstudiedtheeffectsdrugshaveonbehavior,
almost$3milliononlearningandmemoryexperiments,and
over$2milliononexperimentsinvolvingsleepdeprivation,
stress,fear,andanxiety.Thisgovernmentagencyspentmore
than $30 million dollars on animal experiments in one year.^28