Fortunately, most of us enjoy good health, and the agony of watching one's child die has become a rare experience.Yet our good fortune should not make us unappreciative.Protection from serious sickness and drugs to combat heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke are all based on animal research.Most complex surgical procedures such as heart or hip surgery and organ transplantation surgeries were initially developed in animals.Techniques to replace defective genes, the cause of so much disease, as well as the development of synthetic organs are presently undergoing animal studies.These studies, and any subsequent advances, will effectively end if animal research is severely restricted.In America today, death has become an event isolated from our daily existence.As a doctor who has watched many children die and seen their parents' infinite grief,I am particularly angered by any minute expression of caring for the suffering of creatures and so little for sick and dying human beings.People are too protected from the reality of human life and death and what it means.Make no mistake, however. I would never advocate needless cruel treatment of animals.
