This is the complete version of a film we originally made around 8 -10 years ago and it starts with how animals were used in psychological research in the past (early to mid 20th century) using original footage of Harlow’s experiments, that consigned baby rhesus monkeys to isolation in ‘the pit of despair’, as a working example.
It brings the story up-to-date by explaining the then-current ethical and legal regulation of using animals in research in Britain and America, illustrates how decisions about whether and how to use non-human animals in research are made and ends with the question of whether animals should ever be used in such research.
Although the film is fine in terms of it’s educational content we subsequently updated it in 2021 (Of Mice and Monkeys: Ethical Issues in Animal Research) mainly to reflect improvements in film definition and to update some of the spoken and graphical content.