Last month there was an episode of Supernatural that had an interesting animal testing reference — it showed a lab scientist on a college campus having his arms eaten by an alligator, and implied that the scientist deserved it since he was involved in animal testing. I thought this was really interesting because I’ve never seen a mainstream television show address the brutality of animal testing before. It turns out the writer for the episode (”Tall Tales”) is John Shiban — so John Shiban, I think that was a great episode — thanks!
Not to say that other shows don’t discuss animal testing — in fact, that same week there was a Veronica Mars episode that spent a lot of time explaining both sides of the animal testing debate. But that Veronica Mars episode really bothered me because it never mentioned the fact that animal testing is for the most part obsolete (check out the many modern alternatives to animal testing!), and that even if it weren’t, it’s a brutal, sadistic career to have. People who do that kind of thing in the real world are arrested for animal abuse, but people in universities and pharmacology labs who torture and kill rats and rabbits (and sometimes cats, dogs, and monkeys) are lauded for their contributions to science.
