Frederick K. Goodwin

About the author: Frederick K. Goodwin is a research professor of psychiatry at George Washington University and director of the university's Psychopharmacology Research Center. He also directs the university's Center on Neuroscience, Medical Progress & Society and is the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Actions taken by animal rights organizations to end biomedical research threaten to undermine medical progress. In fact, many important breakthroughs in the medical field, such as the use of lithium for the treatment of manic-depression, would not have occurred without the use of laboratory animals. Unfortunately, animal rights groups have helped create "a climate of moral confusion" that equates animal life with human life. Scientists have erred by giving in to their demands; in adopting "the three Rs" philosophy (reducing the number of animals...