addiction and animal testing

Although the presentation on addiction focused mainly on the individual, much of what was said can be easily translated to society as a whole. As a society, we (in America) are addicted to personal care products, over-the-counter (and prescription) medicine and medical treatment in general. We are addicted to the idea that the medical industrial complex can and will save us (at least for a time) from our eventual demise and help us to be more comfortable in the meantime. Every product, pill and procedure is extensively tested on animals before it is added to the myriad of personal care and medical product inventory. In our earlier discussions on capitalism, we have seen the disconnect between our desire for monetary gain and the moral implications of the ways we choose to earn our welfare. I think most people I know would find it difficult to torture animals in such a brutal fashion. Yet, masked behind the blackbox of corporatism/capitalism and the opaque windows of the testing process, we can easily indulge our addiction. When groups like PETA show us the suffering that these animals endure, our moral neurons fire and in some cases it becomes easy to refuse to buy certain beauty creams; However, when our life or personal welfare is at risk, our built-in predilection for life and comfort easily override any moral questions. Our choice is 'will we torture animals to save our own lives?', while the corporate choice is 'how many bunnies must we torture to make a profit?'. These corporations use our addiction to the medical industrial complex to make a profit off the suffering of these animals. Behind all the marketing mumbo jumbo we all know the corporate interest is in the bottom line. So i ask you, how much would you charge to torture a rabbit? or How many rabbits would you torture to cure disease X?