for the greater good

it really is the luck of the draw if you believe in karma and reincarnation i suppose. it makes all the difference in the world to be born as a lab rat or as a human, yet even as a human, you still need a bit of luck to have it a bit better than the next person.

'twas the conversation with L, Nuls and Abs over coffee at the Lotus a few weekends ago. (it's locate at The Junction. modern, hip interior with open kitchen concept serving up scrumptious brekkie spread with plenty of vegetarian choices and mouthwateringly large portions. would lay off on the milkshakes tho ~ their supershake still can't rival that of McDonalds' if that means anything) anyway, we were musing at little twists of fate. how L's mom narrowly missed out on getting an education had her father listened to his older brothers challenging his decision to send a girl to school. why how absurd! they exclaimed. wasting money sending her to get educated. had her mom been deprieved of her education, L wouldn't have been sitting here that day enjoying a glorious morning of laughs with us. we're not sure she would've even have been born.

yeah, yeah.. a ton and a half of what ifs...
tis not really the point though. i digress, but hey.. what else is new?

i've ploughed through a year's worth of journal articles from Pediatric Research in the hopes of materializing an idea of Dr I's... who knows. he was hoping to present it at some international conference in november if things get done on time =) despite having an interesting research topic, the trawling of articles has now become a tad tedious and maybe even monotonous. it's also depressing to realize that all these animals are born just so they can die. to die for the greater good that's supposed to be mankind.

phrases such as "blood samples were obtained by decapitation, within the first 24 h after birth in nonfasting condition" and "1-day old newborn rabbits were killed and the lungs were recovered" leave a queasy feeling at the bottom of my tummy. i don't know if that's worse.. to kill off these little baby animals as soon as their born or to modify them with "permanent ligation of the right carotid artery with subsequent exposure to an episode of hypoxia... thereby producing a cerbral infarct" ~ in plain english, they had a major artery in their neck cut, then was suffocated by breathing in air that was 92% nitrogen to make their blood vessels in their brains bleed and produce a stroke.

after the scanning of my mere 250+ articles, i now kinda understand why people would have such strong feelings against animal testing now... let alone animal research. i just wish there was some other way to obtain the answers... =(