On this Thanksgiving Day, let us give thanks for, among other things, the “grim good” of animal research to alleviate human suffering and point us toward methods to cure diseases.

Latest example: In animal studies, researchers may have found a pain “off switch.” From the Science Daily story:

In research published in the medical journal Brain, Saint Louis University researcher Daniela Salvemini PhD and colleagues within SLU, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other academic institutions have discovered a way to block a pain pathway in animal models of chronic neuropathic pain including pain caused by chemotherapeutic agents and bone cancer pain suggesting a promising new approach to pain relief.

The scientific efforts led by Salvemini, who is professor of pharmacological and physiological sciences at SLU, demonstrated that turning on a receptor in the brain and spinal cord counteracts chronic nerve pain in male and female rodents. Activating the A3 receptor — either by its native chemical stimulator, the small molecule adenosine, or by powerful synthetic small molecule drugs invented at the NIH — prevents or reverses pain that develops slowly from nerve damage without causing analgesic tolerance or intrinsic reward (unlike opioids).

Under an animal rights analysis, such experiments could never be condoned — no matter the human benefit — because it causes suffering to animals, deemed our moral equals.

Thus, to the AR believer, this research is evil — in the same way and for the same reasons — as if these experiments were conducted involuntarily on humans.

Under an animal welfare analysis, we may morally make utilitarian use of animals if the good we may receive justifies whatever suffering might be caused to the animals. As an example, dog fighting is not justified because there is no real good to humans beyond blood lust and the thrill from gambling, while the suffering to the dogs is great. Hence the universal outrage over Michael Vick.

In this situation, the tremendous potential human (and animal) good that could be derived from this research to treat pain justifies the suffering caused to the animals. At least, that’s how I see it.

Animal rights activists flat-out lie when they claim we receive no benefit from animal research. The question really boils down to whether we are justified in each particular case in obtaining the benefit we seek.

With regard to animal research, I say yes. Not always, but mostly, yes: Love for our fellow humans demands it.

Photo credit: Don McCullough/Flickr.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.