There's something offensive about medical researchers fattening up monkeys to study obesity and diabetes in humans (see New York Times article, "Today's Lab Rats of Obesity: Furry Couch Potatoes"). That we use animals at all in research is troubling enough. But when we force them to overeat and to follow the unhealthy diets that so many Americans choose, we've crossed an ethical line.
Obesity is brought on by people eating too much and moving too little. All kinds of factors contribute. It's our problem--a human problem brought on by human behaviors. We should be able to find solutions ourselves.
Keep the monkeys out of it. Let them eat what they were meant to eat. And maybe if we watch them in their natural habitats--instead of confining them to laboratory cages--we'll learn something about how we were meant to eat, too.
After all, they are our cousins.
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Amen! Using animals for some kinds of research into fatal diseases whose causes are yet unknown may be defensible. But as you say, this is not one of those cases - and monkeys and other animals living in their own environments already tell us so much about what our movement-to-food ratio should be.
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