That's the frank argument put forward by the Foundation for Biomedical Research, which announced today that they will be putting up rat vs. child billboards in several US cities, including Portland.

Here's the billboard:

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These billboards are part of the group's "Research Saves" campaign, which argues, simply: Animal research saves human and animal lives. The billboard should be up on I-84 and also on SE Powell.

OHSU's primate research lab has been the target of anti-animal testing protests for years. Their most recent work, which got a write-up in the New York Times, involved making a bunch of monkeys obese to test the effect of diet drugs and gastric bypasses. A spokeswoman for PETA quipped, "Gee, couldn’t [they] have hung out at the local McDonald’s and learned the same thing?”

h/t to Joe Rojas Burke