Mark of SB's own Denialism Blog has asked other science bloggers who use animals in their research to speak up and discuss what they do either in their own posts in the comments. I do not participate in lab research involving animals, but I have taken an interest in the subject, especially when non-human primates are used. While I don't doubt the importance of animal testing, I do have reservations about the ethics of using non-human primates in medical research. This is not to say that I advocate the acts of terrorism by extremists as related in Mark's posts, but I do have concerns about what is and isn't being done to primates in labs. Unfortunately, I am generally unfamiliar with this topic and cannot write more at the moment, but here are two clips from a recent Nature special called "Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History" that offer up some food for thought;
(See also: The Great Ape Project)
Those videos are indeed disturbing. Both involve chimpanzees that have been, most reasonable modern Western people would agree, abused. Of course, our recoil from such treatment is not shared by other equally reasonable people. Chimps are still in circuses. Chimps are also killed for food. It wasn't long ago when reasonable modern (at the time) Western people saw nothing wrong with exhibiting other people in zoos. Quite clearly, ethical attitudes toward animals, not to mention other humans, is culturally specific.
Should our concern for the treatment of "non-human primates" extend equally to gibbons? macaques? howler monkeys? tamarins? lemurs? And why should ethics be associated with phylogeny anyway?
Not that I have any answers, just raising the questions.