Editor's Note: Mickey Z (Michael Zezima) is the author of Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War" (Soft Skull Press, 2000). He also contributed a chapter called "Saving Private Power" to You Are Being Lied To (New York: Disinfo Books, 2001), edited by Russ Kick.

If your ten-year-old neighbor strapped down his pet bunny, used metal clamps to keep its eyes wide open, and poured Mommy's perfume directly into those unprotected eyeballs, you'd presumably be horrified. Even if Junior professed he was tormenting Mr. Rabbit in the name of science, he'd surely be on a collision course with Ritalin. Well, fast forward twenty years, shroud Junior in a white lab coat, and voila: he's a esteemed member of the scientific community. This is a world in which animal experimentation is big business.

The roots of animal experimentation lie, it can be argued, in the philosophy of René Descartes, who postulated that animals could not experience pain. We now recognize, in this enlightened 21st century, that animals are not machines. Yet, we still embrace laboratory animal suffering as unavoidable, even necessary. It's the "Your child or your dog?" syndrome, Gary Francione contends.

Millions of dollars have been harvested and tens of thousands of humans have been mobilized to assail animal experimentation on moral grounds. While I believe, in a sane society, a moralistic appeal should be adequate to end this practice, this is corporate capitalist America, the Land of Denial. Thus, it is high time for animal rights advocates, and any human worth the name, to re-evaluate the ethics approach.

By shrewdly presenting the issue as one of choice: i.e. 100 million animals per year must suffer and die to keep the world safe for Prozac and Proctor and Gamble, moral stances are effortlessly quashed by those seeking to justify the laboratory torture of animals. However, if it can be established that such experiments are not only morally vacant, but scientifically specious as well, the hunter becomes the hunted, if you'll pardon the expression.

Let's contemplate some rudimentary facts, with a little guidance from the good people at Wellness of Nature:

· Every species of animal has a very singular cellular makeup and structure. Therefore, the testing of one species cannot lead to serviceable conclusions about another: "The fact is that animals react differently to different chemical substances, not only from human beings, but also from each other. Aspirin kills cats and penicillin kills guinea pigs. Yet, the same guinea pigs can safely eat strychnine, one of the deadliest poisons for humans but not for monkeys. Sheep can swallow enormous amounts of arsenic, once the murderers' favorite poison. Potassium cyanide, deadly to humans, is harmless to owls."

The list goes on.

· "The truth is that animal experimentation has not cured a single human disease. The reason is simple: animal experimentation cannot produce any cures simply because it is based on a premise that is medically and scientifically false."

· "Animal research is not science and therefore it must be abolished. It is only through the use of truly scientific methods which are directly relevant to people (these include prevention and clinical studies of human patients) that we can hope to understand the causes of human diseases and find their cures."

· Even a cursory glance at the large number of pharmaceutical drugs pulled from the shelves by the Food and Drug Administration will offer a clue as to how ineffectual animal experimentation is. Ironically, it's the human who ends up as the "guinea pig."

· Universities, hospitals, the pharmaceutical and health care industries, politicians, lobbyists, private corporations, and celebrity dupes like Jerry Lewis and Christopher Reeve gain wealth and prestige thanks to animal experimentation.

What can be done? The first step, as always, is prevention. We dwell in a society that expects us to live a particular way (that's why every single house has a driveway and every single refrigerator has a meat drawer and egg rack) and pay a high price for it (every bathroom has a medicine cabinet). Adopting a healthier lifestyle can reduce the perceived need for prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and is also an admirable personal choice. But outreach and education are also required. In a society where even the staunchest anti-vivisection activist is helping to fund such torture because the Environmental Protection Agency utilizes U.S. taxpayer money to finance such research, the message must be heard: