The Unspoken Victims of COVID-19
Animals in Labs Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Stephen F. Eisenman, CounterPunch.org
January 2022

Despite encouraging reports from South Africa about the lesser mortality of Omicron, robust clinical evidence was still lacking by mid-December 2021. Policy makers in the U.S. and abroad wanted to know what the likely consequence of widespread Omicron infection would be in their countries, and how long any new surge was likely to last. So, they pumped more money into biomedical research, and laboratory scientists across the globe immediately got to work doing what they do best: torturing small animals.

Jules Grandjouan, “A Dream of the Vivisector,” L’Assiette au Beurre, July 1, 1911. Photo: The Author

The appearance in November 2021 of the Omicron variant of COVID 19 set off a global chase. Scientists everywhere sought to discover the nature of the mutated disease and its likely impact on the course of the pandemic. Researchers in South Africa and Botswana, where Omicron initially appeared, were the first to identify its approximately 50 genetic mutations and describe its morbidity and mortality. They quickly determined that the variant was more contagious but less dangerous than previous versions. Case numbers skyrocketed but hospitalizations and deaths did not. They also found that the duration of the disease appeared to be short; patients generally recovered after three to four days.

South African scientists and their compatriots were rewarded for their perspicacity with an international travel blockade and shunning, some of it racist, recalling Trump’s attacks upon Chinese researchers despite their similarly rapid identification and communication of the genetic sequence of the original Covid strain. Rather than banning South Africans from travelling to the U.S., the Biden administration should instead have invited them and provided free tickets to Disneyland. The sooner the less-lethal Omicron replaced Delta, the better off everybody would be, at least everybody who has been vaccinated.

Nevertheless, despite encouraging reports from South Africa about the lesser mortality of Omicron, robust clinical evidence was still lacking by mid-December 2021. It remained possible that lower rates of hospitalization and death were the result of contingent, local conditions — for example the age distribution of South African patients (mostly young), or their previous exposure to Covid (many had contracted Delta or other strains). Policy makers in the U.S. and abroad wanted to know what the likely consequence of widespread Omicron infection would be in their countries, and how long any new surge was likely to last.

So, they pumped more money into biomedical research, and laboratory scientists across the globe immediately got to work doing what they do best: torturing small animals.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (PDF).

Stephen F. Eisenman is Professor Emeritus of Art History at Northwestern University and the author of Gauguin’s Skirt (Thames and Hudson, 1997), The Abu Ghraib Effect (Reaktion, 2007), The Cry of Nature: Art and the Making of Animal Rights (Reaktion, 2015) and many other books. He is also co-founder of the environmental justice non-profit, Anthropocene Alliance. He and the artist Sue Coe and now preparing for publication part two of their series for Rotland Press, American Fascism Now.

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