Not Your 1980's Pepsi Challenge

What's wrong with testing Coke and Pepsi on animals? Are soda manufacturers resorting to chimp taste tests because humans overdosed on the Pepsi Challenge in the eighties?

There's a lot wrong with these tests as you can read in the May 30 New York Times. Scientists are cutting open the faces of chimpanzees to see how their nerve impulses respond to sweet tastes. They want find some medical benefit to their brown-colored sugar water to use in their marketing.

You don't have to resort to these tests to answer the questions: we love sweet tastes and, there are no medical benefits. Done.

In the article, one scientist is quoted, “it’s very easy to characterize scientific research like this in a bad light,” but goes on to say it's necessary to test on animals.

It is easy to characterize these test in a bad light, sir, because YOU ARE CUTTING OPEN THEIR FACES.