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War on Humans: Yes, It’s Right to Kill Monkeys to Find Ebola Vaccine

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Bioethics
Medicine
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Monkey experiments have determined that a proposed Ebola vaccine may be safe, leading to early human trials. From the New York Times story:

The government plans to fast-track development of a vaccine shown to protect macaque monkeys, aiming to test it in humans as early as next month.

Generally, here’s how the experiment was conducted:

  • Groups of monkeys were vaccinated, while others were not.
  • The monkeys were then infected.
  • The unvaccinated monkeys died from Ebola.
  • The vaccinated monkeys didn’t. And the vaccine did not harm the monkeys.

Animal-rights activists would prevent us from making this good use of monkeys. But that is anti-human. Unless scientists conduct such monkey experiments, human studies cannot go forward. In short, a vaccine would never be found.

It comes down to this: Sacrifice monkeys in the hope of saving people? Or spare the monkeys regardless of the consequences to people? The latter choice is part of the war on humans.

Image: Ebola virus virion/Wikipedia.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.
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