There's been a whole lot of controversy recently about our campaign against some
lethal experiments conducted at two Oregon universities on a number of out-of-the-closet ovine Oregonians. The experiments, which involve attempting to change the sexual orientation of sheep before dissecting their brains, raise a number of complex ethical issues—as well as some really basic ones like "don't torture sheep." Here to explain exactly where we stand on the issue is PETA's own brilliant Research Associate, Shalin Gala, with an open letter in response to the experiments:
PETA's Open Letter in Response to OSU and OHSU's ‘Gay Sheep’ Experiments
After being outed by PETA for their cruel and deadly hormone-altering tests on gay sheep, experimenters continue to mislead the public as to the troubling implications of their work.
Experimenters Charles Roselli of Oregon State University (OHSU) and Fred Stormshak of Oregon Health and Science University (OSU) have failed to address ethical issues pertaining to their deadly hormone-altering tests on gay sheep and the tests' implications for humans. PETA will continue to scrutinize these and any other experiments to ensure that both animal and human interests are protected and represented. ... [More]
University documents show that Roselli and Stormshak are conducting invasive and deadly tests on sheep "to know whether sexual preferences can be altered by manipulating the prenatal hormone environment, for instance by using drugs to prevent the actions of androgen in the fetal sheep brain." In one of Stormshak’s papers, he describes clearly his intent to offer estrogen "therapy" to MOR [male-oriented rams, or gay sheep] to "alter their sexual behavior to the point of being more like that of FOR [female-oriented rams, or heterosexual sheep]." This recalls Gunter Dorner's sexual preference-altering tests on rodents. His experiments were referenced in a paper by Roselli and condemned by the German Society for Sex Research as "openly toy[ing] with the idea of endocrinological euthanasia of homosexuality."
In addition to being forced to endure invasive surgical procedures—only to be killed and then have their brains dissected—the sheep are kept in solitary confinement for up to nine days. Then, in sexual-preference tests, two male sheep and two female sheep are restrained in a four-way stanchion—which is essentially a "rape rack"—and subjected to the test sheep's aggressions.
Openly gay tennis legend Martina Navratilova is standing firm in her opposition to these experiments, telling The New York Times, "The more we play God or try to improve on Mother Nature, the more damage we are doing with all kinds of experiments that either have already turned or will turn into nightmares. How in the world could straight or gay sheep help humanity?"
Dr. Udo Schuklenk, Professor and Chair in Ethics in Public Policy and Corporate Governance at Glasgow Caledonian University, also continues to reject these animal experiments, writing to The New York Times:
I do think that considering the world's health needs a 5-year (and counting) research project on same sex oriented sheep amounts to a frivolous waste of health research resources. That sheep [are] killed in order to answer a research question that will not yield any health benefits for either humans or animals is disconcerting and quite unacceptable. Last but not least, while I fully accept Dr. Roselli's protestation to be not a bigoted homophobe, I can't see how this research will do anything other than further the agenda of exactly such people. Indeed, a brief search for 'gay sheep' in internet newsgroups and blogs will reveal that his work received thunderous applause exactly from that sort of audience.
Amazingly, Roselli told The New York Times that he only mentioned the human implications for his sheep experiments because that is "in the nature of the way we write our grants" and talk to reporters. He adds that animal experimenters "have been forced to draw connections [to humans] in a way that we can justify our research." In essence, he is saying what PETA has always said—animal experimentation is a dubious enterprise that has no relevance for humans; any perceived relevance is artificial and forced, a mere consequence of the way research grant applications must be written to get public funding. Without this connection, he implies that his own tests represent a needless slaughter of animals and a colossal waste of precious research funds.
As for whether the deaths of the sheep are justified, Roselli asks The New York Times, "[W]hy would you pick on a guy who's killing maybe 18 sheep a year, when there's maybe four million killed for food and clothing in this country?" This is no justification—killing even one animal unnecessarily is wrong.
On the surface, Roselli and Stormshak argue that these multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded experiments are necessary because sheep farmers lose breeding profits if a ram turns out to be "male-oriented" and hence won’t produce any offspring. The experimenters seek to solve the perceived gay sheep problem by altering the animals' sexual orientations "to improve breeding performance," yet this has come under fire from sheep breeders themselves. Andrew Fox, a sheep farmer who is on the board of Meat & Wool New Zealand, and Dr. Graham Barrell, an Associate Professor in Animal Physiology, were quoted in a New Zealand article:
Scargill sheep farmer Andy Fox said the study probably was not for sheep industry benefit. "You've got to be a bit suspicious of why they're [Roselli's group is] doing this. [The U.S. has] a very small sheep industry—about five million sheep for the whole country. I judge rams on their performance. What they do recreation-wise in their own time is up to them." Dr Graham Barrell, from Lincoln University, said gay rams were "not perceived as a serious problem."
Roselli and Stormshak also claim that their results will help researchers in offering prenatal assistance to "affected" people with various sexual conditions, such as androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)—a form of intersexuality (people born with ambigious genitalia whose gender falls outside the typical male and female).
One openly gay blogger sums up her objection to these experiments:
Many feel [Roselli and Stormshak] have been unfairly targeted because of political reasons (read: those overly sensitive gays) and that they are just two scientists doing what scientists do, exploring the boundaries of knowledge by testing hypothesis. However, my problem is that this pair, Rosselli in particular … are excruciatingly bad scientists doing bad science with bad premises filled with cultural assumptions. … It is interesting that Rosselli chose AIS as his justification for helping because … the number one problem for intersex people is the misconceptions and stigmatization placed upon them by society and doctors. … One of the problems with an intersex condition is early intervention in assigning gender identity. … It seems that Rosselli and Stormshak fall into that group of retro male scientists who like viewing the world and human population as what ‘should be’ normal and then trying to alter anything else. … I shudder to think what ‘correction’ Rosselli has in mind for AIS women, much less the rest of LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex] people.”
In addition, not only has the utility of animal testing regarding the intersex condition been rejected by scientific groups like the British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, but there are already five U.S. government-funded clinical (non-animal) trials currently underway. Clearly animal experiments are not needed to study this issue.
Animal experiments are not above public examination or inquiry—scientists, bioethicists and social groups have criticized these gay sheep experiments. PETA maintains that these tests are a waste of research monies; they are scientifically dubious, and ethically untenable.
Sincerely,
Shalin Gala, Research Associate
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
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