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Experience NotebookSince until May of 2003, the University of Illinois had no policy to protect the right not to dissect and vivisect, students encountered many different reactions when asking for alternatives. The following are student testimonies about dissection and vivisection at the University of Illinois submitted to SILA. They have been reproduced here from signed originals without modification. We continue to get testimonials of noncompliance even though the policy is official, but will not post them until the semester has passed since some students have expressed fear of reprisal from instructors. The post-policy testimonials will be in a separate section to prevent any confusion. New! Share your own story Some students were allowed to use alternatives.Beth Ferraris I flat out refused to dissect in Physiology 103. My professor was very nice and open about it. He even offered the first day for us not to dissect. I had planned to drop it, but when I found out about the dissection, I was ready to re-arrange my entire schedule so that I did not have to. I am now doing the alternative assignments and Dr. Favahvar has been wonderful about it. If more teachers were that open, more students could follow their true interests! Courtney Heather Smith I did not want to do the 10 dissections required of my Physiology 103 class. When I emailed Prof. Meisami I was told that I would have to learn through other means and would have to spend three hours on each lab. I am currently following through with the alternatives to dissection. Some students were allowed to use alternatives, but their instructors made them do extra work.Lindsay Robinson I am a student in the Biology-Honors department. During Biology 251 most of the 2nd half the class involved labs dealing with animal experimentation. To avoid the cruelty to animals I had to write two extra 12 page papers about each of the physiological concepts that the experiments are on. It was about 4-5 times the extra work as the other students, who did not have to do outside class work. I felt like I was being punished for caring for animal welfare. I am going to school to learn to protect animals, not to torture and kill them. Jon Fisher Here's a brief summary of my experience in Biology 104: I was required to take BIOL 104 (Animal biology) for my major, but I figured that it would probably be heavily dissection-based. So, as soon as I had the contact information for the lab coordinator (Carla Barnwell) I contacted her and scheduled an appointment to talk about my ethical objections. I told her that I was unwilling to participate in dissection for ethical reasons. She responded that I was the first student she'd dealt with who had had this problem, and that she wasn't sure what do instead of have me dissect. Her first suggestion was that I watch others do the dissection in class. I told her that I still would be very uncomfortable with this, as it was still a form of participation. However, she didn't want to let me just skip the labs for two reasons:
The lab quizzes basically involved going in and looking at pinned parts of animals and identifying them (there was also a purely written part, but the ID was the part of concern). She couldn't let me skip the lab quizzes because that was the material that we were supposed to learn. So, I suggested that I find pictures of the animals online, and study in that fashion. She agreed, but to make sure that I did the work and that I was learning, each week I had to send my TA (Jeff Heilveil, who was very cooperative) URLs for the web sites I visited, and a brief report detailing how good I thought the sites were, which ones were the best, and how I thought this experience compared to an actual dissection. I did this for a while, and my progress was closely monitored. It was made clear to me that if I didn't do well, they'd have to rethink the system (i.e. I couldn't keep using alternatives). Due to outside reasons, I was doing poorly in the class at first. They talked to me about this, and expressed concern, but I was actually doing OK on the ID part, it was only the written part that was dragging me down. Since I did fine on the part relating to dissection, they allowed me to continue. Eventually I pulled my grade up to an A. On the last day of class, the lecturer (Susan Fahrbach) thanked me for having shown them alternative learning in action. She said that she was interested in computer alternatives (more as a supplement than a replacement, I think), and was encouraged to see someone do OK with them. I sent her a list of the websites that I found had the best pictures for the animals we looked at, as well as websites for "Virtual Dissection" software. She indicated that in the future she was considering incorporating such software into her class. So, overall I had an OK experience. Looking at the pictures (and the animals in the quizzes) was unpleasant, but at least I didn't have to dissect something myself or fail the class. The only things that made it difficult were the pressure to succeed and the fact that I had no idea where or how to look for alternatives, so the web searching sometimes took a lot longer than the actual lab. It would have been extremely helpful if high-quality alternatives had been made available to me. New! To see a letter written by Jon's professor concerning his performance using alternatives to dissection, Click Here. Other students were refused alternatives and were penalized with grade deductions.Michelle Rodrigues I am a pre-med student who is currently in Bio 121 and I contacted the lab coordinator, Melissa Michael, last semester because I did not want to participate in the animal dissections, which include euthanized rats, and live frogs that have their spinal columns severed to demonstrate nerve impulses. She said she would get back to me after discussing with her colleagues, and then e-mailed me to tell me that they were developing a policy for all biology classes regarding animal issues. I met with her this semester again, and she basically told me my options were to enter computer data, but not actually physically do the dissection, but still participate in the lab or to not show up, and take a 60-75 point deduction. She said I might be able to write and introduction to the lab write-up for 4-5 points per lab. These labs comprise 4 labs out of the semester, and 3 out of the 8 labs that have a write-up for credit. I considered dropping the class and attempting to proficiency, but I think I am going to stay in the class and take the point deduction. When I questioned her about the policy they developed, and the official policy is that they feel animal dissection is necessary, so they will continue to require these labs in their courses. In addition, she mentioned that they will soon be altering the Bio 120-121-122 course sequence, and thus, at this point, are not going to invest the interest in developing or providing alternatives for current students in these classes. Other students were refused alternatives but participated reluctantly. Frank Hassler In the fall of 1997 I was in my sophomore year attaining the University of Illinois and I was enrolled in Bio 121. The first few weeks of the class we studied basic ecology which was of interest to me as a student in Ecology, Ethology and Evolution. The class then moved on to plant physiology and finally, animal physiology. There were several labs involving the dissection of bullfrogs. I was very unhappy with the prospect of dissecting these frogs; I felt it was a waste of a beautiful living creature, one of many I had become fond of as a child exploring the creek near my farm home. It was these experiences as a child which made me decide to study ecology, and now there we were, destroying a piece of that beautiful experience. I feel the unnecessary destruction of nature's beauty is morally offensive. I asked my TA, Joe, if there was a way I could get out of the labs and he informed there was none. I was too timid to pursue the matter further, I felt obliged to participate in the labs or my grades would suffer. My form of protest was to never directly participate in the frogs' dissection. I ran the computer, monitoring the results of the lab. This way I could be the least responsible for this waste of life. With about 250 students in the class, and one frog being used per four students for three different labs, I figured that just under two hundred frogs were being wasted for these labs. And I do mean wasted. In our first lab we amputated the leg of a recently killed frog and plugged sensors and an electrical supply into its quadriceps. We then shocked the muscle and tested its response to the electrical impulse, supposedly to learn more about how the nervous system works. The whole frog had to die so that we could make its leg twitch. Over the following two weeks each lab group dissected two more frogs. I feel a sick feeling thinking about those labs. The same sick feeling I felt as a child when I saw a dead frog, shot by a neighbor kid in my creek. The same sick feeling I felt when I saw smallmouth bass poached in the Fox River near my home as an adolescent. The same sick feeling I felt when I found that a railroad prairie in Tolono had been bulldozed. And the same sick feeling I felt when I saw a pedestrian struck and killed by a car in Phoenix, AZ during a spring break trip. Had there been an alternative to dissection available, I would have taken it. I am quite certain that I would have learned a great deal more from a video or computer simulation. My moral opposition to the procedure resulted in a great deal of discomfort and disinterest on my part during that portion of the course. I learned nothing in those labs that I could not have learned even from a well written book, in fact, they stifled my learning. My grades dropped from an A during the ecology portion of the course to a final grade in the C range. There is no doubt in my mind that my grade and more importantly, my education suffered as a result of those frog labs. Other students were refused alternatives and changed majors.Elena Beis I was to participate in a lab [Animal Behavior with Dr. Johnson] where first I was to watch my TA scalp a chicken and drill a metal tube into its head to inject hormones into its brain. We were to watch the chicken's behavior after they injected a hormone which caused the chicken to eat more. I was appalled and dropped the class. This experience was the *sole* reason for me to switch my major, which is English now. Anna Zielnska I am a freshman who is thinking of majoring in Biology but the thought of dissection is unbearable to me. Because of that I was thinking of changing my major which I think is unfair. It's one thing to dissect when you are a med. or vet graduate students and a totally another to do it when you are an undergraduate majoring just in Biology. Non-objecting students have questioned the irreplaceability of dissection and vivisection.Lizzet Jasso In this class we dissected many animals and in addition to our dissections, there were large models and diagrams in the books. At every dissection everyone just used the model because the insides of the animals were so messy that you couldn't even identify the parts if you wanted to. So everyone ended up using the models and large pictures instead of using the animal. I did not learn anything I did not know already when I dissected. Nithya Sunder During my first year at U of I's College of Medicine in Urbana I attended a physiology lab session in which students injected chemicals into an anesthetized pig to see how the cardiovascular system reacts. Reactions were assessed by watching the monitors to look for changes in vital signs. The pigs were brought up for the school for such experiments and then slaughtered. During the lab the instructor admitted that dogs had previously been used until students voiced their objection to using animals they often see as pets for these tests and then killing them. He did not seem to accept that to some students using and killing any animal is no less heinous. We were also told that the pigs were anesthetized with a chemical not used in humans that produced visible tremors in the pig during the whole session. For this lab about eight students stood around one pig, yet in our cadaver labs for anatomy fourteen students had to share one body. As students we were told that this experience would be invaluable because we would see "hands-on" how these chemicals worked although some students had difficulty concentrating on both the pig's visible response and the monitors. The chemicals did not always elicit the appropriate responses leading me to further question the worth of this lab. I also know that some students felt that this material could have been taught using other sources including a videotape available on the web for free. This would allow students to watch essentially the same experiments and the monitors on the same screen without having to buy and kill more animals. I wish that I had known of this tape and presented it as an alternative before attending this lab session. I hope the university considers this option in the future. Arian Santiago During Fall Semester 2002 I took Animal Physiology 202 which was a required class to graduate from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. This class was necessary for me to receive my Bachelor of Science degree in animal sciences pre-veterinary medicine option. The class was taught in two parts by Professor Beverly, which included both a lecture and a lab portion. Previous students had informed me that the lab portion involved the use or dissection of animals in four of the ten labs. The first lab did not involve the use of animals to complete, and my three lab partners and I learned about osmosis and diffusion by studying protein concentrations and mammalian blood samples. These procedures were not inhumane towards animals and my lab group had a better understanding of the information that had been presented in lecture. My experience during the central nervous system lab quickly halted my learning from the class due to the inhumane treatment of animals that I witnessed. At the beginning of the lab our group was given a rat that had been fitted with a chronic venous catheter into its jugular vein for collecting blood samples and administering hormones. My group was told to administer corticotrophin-releasing hormone to the rat that was supposed to simulate a stress response in the rat. We had already been presented in lecture with the mechanisms of the body to many hormones and I did not feel that it was necessary for us to see an animal's reaction to stress when the experiments had been performed countless times before. Unfortunately it was during this lab that our rat, after having been administered CRH five minutes earlier, began having a violent seizure. Blood started flowing out of the top of its head and my whole lab group was in shock. We immediately called Professor Beverly over to get help but the rat was already in the corner of the cage and appeared to be dying. When we asked professor Beverly what had happened he told us that the rat had already been used in the same lab earlier that day and he was not very compassionate towards the situation. I left lab feeling horrible and began dreading the next lab that would involve the use of animals. Two other physiology labs during the semester involved the dissection of frogs. For both the frog heart lab and the frog muscle lab each group was required to dissect a pithed frog. The terrible thing about these two labs was the way that Dr. Beverly handled the frogs, and I felt like he was trying to desensitize students to animal death. When the students would enter the lab he had the frogs in clear view swimming around in a bucket of water. It wasn't until each student had entered the room and the bell had rung that he would put a type of anesthesia in the water. Once the frogs had been anesthetized he would take them into the corner of the room and pith each one. After they were pithed, each group was expected to dissect the frog to either witness the contraction of their muscles or see their heart beating, while they were still alive. Finally, when the lab was over, he would walk around the room collecting each lab group's bloody frog in a clear plastic bag. The reason that I am bringing this information to your attention is because I strongly feel that the use of animals for these experiments was inhumane. Students could have actually learned the material just as well or even better if the lab portion had been taught differently. Computer or video alternatives could have been provided to supply students with the same information without harming animals. I felt that the lecture information was covered very quickly for most students and believe that lab should have been used as a time to clear up confusion and encourage discussion of key concepts. If the course had been instructed in this way students would have been more comfortable with the material. Plus the use of videos would have given those students planning on becoming veterinarians a visual understanding of physiology without harming animals. If there is absolutely no alternative other than dissection then lab classes need to be taught using less animals. There is no reason that every four students need their own frog to dissect. One or two animals should be dissected by the teacher or a student and the rest of the class can take turns identify parts, or witnessing the heart beat. By making many animals available professors are teaching their students that it is okay to waste animal life. Recently I applied to the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois. I feel that this makes my concerns a great representation of the majority of students required to complete this class to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. In the future I may find it necessary to work on animals while I am training to become a veterinarian and I am comfortable with this idea. However, I do not believe that undergraduates should be allowed or required to dissect live animals or administer hormones to living animals just because the animals are available. This teaches students that animals are completely disposable and creates a desensitization towards life. I am hoping that more and more students will feel as I do about this topic and work together to make their voices and experiences heard. Someone once told me that if you are a practicing physician and you lose compassion when your patients are sick or dying then you should stop practicing medicine. I believe that this applies to all lines of work. If we do not learn to have compassion in lab and on our way to becoming veterinarians, how can we be expected to have the necessary compassion when we get there? Jennie Wise Last fall I took Biology 121. In the lab, we had to do a lot of frog physiology labs. In these labs the frogs had been killed a few minutes before when a metal rod was rammed into their head. This enabled us to do experiments with a frog with a beating heart. I found the experiments pointless. The majority of these experiments did not work. The frog data did not register on the computers we were using, and many of the chemicals we were using did not react well with the frog physiology. My guess is about 800 frogs were killed for Bio 121, and I don't think anyone learned anything from the actual dissections. Veterinarians and instructors support a Student-Choice Policy.Eric Dunayer, V.M.D. My own experiences as a life sciences student, research assistant, and veterinarian have convinced me that dissection at the high school and undergraduate levels has little relevance to learning about life processes. Year after year, animals are used to demonstrate the same well-known principles, although sophisticated models, videotapes, and computer simulations could easily substitute. These humane alternatives have many advantages, including reusability and durability. In addition, the right of a student to learn without doing harm to nonhuman animals should be recognized. I, therefore, fully support SILA's student choice initiative. Jeff McMahan, Professor I have read the Student Choice Proposal of Students Improving the Lives of Animals and I applaud and support its aims. Linnaea Stull, DVM As an undergraduate Zoology student, I was not exposed to dissection or vivisection. It was the policy of my University to provide alternatives where they were available, in accordance with the Animal Welfare Act. My lack of dissection experience did not hurt my acceptance into University of Illinois’s Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine program. Further, I found that the non-animal alternatives I had studied as an undergraduate prepared me to an excellent degree for my veterinary curriculum. A Student Choice Policy in Dissection at the University of Illinois follows the intent of the Dissection Alternatives Act passed by the Illinois State Legislature in 2000. This law requires educators through the high school level to inform students of alternatives to animal experimentation or dissection in their classroom. Here at the University, the College of Veterinary Medicine passed a Student Choice Policy in 2000, similar in language to the Dissection Alternatives Act. A Student Choice Policy passed by the undergraduate university would fill a gap between the high school and post-graduate level; students at every level of education deserve a humane alternative to dissection and vivisection in their classrooms. From personal experience, I find these alternatives to dissection to be of superior educational value. Linda P. Case, Lecturer I have read the proposed Student-Choice Resolution that endorses University of Illinois undergraduate students' right to choose whether or not to dissect or vivisect in their undergraduate classes. The proposal also requires instructors to provide educationally comparable alternatives when these are available and to inform students of their right to choose an alternative without facing penalty. Given the increased sophistication and commercial availability of models, interactive computer programs, and videotapes, coupled with numerous controlled studies demonstrating the educational effectiveness of these alternatives (see Balcombe, 2001), this proposal is both reasonable and necessary. It is reasonable because the proposal neither prohibits nor limits the use of animals in undergraduate courses at the University of Illinois. Its intent is not to ban animal use in courses, but rather to provide options for students who, for religious or ethical beliefs, choose to not dissect animals during their undergraduate program. The proposal is needed because there is currently no written university policy that provides a uniform and consistent protocol for handling student requests for alternatives to dissection. As a result, students' experiences have varied from very positive (an alternative readily provided with no penalty), to very negative (no alternative provided, and a penalty applied for abstaining). Moreover, the Student-Choice Resolution upholds the University of Illinois's Nondiscrimination Statement in its Code of Policies and Regulations by ensuring that students who choose not to dissect for religious or ethical beliefs are not subjected to discriminatory practices in the classroom. For these reasons, I fully support the University of Illinois's proposed Student-Choice Resolution. Balcombe, Jonathan. The Use of Animals in Higher Education: Problems, Alternatives, and Recommendations. Humane Society Press, Washington, DC, 2001. |
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