Pain and Distress as Disruptions to Animal Researcher Narratives about the Ethical Dimensions of Their Work

• In Event: Nonhuman Innovations, Nonhuman Disruptions - III: Death & Ethics

Abstract

Promotion of animal welfare and adherence to the 3Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement) is the globally recognized ethical framework guiding animal research practices. Yet animals used in biomedical research frequently experience pain and distress due to protocol interventions as well as limitations in research facility environments. How, then, do researchers construct narratives accounting for these animal experiences? Specifically, how does the material fact of routine animal pain and distress disrupt researchers’ larger narratives about the ethics of their work? We conducted 47 semi-structured interviews with animal researchers, asking about welfare, the 3Rs and ethical issues, among other themes. We found that many researchers typically justified such animal use by appealing to its potentiality for human benefit. Researchers sometimes contrasted their own animal use with more invasive practices or the use of species perceived to be more sensitive, such as nonhuman primates. When asked about personal ethical difficulties with animal research, however, most researchers did not reference animal pain and distress, in some cases appearing not to view negative animal experiences as specifically “ethical” issues. Some researchers addressed ethical struggles over negative animal experiences but indicated these had been personally resolved or reported that any ethical difficulties had been managed by research decisions. In this paper, we contribute to STS by engaging directly with animal researcher narratives regarding animal pain and distress and offering insight into how researchers construct—and dissemble—the ethical dimensions of animal experiences occurring as part of the research enterprise.

Author

• Rebecca Walker, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill