Animal diseases and a sense of crisis

Men and beasts are not equal -- they were made by the Creator differently.

Animals were created with instincts, while man was created with the ability to think clearly and make decisions based on reason rather than emotion.

Whatever the philosophical or theological arguments they use, many people believe humans are created higher than animals and cannot be used in experiments.

However man, with his sound mind, can conduct experiments on animals -- or 'guinea pigs' -- for the advancement of humans.

For more sophisticated scientific purposes, people put baboons in laboratories instead of rabbits but the substance, however, remains the same -- the rabbit is still a rabbit and the baboon is still a baboon, that is, an animal -- or a 'guinea pig'.

Some believe that an animal which dies in an experiment is superior to other animals -- it has become a martyr -- dying so that people may better survive. Never before has man died for the survival of animals.

Considering what we already know about animals, it is not surprising that certain diseases that strike animals may hold the seeds of an epidemic which could strike people at any time.

Animal diseases that we take for granted could end up crossing over into humans, causing a global plague of catastrophic proportions.

This nation should learn lessons from the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), mad cow disease and bird flu in the region.

These outbreaks have shown us there should be a "sense of crisis" in our response to animal diseases.

And if ever there was a time when a nation's or a government's sense of crisis should be questioned, that time is now.

Mad cow disease, bird flu and SARS are epidemics that can strike Indonesians at any time, if the government remains indifferent to them.

The reason is clear: if human diseases are sometimes underestimated, more so are animal diseases.

Ignoring them, as our government has done, is the height of stupidity. -- Media Indonesia, Jakarta