kedreeva:

I just want to be very, very clear right now. I work as an animal husbandry technician in a medical school which uses animal research models. Without fail when I mention this, people immediately get images in their heads of scientists torturing animals or some fucked up shit. What you see on television played off as animal research is almost never even close to what actual research looks like, from the animals used to the caging they are in to what is being done to them. It’s all wrong.

Animal research is like 95% mice and rats, and honestly way more mice than rats. Scientists have to do a LOT of work and provide a LOT of justification to use anything else, like there literally has to be a reason why nothing except the particular animal they want to use will work, and that reasoning has to pass ethics committees. Their protocols have to get reviewed and approved through multiple committees to even use mice, much less anything else. And once they are approved to do any kind of animal work, they don’t get to fuck off and do whatever they want; they have to do exactly what they said they would do, nothing else, and they have multiple people (like me, my supervisors, the vet techs, the staff veterinarians, other lab folk, etc) all monitoring their actions with the animals at all times, and our facility in particular even has an anonymous tip line in case someone not in the normal rounds finds out about literally any kind of mistreatment. Every single husbandry tech I’ve ever met from any facility wouldn’t hesitate to turn over a lab person for going off protocol.

But honestly? It’s rare. I’ve been doing this for years, and the majority of animal research is just… lab people looking at mice and rats. Some do behavioral studies, or sleep studies, or hearing studies. Some of them study the effect of certain drugs on X organ or system or behavior. Some of them study aging, which is just… scientists looking at old mice. Some of them study genetics and don’t even do anything to the mice except breed them and switch genes off and on to see what it does (spoiler: often not a whole hell of a lot lol). Like, honestly the vast majority of animal research is… kind of boring.

And their care? That’s up to people like me, who do everything in our power to ensure that the animals are cared for to the best standards. It’s literally my entire job to check the health of every single mouse in my care every single day, and if I see anything except a mouse in perfect health, I create a written report to a vet, who is required to come look at that mouse that same day and continue to monitor it if something is wrong. And I mean anything– Squinty eye? vet. walking funny? vet. chipped toenail? vet. scratched itself too hard behind the ear and has .05mm scratch? vet. Research animals are probably the best cared for creatures…. both because we want them to be and because they have to be. Even if no one gave a crap about animal welfare for moral reasons (which we ALL care about them for moral reasons, like so much we have to go to meetings sometimes to check in that we’re not suffering compassion fatigue from caring so much so constantly), research results are worthless if the animal isn’t as healthy and unstressed as possible. We have an entire committee that formed to think of ways to provide safe enrichment items (nesting material, toys, treats, etc) to all of our animals, including the mice.

So anyway, I hope that kind of helps you understand what I do, and what animal research is really like. You’re always welcome to ask me questions, I’m happy to inform any curious parties.