The fact that a vivisector with a history of lying to the
public can keep moving upward in the NIIH and gain increasing power and
influence along the way helps to explain the intransigence of the agency. NIH's
extreme position on animal care and use is largely uncompromising. One glimmer
of hope is the recent change of course on the use of chimpanzees, but in
context -- the fact that the rest of the world had stopped and in some cases
formally banned the use of chimpanzees -- it is clear that it takes massive
long-term pressure and embarrassment on the international stage to move the NIH
to alter its anything-goes de facto policy on the use of animals.
Anyway, Insel's support for hurting and killing chimpanzees
and his position of power in the NIH made me start wondering sometime ago about
the directors of the other institutes, centers, and offices that comprise the
NIH. So, I decided to take the time to find out just how common it is to find a
vivisector at the head of one of those taxpayer-funded agencies.
I looked at each Institute's home page, read the director's
bio when one was provided, which they commonly are, and used either the
accompanying publication list or PubMed to gain some inkling of their past and
current work. The dollar figures are from the NIH Almanac's 2013 data. the most
recent funding information currently shown at the time of this writing.
Of the 27 Institutes and Centers that are the National
Institutes of Health, and including NIH Director Francis S. Collins in the
count, eighteen of them are vivisectors. That statistic is somewhat skewed and
makes it seemed a little more "balanced" than it actually is. The National
Library of Medicine and the Center for
Information Technology naturally do not fund experiments on animals, and it
appears that the National Institute of Nursing doesn't either, So, looking only
at the agencies that do fund experiments on animals, seventeen of the
twenty-four, or about 70% of the Institutes and Center that comprise the NIH
are run by vivisectors.
Given their likely propensity to support work and methods
like their own, it is unsurprising that the NIH is stuck in the rut of animal
experimentation. More surprising perhaps, is that even with all these vivisectors
at the helm, a little more than half the money it allocates to researchers goes
to non-animal projects. Even vivisectors recognize that human-based research is
the best avenue for medical advancement.
National Institutes of Health
Director: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
Vivisector. Has his own mouse lab.
The fact the person at the very top of the pyramid is a vivisector
is telling. As in many hierarchies peopled by ideologues, the behavior and opinions of those at the
top have significant influence on the opinions and behavior of those below
them. It shouldn't come as a surprise that vivisectors promote and support
other vivisectors.
The Institutes
National Cancer Institute (NCI) $4,807,450,000. And an
additional (B&F) $118,802,000 which, "Includes amounts specified for
facilities repairs and improvements at the National Cancer Institute—Frederick
Federally Funded Research and Development
Center in Frederick, MD.
B&F, often referred to as NCI-Construction."
Director: Harold E. Varmus, M.D.
Vivisector. "The Varmus laboratory uses a variety of experimental approaches to understand the
molecular mechanisms of oncogenesis, with an emphasis on the use of mouse
models of human cancer and human lung adenocarcinomas."
Harold Varmus is a past director of the NIH. In 1997, I
participated in a demonstration in front of his Georgetown home. We were urging him to take
steps to end primate experimentation. The demo didn't have any effect. It was
shortly afterwards that he was participating in the formal installment of J.
Michael Bishop as the new chancellor of the University of California,
San Francisco. Varmus and Bishop shared 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine "for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral
oncogenes," a discovery that still doesn't seem to have led to any
therapeutic application.
Anyway, a number of activists had gotten wind of the event,
and wouldn't you know it, they continually disrupted the affair by periodically
standing up and asking Varmus or Bishop about the monkeys suffering in their
cages across the street in the USCF labs; everyone who asked a question was
hustled out of the small auditorium by a guard; most were arrested.
National Eye Institute (NEI) $666,036,000.
Director: Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D.
Vivisector. Experiments on mice and rat's eyes.
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) $2,918,317,000.
Director: Gary H. Gibbons, M.D.
Primarily human-based studies
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
$486,104,000.
Director: Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D.
Gene mapping. In vitro.
National Institute on Aging (NIA) $1,045,849,000.
Director: Richard J. Hodes, M.D.
Vivisector. He experiments on mice.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
$435,535,000.
Director: George Koob, Ph.D.
Vivisector. Just plain evil. Addicts animals to various drugs, studies chronic pain in animals.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID) $4,256,327,000.
Director: Anthony Fauci, M.D.
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin
Diseases (NIAMS) $507,822,000.
Director: Stephen I. Katz, M.D., Ph.D.
Vivisector.
"We utilized plastic collars which were placed around the necks of mice to
prevent them from scratching their ears during the development of CH [contact
hypersensitivity]. This allowed us to assess ear swelling as an index of CH,
obviating the effects of scratching that occurs during the development of CH.
Collared mice: a model to assess the effects of scratching. Takeuchi S, Yasukawa F, Furue M, Katz SI. J Dermatol Sci.
2010
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
(NIBIB) $320,697,000.
Director: Roderic
I. Pettigrew, M.D., Ph.D.
Mostly clinical research, but dabbles in vivisection: Effects
of mechanical properties and atherosclerotic artery size on biomechanical
plaque disruption - mouse vs. human. Riou LM, Broisat A, Ghezzi C, Finet G,
Rioufol G, Gharib AM, Pettigrew RI, Ohayon J. J Biomech. 2014.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development (NICHD) $1,252,430,000.
Director: Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D.
His research seems to have been focused on the
identification of the genes involved in a condition called Hereditary
Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia. It does not seem to have involved animals.
Nevertheless, Stephen J. Suomi, Ph.D., Harry Harlow's star pupil, is Chief of
the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, a primate vivisection laboratory that
is part of the NICHD, and Guttmacher seems not to have taken any steps to close
it down during the tenure.
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders (NIDCD) $394,546,000.
Director: James Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D.
Vivisector. He is
also the chair of the Trans-NIH Mouse Genomics and Genetics Resources Coordinating Group.
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
(NIDCR) $389,274,000.
Director: Martha J. Somerman, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Vivisector.
"A variety of approaches are taken, including in vitro cell and organ
culture, transgenic animal models for studying gene function, in vivo models
for studying periodontal repair and regeneration..."
National Institute
of Diabetes and Digestive
and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) $1,845,601,000.
Director: Griffin
P. Rodgers, M.D., M.A.C.P
Vivisector.
"Mice ... age were injected i.p. with varying amounts of bacteria (CFU).
An optimal concentration to induce sepsis and mortality within 72 h was
determined for E. coli and S. aureus. In
survival experiments using this concentration, survival was monitored every 6
h. To determine the bacterial dissemination to large organs during sepsis,
liver and lung tissues were harvested 24 h after S. aureus or E. coli
infection." Olfactomedin 4 inhibits cathepsin C-mediated protease
activities, thereby modulating neutrophil killing of Staphylococcus aureus and
Escherichia coli in mice. Liu W, Yan M,
Liu Y, McLeish KR, Coleman WG Jr, Rodgers GP. J Immunol. 2012 Sep.
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) $998,389,000.
Director: Nora D. Volkow, M.D.
Vivisector and
cheerleader for vivisection. Long-term safety of stimulant use for ADHD:
findings from nonhuman primates. Volkow
ND. Neuropsychopharmacology.
2012.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
$724,597,000.
Director: Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., A.T.S.
Vivisector. In
this paper she reports on the effects of putting flame retardant in rats'
stomachs: Disposition and kinetics of
Tetrabromobisphenol A in female Wistar Han rats. Knudsen GA,
Sanders JM, Sadik AM, Birnbaum LS. Toxicol Rep. 2014.
National Institute
of General Medical Sciences
(NIGMS) $2,303,204,000.
Director: Jon R. Lorsch, Ph.D.
He seems to be studying ribosomes in yeast.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) $1,403,005,000.
Director: Thomas R. Insel, M.D.
Vivisector.
Previous director of the Yerkes
Primate Center.
He was the director when Jerom was killed.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
(NIMHD) $262,011,000.
Director: Yvonne T. Maddox, Ph.D. (Acting)
Vivisector. She
has not published much recently. Earlier in her career she reported on her
experiments on rats.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
(NINDS) $1,541,480,000.
Director: Story Landis, Ph.D.
Vivisector. She
just announced her retirement.
Walter J. Koroshetz has been named acting director. His work
appears to be primarily clinical in nature.
National Institute
of Nursing Research
(NINR) $137,213,000.
Director Patricia A. Grady, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N.
Clinical.
National Library of Medicine (NLM) $320,016,000.
Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D.
See too, the memorial site of the
National
Center for Research
Resources $1,257,754,000 in 2011, its final year.
Director: Andrea T. Norris
Center for Scientific Review (CSR)
Director: Richard Nakamura, Ph.D.
Vivisector. At
one time he was the Coordinator of the Alcohol, Drug
Abuse, and Mental Health Administration's (ADAMHA) Office of Animal
Research Issues. Past primate vivisector.
John
E. Fogarty
International Center
(FIC) $65,988,000.
Director: Roger I. Glass, M.D., Ph.D.
Primarily clinical research and public health.
National
Center for Complementary
and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
$121,373,000.
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D.
Vivisector.
National
Center for Advancing
Translational Sciences (NCATS) $545,336,000.
Director: Christopher P. Austin, M.D.
Vivisector. The
invented term translational science(s?) is a response by vivisectors who have
been hammered over the past decade by observations by hardball medical
researchers who have called attention to the plain fact that vanishingly few
research projects using so called animal models of human biology ever lead to improvements
in clinical care. They have suggested that the differences in species
simply make it very unlikely that experimental data from one species can be translated into
therapeutics for a different species. The response from vivisectors and the
institutions that get rich by hosting their labs was to christen new
"centers" for "translational" science. As if calling a
spade a heart will make it so.
NIH Clinical Center (CC)
John I. Gallin, M.D.
Gallin's own research is mostly clinical, but even he, the
director of the NIH
Clinical Center,
was using mice as recently as 2007.
DPCPSI
Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic
Initiatives
Located within the Office of the Director (OD)
$1,448,420,000., activities directed by DPCPSI include:
• NIH Common Fund
• OAR: Office of AIDS Research
• OBSSR: Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
• ODS: Office of Dietary Supplements
• ORWH: Office of Research on Women’s Health
• OSC: Office of Strategic Coordination
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