Blog#1

There are many ethical dilemmas in the novel The Hot Zone.  One dilemma sticks out though and that’s the cruelty to the monkeys being experimented on. The monkeys that are being obtained are not animals already known to be infected by the disease. These monkeys were purposely injected with the Ebola virus by the Ebola team. The Ebola team’s purpose is to try and find a cure for the killer Ebola disease.  Although it does make sense why the Ebola team would choose to infect primates because of the huge similarity in DNA structure. Also if the team found a cure the disease they could save thousands of lives. The reason why the animal cruelty is a dilemma though is because these monkeys are practically being raised to either be the lucky recipient who discovers the cure to die while the scientist try to find a cure.  The scientist composing the Ebola team include Nancy Jaax as the team pathologist, Gene Johnson as the team leader, Tony Johnson as the supervising Lieutenant and a few others. Although this team’s goal is for the better of humanity the ignorance for the welfare of the animals could be seen as a major societal dilemma even the work they are trying to accomplish is for the better.