Sandgren "Cat Research After all the Drama" and "USDA Finds Animal Treatment Violation..."

The articles for this week while taking on different perspectives, are much more similar to each other than the articles for last week.  I was aware that UW-Madison had participated in animal research in the past but was unaware of this experiment that had been occurring in recent years.  The article by Eric Sandgren paints the picture of animal testing as very humane and had little negative things to say about the lab while admitting guilt that they were at fault for the accident.  The other was more neutral and did not use language that would indicate a clear bias.  The more neutral article is that way for a reason.  They have no obvious stake in the outcome of the situation, it just seems to be a reporter covering a story.  Sandgren has a very large stake in the matter since he is a researcher and wants the research to continue.  Sandgren is strongly biased in the matter but he does provide support for his claim and makes some very clear rhetorical choices to accomplish his goal of persuading the research to continue.

In the beginning of the article Sandgren talks about how PETA didn’t really care about the lab and what they were doing until they had pictures released so they could make it a media stunt, thus hurting the ethos of PETA’s argument.  He then follows this up with how PETA twists the story and how PETA’s complaints against the lab had nothing to do with the citation it received.  The author then ends the article talking about how it is not possible to do this research and make the strides in the medical field that we have, without the animal testing and how the research is not for the money because if that was true scientists wouldn’t receive the money for research in the first place.