{"id":763805,"date":"2021-05-20T07:53:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T11:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=763805"},"modified":"2021-05-20T08:04:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T12:04:45","slug":"killers-remorse-inside-the-secret-mental-health-crisis-of-people-who-kill-animals-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=763805","title":{"rendered":"KILLER’S REMORSE: Inside the secret mental health ‘crisis’ of people who kill animals for science"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Briana figures she has probably killed more than 300,000 animals at the biomedical research facility where she used to work. Most of them mice. The occasional rat. Sometimes a hamster. <\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

GAVIN BUTLER:<\/strong> People often talk about the physical, emotional and psychological impacts that lab animals are subjected to in the name of scientific progress \u2013 impacts that include but are not limited to disease, injury, stress, trauma, depression and, in an overwhelming number of cases, death. Much less is said about the effect such things have on lab workers: those people whose job it is to induce the disease, inflict the injury, restrain, operate upon and euthanize the animals…<\/p>\n

People like Briana: animal lovers who ironically got into the industry because they were passionate about working with and caring for living things. And it\u2019s this love of animals that is ultimately driving them to despair… Briana figures she\u2019s probably killed more than 300,000 animals throughout her career. Most of them mice. The occasional rat. Sometimes a hamster. At the biomedical research facility where she used to work, at a university in the United Kingdom, the method of execution wasn\u2019t always the same.<\/p>\n

Some test subjects were killed by an overdose of anaesthetics, others by a rising concentration of carbon dioxide that was slowly pumped into a sealed enclosure. But the most common technique was something called cervical dislocation. Ten times a day, on average, for more than 10 years, Briana\u2019s job involved taking a mouse by the tail in one hand, pinching its neck with the other, and yanking hard to dislocate its vertebrae. \u201cThe last week before Christmas was always the worst; I\u2019d spend an entire day just breaking necks,\u201d she tells VICE World News over email. \u201cHaving to kill so many animals and be part of their suffering left me feeling like there wasn\u2019t much point in my existence”.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Briana \u2013 who requested anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her current job \u2013 says it took \u201clonger than you\u2019d think\u201d to notice the negative impacts her line of work was having on her mental health. Eight years into her position at the university, where she conducted animal-led research into influenza and other infectious diseases, she started questioning the ethical implications of her job. Feelings of guilt and heartbreak intensified over the years. She started feeling \u201cheavy\u201d outside working hours. She started drinking to excess. On end-of-study days, when there was no longer any use for the test subjects and culls were inevitable, she\u2019d dread going into work…<\/p>\n

Psychologists call it the \u201ccaring-killing paradox\u201d: the result of having to perform or witness procedures that harm the very animals one wants to nurture. Regular people will have experienced this tension after coming across an animal in pain \u2013 a fledgling that\u2019s fallen from its nest, say, or a fish gasping on the end of a hook \u2013 and deciding to \u201cput it out of its misery.\u201d In more extreme cases, the condition has links to perpetration-induced traumatic stress, moral uncertainty and compassion fatigue \u2013 that is, feelings of emotional and physical exhaustion that are common among healthcare professionals and which variably manifest as anger, depression and an inability to empathize…<\/p>\n

Last year, a team of academics in the United States conducted what they claimed to be \u201cthe first large cross-sectional study to explore risk factors for laboratory animal personnel\u2019s professional quality of life\u201d, published in the Frontiers in Veterinary Science journal. Based on survey responses from more than 800 lab workers across the U.S. and Canada, the paper\u2019s authors identified a compelling link between the daily demands and traumas of animal research and a number of psychological symptoms such as traumatic stress and compassion fatigue…<\/p>\n

The 2020 paper published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science found that the biggest contributors to compassion fatigue, burnout and secondary traumatic stress among research personnel were a lack of social support, a higher degree of stress or pain among test subjects, and the development of animal-human bonds, particularly in cases where lab workers named the animals. Being forced to euthanize animals and having to use physical killing methods like cervical dislocation were also identified as major factors…<\/p>\n

In March 2020, reports started emerging that research institutions across the United States were being forced to cull thousands of research animals following the closure of labs and the official declaration that any research not related to the coronavirus was being deemed non-essential… People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) branded the culls as a \u201ckilling spree\u201d…<\/p>\n

Animal lab workers like Briana… live on the fault-line of a vexing moral quandary: having to subject animals to suffering and harm in order to alleviate the suffering and harm of humans. It\u2019s a zero-sum game, and there is currently no way for the research enterprise to function while guaranteeing a net benefit to both parties. Instead, many find themselves justifying the issue through a utilitarian kind of logic: the greatest good for the greatest number… This sentiment \u2013 the idea of making small-scale sacrifices for the sake of large-scale benefit \u2013 has gained global currency amid the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

But for Briana, justifying her line of work through a kind of ethical cost-benefit analysis was, for many years, the only way she could do her job… Briana did her best to inflict as little pain and suffering upon the mice as she could: by turning down the lights when opening their cages (mice are nocturnal), handling them gently at all times and, when it came to the fatal moment, by being as calm, swift and competent in her execution as possible. \u201cHow else could I sleep at night?\u201d SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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