The use of dogs in medical research is a tragedy

More than 100 years ago, two researchers began combing downtown Toronto in search of dogs for their medical experiments. They had already gone through about a dozen dogs provided by the University of Toronto, but the pair had killed them all: one using too much anesthetic, another in surgery during which the dog bled out, and most of them due to infections from surgeries performed in unsanitary conditions.

So the researchers took to the streets to search for more, and ended up buying dogs they would drag back to their lab using their neckties. Some dogs would have their pancreases removed to induce diabetes, while others would have their pancreases ligated and left to shrivel up over the course of weeks. It was a cruel, painful existence.

But it also led to one of the most important medical discoveries of modern times. The researchers, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, discovered through their experiments that the pancreas emits a secretion that could be extracted and injected in type 1 diabetics. Skeletal children waiting to die at the Hospital for Sick Children were quickly given insulin injections, and with them, a chance to live. The discovery was nothing short of miraculous.

In hindsight, few would argue that those medical experiments weren’t worth it. But not every experiment results in a life-saving discovery. And in the century since then, countless dogs have been effectively tortured for trials that ended up going nowhere.

Last week, a report from the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) revealed that a hospital in London, Ont., had been conducting heart research on beagle puppies for years. The alleged details of what happens on the “secret sixth floor” of St. Joseph’s Hospital are genuinely sickening: heart attacks lasting between 70 minutes and three hours are induced in the dogs, some of which die in the process, while others are euthanized sometime thereafter. The intention, according to research documents, is to study heart failure after heart attacks and to trial different interventions.

Staffers also say the dogs are kept in cages for 23 hours a day, without beds (the hospital disputes that claim), where they suffer the effects of the painful procedures.

Beagles in particular have been used in medical experiments for decades, precisely because they are a docile, trusting breed (which, of course, makes the suffering they are made to endure all the more devastating). In his recent book, Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles, researcher Brad Bolman charted their roles over the years in science labs across the United States. “Efforts to determine the danger of nuclear reactors, the safety of oral contraceptives, the toxicity of cigarettes, and the causes of Alzheimer’s all drew on extended studies of laboratory beagles,” he wrote.

Beagles are obviously still being used in research today, though the scientific community has been pushed to find other approaches. The U.S. National Institutes of Health, for example, recently announced it had closed its last in-house beagle lab. In response to backlash from the IJB report, the London, Ont., lab just announced it will immediately end its testing on dogs, too.

The backlash that report received, including from Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was inevitable: people relate to and empathize with dogs (and cats) more than other animals that are used in medical research. We don’t sleep with pigs in our beds. We don’t take vacations with rats. Dogs are part of our families, and it is intolerable to think they are being subjected to this type of torture.

The scientific community is split on whether it is still necessary to use dogs in medical research. Some argue that they are an invaluable resource for studying diseases like cancer, for example, because of their physiological and environmental similarities to humans. Others note that it is not 1921 any more, and that we have other, more ethical ways of conducting medical research. It’s very hard for the layman to reach an informed conclusion.

But those outside the medical community can nevertheless insist that painful experiments done on animals are performed as a last resort, and that the environments in which the animals are held are subject to rigorous oversight. There is currently no federal legislation governing how animals used in research are kept, and nothing requiring, for example, that dogs used in medical research are eventually adopted out if possible, instead of euthanized. Mr. Ford said he would personally hunt down scientists still using dogs in medical research, though a more useful application of his energy (a less bombastic and populist one) would be to enhance the enforcement of provincial regulations under the Animals for Research Act.

It may be that the next major medical breakthrough of our lifetime will come from scientific experiments performed on dogs. And just like it was last century, it will be horrific, gut-wrenching, and brilliant – all at the same time. But we should insist it is a little more humane, too.