Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

by Jane Goodall

It is unfortunate also that the hurdles that must be crossed before a new nonanimal procedure is approved are more numerous and harder to negotiate than is the case if a new animal procedure is proposed. There has been a good deal of research into the history of medicine tracing the contributions made by animal experimentation. This work shows clearly that animals have not been as critical to the advancement of medicine as is typically claimed by proponents of animal experimentation. Moreover, a great deal of animal research has been misleading, and resulted either in the withholding of drugs, sometimes for years, that were subsequently found to be highly beneficial to humans, or to the release and use of drugs that, though harmless to animals, have actually contributed to human suffering and death.