On Lab Animals in Medical Research

To stem off of my last week’s posting about our dear friend Jeffo’s passing, I would like to take the time to support and hopefully bring to light justification for laboratory animal use in the medical research field to those of you are ignorant enough to disagree with it.

After an amazing experience in Alaska in 2009, I was offered a position at Genzyme Corporation as an Animal Care Technician (that’s right:  I went from cutting up mice for birds of prey to feed on to taking care of those mice in a lab).  I was, at the time, unaware of the direct significance my job had on what my friend Jeffo was dealing with.  About 6 months into working at Genzyme, I spoke with one of the researchers about what they were working on, and came to find that they were testing drugs which would inhibit the body’s rejection of a foreign heart in the recipient.  In these mice, there were literally 2 hearts pumping at the same time.  I felt SO proud to be helping with this research which could play a HUGE role in one of my best friends’ future, and immediately told him about it when I got home that day.

When I moved out to Los Angeles to work at UCLA in an almost identical setting, I was surprised to find that there are often extremely large anti-lab animal research protests.  It infuriated me to think that these people were all against what I (and countless others) believe to be such a respectable and important career, but I didn’t let it bother me too much.  It was only after Jeffo’s passing a couple of weeks ago that I thought of the situation again.

Have these idiots ever processed in their brains what their outlook on the matter would be if it were their child, or mother, or brother, or sister suffering and succumbing to a rare disease?  How would they feel if one of their best friend’s was losing a battle with an incurable disease?  I’m willing to bet that 99% of those animal “activists” would chose to have a few people investigate how to cure the disease rather than sit by and accept it.  If you happen to be one of these idiots, come talk to me when you lose someone you care about in said situation.

I know that by cleaning mouse cages for a year may have helped to save someone’s life, and I am extremely proud to be working in this field.  Even if all that comes out of this career is that one time I got to tell Jeffo about the research, and to have him tell me it made his day, this has been worth every minute.

Memorandum

               For the past 6 weeks, I have failed to update this blog.  I know, I said it would be 52 weeks straight of me writing in this, but things change, though I have decided to write as much as possible still.  Since I last updated, there is only one topic who trumps all the others, and that is the passing of our good friend Jeff O’Brien.

                Jeffo didn’t learn about his heart condition until he was 19 and has been fighting an unfathomable battle for the last 7 years, which finally defeated him on the 18^th of March.  There are reasons for things to happen, and there are things which seem unreasonable to be happening.  Jeffo’s condition was one of the unreasonable ones.  Jeffo’s entire journey was one that a close group of friends and I got to be a part of, and over the last 7 years I got to witness strength that I am certain I will never be able to fully comprehend.

                Jeffo and I were religiously tied to hockey from a young age.  We lived within a half mile of each other, and I suppose it’s no surprise that we grew up playing street hockey almost every day after school with a group of like-minded individuals.  It wasn’t until Jeffo went off to college (and then myself a year later as well) that we stopped playing hockey in such large quantities.  A few months before Jeffo’s condition hindered his ability to play, we resurrected the same old, worn, discolored hockey net (which still to this day remains functional) and shot around in his driveway until the sunlight had dissipated in the evening sky.

In lieu of street hockey, Jeffo created a Fantasy Hockey League group for us all to join some 5 years ago.  Up until his passing, he won more than anyone else in that league, and it’s fair to say that he loved hockey more than any of us.  He sat atop the league standings by an unforgiving margin the day he passed away, and will remain league champion always.

                Some stories have the power to change lives, and Jeffo’s story has done that to me.  I will always be thankful for what I have been given, and never take a day for granted.  We never know what kind of a curveball the future can throw, and where we will be in 5 years from now, or 5 MINUTES from now.  Live for the present, not for the future.  Jeffo’s quote which he chose to have hanging above him at the wake states it best:  “And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”

Thanks for the decades of good memories, fun times, and hockey talk, buddy.  <3