Letter to the Editor of The Inquirer

Brain in a dish flies flight simulator

Dear Sirs,

I most strongly object to the following line in today's article:

"All of the above "experiment" is probably, nay hopefully, disallowed in Europe."

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19481

First of all, this kind of experiment isn't banned, nor should it be.

These are cells taken from a brain presumably of an animal that was about to be killed anyway (and we kill a LOT of animals in Europe, mostly livestock and unwanted pets, often after they have spent long months or years suffering horribly.) They weren't left in intact brains so that the animal might in any sense be said to suffer.

Secondly, the last thing this culture needs is any encouragement of animal-rights activists (or worse, the animal-rights terrorists) to fixate on science. There are certainly unethical practices that need to be monitored, but having this kind of knee-jerk, uninformed response to a perfectly legitimate experiment both:

• damages science and therefore society, and
• distracts those concerned with animal welfare away from the primary sources of animal suffering, such as factory farming.

Yours,
Dr. Joanna J. Bryson