New Book Sweeping the Nation

Go to www.ThankingTheMonkey.com for video and reviews!

Barack Obama

It has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty," he writes about the antislavery movement of the 19th century. "Knowing this, I can't summarily dismiss those possessed of similar certainty today--the antiabortion activist ... the animal rights activist who raids a laboratory--no matter how deeply I disagree with their views. I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty--for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute.

The Audacity of Hope, in "The Fresh Face," Time, Oct. 15, 2006.

ONPRC: flops of the past five years

The Oregon National Primate Research Center has a list of its purported medical accomplishments on its website. I thought it might be instructive to look at these claims in order to understand what is passed off as science to an unsuspecting largely uncritical public.

40 years of health discoveries:

Top contributions of past five years
ONPRC scientists conduct basic research. They have built a record of accomplishment, most often in the form of contributions to the groundwork for pharmaceutical and clinical studies. Click below to learn how, just in recent years, they have:

Discovered early indicator of maternal infection that may serve as method for preventing premature birth

This claim is linked to an undated news release-like document citing unspecified research published, apparently, by Michael Gravett, MD. Why didn't they link to the actual paper? ONPRC says:

Center team discovers early indicator of infection, possible method for preventing premature birth.

It is a perfect example of the value of translational research (bringing together data from both animal and human studies), of new biotechnologies and of scientific collaboration in solving human health problems.

But, this isn't translational research. Translational research is the idea of taking experimental results (usually from experiments on animals) and applying them in clinical settings with benefit to the human patients. No human patients were helped in this study, and further, the banked human serum was used only as a benchmark to evaluate the monkey data. The paper is primarily a discussion of how they went about evaluating the human data; the monkey component is actually little more than a very cruel sideshow.

Further, though not mentioned by ONPRC, the research design and results were criticised by a group of six scientists from Yale University, Ciphergen Biosystems (Fremont, California), and the University of Maryland. Gravett et al responded that their results would have to be proved prospectively on a larger group of pregnant humans.

Advanced the possibility of ovarian tissue transplants as a means of preserving fertility for cancer patients

This links to news release that claims:

OHSU SCIENTISTS ADVANCE FERTILITY PRESERVATION PROCEDURE

Birth of a healthy monkey following ovarian tissue transplant may lead to new methods for preserving fertility in cancer survivors...

Here's a link to the abstract of the paper they are referring to. The date of the paper is 2004. It isn't at all clear that this is a breakthrough or even a halting advance. For instance, in 2001, it was reported that transplanted ovarian tissue in women could function and even produce oocytes. The birth of a monkey from the transplantation of oocytes produced from transplanted tissue seems more of a Ripley's sort of demonstration that a meaningful advance in human medical treatments.

Discovered that the hormone leptin, which is involved in fetal development, may influence later life obesity risk

In mice. And, moreover, the connection between obesity in certain mutant mice and leptin has been under almost constant study since at least 1995.

Found that the smallpox vaccine provides long-term protection

I'm laughing out loud. The linked article says:

But Mark Slifka and his team at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of the Oregon Health and Science University decided to test this assumption. Slifka and his team studied people who were vaccinated anywhere from one month ago to 75 years ago, and found that more than 90 percent are still protected.

So, the Oregon Primate Center implies this is a result of experiments on monkeys?

Confirmed that physical exercise is beneficial to brain health

No, this is an example of pseudoscience. Animal sudies cannot confirm a hypothesis about human biology. Testing a hypothesis and disproving or validating it is achieved through rigorous evaluation of a body of pertinent data. In regard to meaningful claims about the relationship between exercise and mental health, meaningful multiple meta-analyses of human-based research have been published, making Judy Cameron's cruel demonstrations particularly disgusting. See for instance: Landers, D.M. (1999). The Influence of Exercise on Mental Health. In: C.B. Corbin & R.P. Pangrazi (Eds.), Toward a Better Understanding of Physical Fitness & Activity, Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway.

Uncovered new information to help menopausal women suffering from depression

The linked reference is an abstract to an article reviewing Cynthia Bethia's lab's years of work "on the actions of estrogens and progestins in the serotonin neural system of nonhuman primates." Does any of that body of work purport to having uncovered new information that has helped menopausal women suffering from depression? Apparently not. Bethea's work is uniformily descriptive physiology. Maybe that's why the ONPRC claim is so non-specific.

Identified a virus that serves as a model for understanding and preventing HIV infection in humans

Just to clarify, I'm not too sure when this page was created, but giving ONPRC the benefit of the doubt, let's assume it was 2005; this would mean then that none of this research occurred before 2000 since these are the "top accomplishments of the past five years." But the linked reference for this wild claim is to an abstract of a 1985 paper. Maybe they think that this "discovery" is so important that it must be included in any list of accomplishments, no matter the parameters. So, is their claim accurate? The paper is "Isolation of a new serotype of simian acquired immune deficiency syndrome type D retrovirus from Celebes black macaques (Macaca nigra) with immune deficiency and retroperitoneal fibromatosis." The virus discovered by ORPRC is SRV-2 (SAIDS retrovirus-2, or more commonly today, simian retrovirus-2, or SRV-D.) One way to evaluate the purported importance of this virus in research today is to consult the CRISP database.

For instance, searches for SIVmac251 or SIVmac239 for FY 2007 return 6 and 15 hits respectively, all using the viruses as models of HIV. On the other hand, a search for SRV-2 or SRV-D returns 4 hits, and all of them are grants for the establishment of breeding colonies of macaques that are free from various visuses including SRV-D. There aren't any grants listed using monkeys infected with SRV-D. The primate vivisection community seems to have turned its back on this virus as a model for anything, which makes ONPRC's claim appear particularly hollow. And this, a "discovery" made in 1985, is listed as one of their top discoveries in the past 5 years. Whoo-hoo!

Been responsible for major nutritional improvements in infant formula used around the world

And what sort of cad would be against improvements in infant formula?

But Martha Neuringer wasn't trying to improve infant formula. Obviously, the best infant formula for normal babies would be the formula that most closely approximates mother's milk, obviously. Much of Neuringer's work focused on the neurological effects on infant monkeys when acknowledged key amino acids were eliminated from their diets. And she showed convincingly and repetitively, that these nutritional depriviations resulted in deficits in normal brain development in infants raised without their mothers and without social interactions with other monkeys. She's an evil bitch, and any claim that her research helped human children is a grotesque mutation of her actual research history.

Coincidentally, Martha Neuringer is the first primate vivisector whose research I learned about ... a lifetime ago. I heard about her research in 1997 from a veterinarian name Sheri Speede who had done a significant amount of digging to find out just what Neuringer was up to.

From a pamphlet written by Dr. Speede:

Dr. Neuringer adamantly denies that she treats her monkeys in a “cruel or cavalier” manner. However, she herself has described the infants in her experiments as suffering from severe emotional and psychological stress, as well as prolonged diarrhea, before she eventually kills them to examine their eyes and brains.

Neuringer forcibly removes the infant monkeys from their mothers on the day they are born to house them alone in steel cages. Because rhesus monkeys are among the most social of all primates, the price in terror to these babies and mothers is impossible to overstate.

The mothers grieve for the loss of their babies for days. The infants’ stress, terror, and depression are manifested in constant rocking and swaying; continued clutching at themselves; and self-mutilation.

To compound the abuse, Dr. Neuringer drills holes into the skulls of some of the babies to remove pieces of their brains. They endure painful recovery from these brain surgeries as many as four times before they are killed at or before 3 years of age.

Neuringer attempts to justify her cruel experiments by proposing to answer what she describes as a “remaining critical question”: Do human babies really need the preformed long-chain fatty acids present in human breast milk?

But this question has already been answered. Based on existing knowledge and scientific evidence, the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and the British Nutrition Foundation have already recommended that human infant formula be supplemented with these fatty acids in amounts similar to those in human breast milk.

Based on these recommendations, European and Japanese companies have already started adding these long-chain fatty acids to their infant formulas.

In 1991 - three years before proposing to abuse more monkeys at taxpayer expense - Neuringer herself wrote, “Ideally, the fat content and fatty acid composition of infant formula should resemble human milk. This seems reasonable and technologically feasible.”

Dr. Neuringer’s fatty acid experiments are consistent with her long history of isolating and killing infant monkeys to confirm already-known nutritional effects. This can clearly be seen in her earlier taurine deprivation “research.”

In 1984, formula manufactures began adding taurine to their products. In 1987, Neuringer herself confirmed, “Taurine supplementation of most commercial infant formulas was instituted in 1984 or 1985.” Yet, even after making this statement, Neuringer proceeded to torment and kill at least 60 baby monkeys to “further strengthen the case” for feeding infants taurine -- a case that had already been made.

In 1993 — nine years after companies began adding taurine to their infant formulas — Neuringer, after describing an experiment in which she killed 25 baby monkeys, actually wrote that, “[I]t remains prudent to supplement human infant formula with taurine levels matching those of human milk.”

I really don't like these people.

Identified an unrecognized risk for heart disease and tested diets to help reduce that risk

You've gotta love the target of this link, which at the time of this post is a blank page... ah, the careful attention to detail by the primate vivisectors... what dick heads.

Mapped brain pathways that regulate hunger, furthering our understanding of eating disorders and obesity

That's M. Susan Smith, the director of the primate center, wonder why they didn't say so, maybe they had to include her lame research.

Oddly, most of her research, if it can be called that, doesn't use monkeys; no kidding. In the two papers that ONPRC calls her "Key publications," [Xiao, Q.X., K.L. Grove, S.Y. Lau, S. McWeeney, and M.S. Smith. 2005. Deoxyribonucleic acid microarray analysis of gene expression pattern in the arcuate nucleus/ventromedial nucleus of hypothalamus during lactation. Endocrinology 146:4391-4398. and Chen P, Williams SM, Grove KL, Smith MS. Melanocortin 4 receptor-mediated hyperphagia and activation of neuropeptide Y expression in the dorsomedial hypothalamus during lactation. J Neurosci. 2004 Jun 2;24(22):5091-100.] she uses rats. Wouldn't you think that the dirctor of a primate center might use monkeys? And why whould a primate research center point to studies in rats as key research conducted at a primate center. Why? Because they think you are an idiot. That's why.

Developed therapeutic strategies and surgical techniques to prevent premature births

Consider that "theraputic strategy" claim. The link is to the 2003 paper "Dexamethasone or interleukin-10 blocks interleukin-1beta-induced uterine contractions in pregnant rhesus monkeys." Apparently, either dexamethasone or interleukin-10 had not previously been used to block contractions associated with pregnancy, and went on to be a regular clinical therapy, right? In one 1998 paper, under the heading "Managing Preterm Labor,: we find the pullout quote:

Corticosteroid therapy, when given to a woman in preterm labor between 24 and 34 weeks of gestation, is currently the only therapy shown to improve fetal survival. This treatment includes betamethasone, in a dosage of 12 mg, given intramuscularly every 24 hours for two days, or dexamethasone, in a dosage of 6 mg, given intramuscularly every 12 hours for four days.

So, by at least 1998, dexamethasone was already a recognized treatment for preterm labor, primarily to quicken the baby's lung development. There does not seem to be any use of dexamethasone as a treatment to stop contractions.

Interleukin-10 is being used experimentally to treat rheumatoid arthritis and a few other maladies. There seems to be no theraputic use of interleukin-10 related to pregnancy other than the experiments at ONPRC.

But how about the "surgical techniques to prevent premature births"? Given that their previous claims have turned out to be distortions of reality, why should this claim be any different? Frankly, I don't care whether this claim is accurate because it has absolutely nothing to do with monkeys or even rats. The paper used to "prove" this claim is: "Cervical cerclage in the second trimester of pregnancy: a historical cohort study." And the authors explain their methods: "The purpose of this study was to compare second-trimester transvaginal cervical cerclage with conservative management on duration of pregnancy and perinatal outcome in patients with early or advanced cervical changes." Patients. Get it? People, human beings. This is one of the top contributions of the past five years of the Oregon Primate Center. Go figure. [But for the record, did scientists at ONPRC develop cervical cerclage as a treatment?]

Developed new, effective methods of contraception that don't suppress the normal menstrual cycle

No they didn't. What they did do was to demonstrate that daily low doses of the antiprogestin ZK 137 316, a drug like RU-486, was contraceptive, and that when its administration was stopped, monkeys could become pregnant. No antiprogestin is currently being used as a contraceptive -- except in emergency cases with RU-486. Claims that scientists at ONPRC have "Developed new, effective methods of contraception" are very premature.

Established models for assisted reproductive technologies that facilitate studies on egg and sperm biology, stem cells and early embryonic development and, at the same time, provide techniques for producing genetically identical monkeys and nonhuman primate models for health research

Well, finally, a more or less truthful statement. More, because they are inventing new ways of making animals sick -- a so-called model -- and less, because such models have such a poor record of leading to improvements in human healthcare. The page linked to by this claim is a pretty fair indication of the sort of things the vivisectors at the primate centers busy themselves with. We read:

Children and adolescents may suffer from neurodevelopmental conditions such as ataxia telangiectasia or Lesch-Nyhan's, Kallman's and Krabbe's diseases, which lead to mental retardation. Adults may be afflicted by Alzheimer's disease or Lou Gehrig's condition, amyotropic lateral sclerosis.

In many of these cases, there are no animal models that exhibit the same physiological and clinical symptoms of the disease. Because of similarities in nervous system structure and function, rhesus monkeys may become valuable as disease models for some or all of these conditions, just as they are increasingly important in efforts to develop an HIV vaccine.

Don Wolf and his colleagues are taking initial steps toward providing neurodegenerative disease models.

Get that? They aren't working on a cure or even a treatment for these hideous diseases, they are trying to create similar symptoms in monkeys.

Discovered a monkey version of the newly identified human herpes virus 8 (HHV8) --a discovery that provides scientists a model for investigating how the human virus causes Kaposi's sarcoma in AIDS patients

HHV8 had been identified and associated with Kaposi sarcoma by at least 1996, but maybe 22 years is considered "recent" by ONPRC. In 1997, primate vivisectors at the Washington Primate Center reported that they had identified "two homologs of the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (human herpesvirus 8) in retroperitoneal fibromatosis of different macaque species." In 2000, researchers reported on their search for a chimpanzee homolog of the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus. They reported that:

Like man and two other Old World primate species, chimpanzees harbour a virus closely related to KSHV/HHV8, termed Pan troglodytes rhadinovirus-1 (PtRV-1)....Despite the close phylogenetic relationship and biological similarities between KSHV and PtRV-1, Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) has not been reported in HIV-1-infected chimpanzees....

SIV in macaques has been claimed to be a model for the study of HIV, and the results of decades of study using this model have been nill. The "invention" of an animal model is a very long way from a demonstration of progress, benefit, or even a contribution to medical progress against human disease.

Contributed valuable data to the development of GnRH analogs - drugs for such problems as endometriosis and breast cancer - and helped find the cause and cure of a form of male infertility

Once again, ONPRC used a non-animal study as an example of one of the accomplishments of its researchers. Conn's work can be read about in more detail here. One point should be made, his test bed was COS-7 cells. COS-7 cells are "Transformed African Green Monkey Kidney Fibroblast Cells." Why not study human diseases and ailments using human cells?

1st in Biomed Expenditures, Last in Healthcare

Close the labs, spend the money on sick people.

US Ranks Last Among Other Industrialized Nations On Preventable Deaths, Report Shows

ScienceDaily (Jan. 8, 2008) — The United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, according to new research. While other nations dramatically improved these rates between 1997--98 and 2002--03, the U.S. improved only slightly.

Lead Poisoning

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

No safe blood lead level has been identified. For infants and young children, lead levels of 10 micrograms or more in a deciliter of blood can damage ability to learn. (A microgram is one millionth of a gram. A deciliter is about half a cup of liquid.)

Of all people, young children face the most danger from exposure to lead because their growing bodies absorb lead more easily than do adults' bodies. Pregnant women and women of childbearing age should avoid exposure to lead because lead ingested by a mother can affect the unborn child.

At higher blood lead levels (that is levels equal to or greater than 25 micrograms per deciliter), lead can damage people's kidneys, blood, and nervous system. At very high levels, lead poisoning can cause mental retardation, coma, convulsions, or death. (Spotlight on Lead. CDC’s Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals.)

The toxicity of lead has been recognized since at least the late 1700s.

Today, there are efficacious evidence-based treatments for accidental exposure to lead and strong regulation of the element’s use. People concerned with the effects of lead exposure should be working to further reduce lead use in manufacturing and consumer products. Further experimental demonstration of the deleterious effects of lead is unwarranted and wantonly cruel.

In spite of these simple facts and obvious conclusions, primate vivisectors continue to demonstrate that lead exposure is harmful to monkeys, and especially so when the exposure occurs at a young age. See:

Wu J, Basha MR, Brock B, Cox DP, Cardozo-Pelaez F, McPherson CA, Harry J, Rice DC, Maloney B, Chen D, Lahiri DK, Zawia NH. Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like pathology in aged monkeys after infantile exposure to environmental metal lead (Pb): evidence for a developmental origin and environmental link for AD. J Neurosci. 2008.

Schneider ML, Moore CF, Gajewski LL, Laughlin NK, Larson JA, Gay CL, Roberts AD, Converse AK, DeJesus OT. Sensory processing disorders in a nonhuman primate model: evidence for occupational therapy practice. Am J Occup Ther. 2007.

Lasky RE, Luck ML, Parikh NA, Laughlin NK. The effects of early lead exposure on the brains of adult rhesus monkeys: a volumetric MRI study. Toxicol Sci. 2005.

No shit, Sherlock

I don’t suppose there is anyone even marginally informed about issues surrounding the welfare of monkeys in laboratories who isn’t cognizant of the causes and likely causes of the ubiquitous mental illness seen in macaques in laboratory settings. Almost all individually housed macaques exhibit signs of mental illness, and a significant portion of them mutilate themselves, or engage in what is euphemistically referred to as self-injurious behavior. (The literature used to call this self-mutilation but public relations experts have carefully modified the vocabulary of the vivisectors.)

This basic understanding of the general causes of this widespread distress makes the publication of papers like the one abstracted below particularly odious and suggests that the general level of intelligence among vivisectors is well below average.

A Rhesus Monkey Model of Self-Injury: Effects of Relocation Stress on Behavior and Neuroendocrine Function. Davenport MD, Lutz CK, Tiefenbacher S, Novak MA, Meyer JS. Biol Psychiatry. 2007 Dec 27.

Division of Behavioral Biology, New England Primate Research Center, Harvard Medical School, Southborough, Massachusetts; Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

BACKGROUND: Self-injurious behavior (SIB), a disorder that afflicts many individuals within both clinical and nonclinical populations, has been linked to states of heightened stress and arousal. However, there are no published longitudinal data on the relationship between increases in stress and changes in the incidence of SIB. This study investigated the short- and long-term behavioral and neuroendocrine responses of SIB and control monkeys to the stress of relocation. METHODS: Twenty adult male rhesus macaques were exposed to the stress of relocation to a new housing arrangement in a newly constructed facility. Daytime behavior, sleep, and multiple measures of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis function were investigated before and after the move. RESULTS: Relocation induced a complex pattern of short- and long-term effects in the animals. The SIB animals showed a long-lasting increase in self-biting behavior, as well as evidence of sleep disturbance. Both groups exhibited elevated cortisol levels in saliva, serum, and hair, and also an unexpected delayed increase in circulating concentrations of corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG). CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that relocation is a significant stressor for rhesus macaques and that this stressor triggers an increase in self-biting behavior as well as sleep disturbance in monkeys previously identified as suffering from SIB. These findings suggest that life stresses may similarly exacerbate SIB in humans with this disorder. The HPA axis results underscore the potential role of CBG in regulating long-term neuroendocrine responses to major stressors.

Miles J. Novy

Miles J. Novy was targeted by apparent animal rights activists on December 6, 2007. Two of his cars were spray-painted; one with “ALF,” and the other with “sadist.”

Afterwards, Dr. Norka Ruiz Bravo, Deputy Director for Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health, issued an official statement calling this “terrorism” and defending Novy’s research.

This essay isn’t about whether or not vandalism should be redefined as terrorism, but instead looks at some of the claims made by Bravo. (I titled it Miles J. Novy because Dr. Bravo's statement is primarily about him and his research.)

Dr. Bravo:

Although the process of labor is better known in species such as the sheep and rodent, what controls the initiation of labor in the human is still unclear. To better understand what occurs in the human, Dr. Novy's research uses monkeys, an animal model closer to that of the human.

This is a very odd statement, and frankly, I have no idea how one might go about validating it. I suspect it’s little more than gibberish. A very large body of knowledge surrounds the process of labor in humans. PubMed returns 1,138 citations for the query “labor AND sheep” and 70,101 for “labor AND human.”

Dr. Bravo:

Dr. Novy's research is fundamentally important to help prevent early preterm delivery that can result in devastating effects on newborn children and their quality of life in later years.

This reeks of fanaticism. No research can be fairly claimed to be fundamentally important prospectively. One can claim after the fact that some discovery was fundamentally important, but claims regarding on-going research must always be couched in could or might or hopefully.

Dr. Bravo:

His current research involves preventing one of the major causes of premature birth: infections associated with preterm labor.

His “current research” has been underway for least 14 years at the time of this writing. (An experimental model for intraamniotic infection and preterm labor in rhesus monkeys. Gravett MG, Witkin SS, Haluska GJ, Edwards JL, Cook MJ, Novy MJ. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1994.) Interestingly, to me at least, is the fact that in this, his first paper on infections associated with preterm labor, he writes as if he has made a possible discovery:

Our data provide evidence for a cause-and-effect relationship between intraamniotic infection and preterm labor and support the utility of measuring interleukin-6 or other cytokines in the diagnosis of intraamniotic infection.

But years before Novy’s “discovery” researchers at Yale, studying human pregnancy, wrote:

These studies implicate IL-6 in the host response to intrauterine infection and suggest that evaluation of AF IL-6 levels may have diagnostic and prognostic value in the management of women in preterm labor.” (Amniotic fluid interleukin 6 in preterm labor. Association with infection. Romero R, Avila C, Santhanam U, Sehgal PB. J Clin Invest. 1990.)

Dr. Bravo:

The importance of this research cannot be underestimated. Premature birth is a serious public health problem.

This is fallacious. Citing the seriousness of a problem fails to justify any and every claim of possible remedy. In fact, in spite of Novy’s long work in this area, Dr. Bravo points out that:

Approximately 12% of all babies are born premature with 2 % of all babies, or approximately 100,000 babies, being born very premature. Regrettably, these very premature babies are associated with the highest mortality and morbidity rates. Ten percent of these babies will die. Fifteen percent of these babies with have serious permanent disabilities such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation, deafness or blindness. Fifty percent of these infants will have a moderate learning disability and 7 % with have a behavioral problem. Besides its human toll, the financial toll for total hospital stays for premature infants is about $15 billion dollars per year and represents approximately half of all infant hospital stays. Furthermore, the economic burden does not end after hospital discharge for those with a disability.

By this measure, Novy’s work seems to have failed quite miserably.

Dr. Bravo:

NIH-supported scientists like Dr. Novy are accountable for protecting the welfare of animals in research from the time they develop their first research plans to the time the research is completed.

This bit of pandering isn’t even very accurate. USDA has reported that the oversight system cited by Dr. Bravo is largely a failure, and the only blinded peer reviewed evaluation of the system has deemed it no more reliable than the flip of a coin.

Dr. Bravo:

Animals are critical to the acceleration of biomedical discovery of medicines, therapies, and cures — threats to research with animals threaten the health of the nation.

This is more fanaticism mixed with a good dose of voodoo. Apparently, some magic occurs by the very act of vivisection -- some bit of magic that maintains the “health of the nation.” If we stop torturing animals in laboratories the sun may not rise.

Beware!

See too: Miles Novy Targeted for Abusing, Killing Pregnant Primates

Novy's "unanesthetized chronically catheterized maternal-fetal preparations":

“Animal Extremists Get Personal”

I’ve been under the weather for a while and feeling too poopy to write, but I’m feeling a little better so thought I’d comment on a recent article in Science magazine titled “Animal Extremists Get Personal” (Greg Miller.12/21/2007. Pp. 1856 – 1858.)

The article focuses on the recent harassment of primate researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles: Arthur Rosenbaum, Lynn Fairbanks, Dario Ringach, and Edythe London, but never mentions – in any detail whatsoever – what these people do or have done in the name of science that others find so grotesque and cruel.

Rosenbaum’s research using animals is described thusly: “He has ties to only one animal-research project, a pilot study to test an electrical stimulator that could bring paralyzed eye muscles back to life.” Compare that with my own description of his research.

Lynn Fairbanks’ work is described as the study of “primate genetics and behavior.” Here’s a quote from a 2007 paper (Melega WP, Jorgensen MJ, Laćan G, Way BM, Pham J, Morton G, Cho AK, Fairbanks LA. Long-Term Methamphetamine Administration in the Vervet Monkey Models Aspects of a Human Exposure: Brain Neurotoxicity and Behavioral Profiles. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2007):

Based on parameters from human and our monkey pharmacokinetic studies, we modeled a prevalent human METH exposure of daily multiple doses in socially housed vervet monkeys. METH doses were escalated over 33 weeks, with final dosages resulting in estimated peak plasma METH concentrations of 1-3 muM, a range measured in human abusers. With larger METH doses, progressive increases in abnormal behavior and decreases in social behavior were observed on 'injection' days. Anxiety increased on 'no injection' days while aggression decreased throughout the study. Thereafter, during 3 weeks abstinence, differences in baseline vs post-METH behaviors were not observed.

Dario Ringatch’s horrific primate vivisection wasn’t characterized at all, and Edythe London’s was soft-pedaled like this:

In a 1 November editorial in the Los Angeles Times, she wrote that her research on the biological basis of addiction--which focuses on human brain imaging but also involves some work with primates--was motivated in part by the death of her father, a chronic smoker. “We are also testing potential treatments, and all of our studies comply with federal laws designed to ensure humane care” of animals, she wrote.

Compare this with my own previous description of her work.

In all fairness (as if Science cares about fairness or accurate reporting on this issue) the article seems to have been intended to frighten vivisectors into urging their universities to get tough and to find ways to protect them. It clearly wasn’t intended to inform readers about why some people feel that they have so few options when it comes to voicing their opinions about the use of primates or other animals in science.

There is much irony in the article, but a reader would have to be reasonably well informed to see it, so most Science readers probably missed it. It’s almost a given that vivisectors claim publicly that statements made concerning their work are uninformed, no matter how absurd they appear by doing so. For instance, at a public lecture Richard Davidson recently asserted that a critic of his primate experiments didn’t have her facts straight regarding the invasive nature of his experiments, even as she held in her hand a copy of an abstract in which he described burning away various parts of monkeys’ brains with acid. The Science article noted that some vivisectors are calling for greater obscurity in the CRISP (Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects, a searchable database of federally funded biomedical research projects.) In other words, they don’t want critics to speak with specificity or accuracy.

Another bit of irony in the article is that UCLA is willfully flouting federal and state statutes concerning public access to information. Most advocates of democracy acknowledge the prime importance of transparency in government and the public’s right of access to public records. Yet, UCLA has flatly denied access to public records to members of the public, and Science says this is a model being used increasingly by other universities to shield their researchers’ activities from public scrutiny (and possible criticism.) The University of Wisconsin simply destroys records it deems too controversial for public inspection. When activists break the law, UCLA et al call it terrorism.

More ironic, is the topsy-turvy world view of the editors of the magazine or their inability to perceive obvious implications. On one hand, they defend essentially any experimental use of animals, while on the other, they publish articles that bolster the challenge to such immoral dogma. And yet, they hold that informed people who are offended by the likes of the UCLA vivisectors are “extremists.” (i.e. “A new generation of experiments reveals that group-living animals have a surprising degree of intelligence. What was once considered a sharp line separating humans from all other animals is becoming a blurry gray area, with various animals possessing certain parts of the skill set considered to be advanced cognition.” Elizabeth Pennisi. “Social Animals Prove Their Smarts.” Science 23 June 2006; and from the article at hand: “‘They honestly and truly believe that animals are equal to Jews in the Holocaust, and they are fighting to liberate them,’ says one targeted researcher.”

Science could (but probably won’t) embrace the best things about science: it could (but probably won’t) foster a genuine public discussion and a reevaluation of the human/animal relationship based on a modern informed scientific evaluation of other species’ minds. Even hardboiled scientists can express fact-based opinions for why we should acknowledge the most fundamental rights of other humans; bigots (like vivisectors and apparently, the editors of Science)base their beliefs and behavior on unexamined non-factual claims and unexamined tradition.

One final note: if you think I’m too hard on the editors of Science, consider the journal’s willingness to cover Jane Goodall and her work and their marketing decision to use a chimpanzee dressed in a costume to sell subscriptions. The woeful lack of sensitivity this implies fits neatly into a pattern of disregard for other animals no matter how complex their mental lives might be.

Richard Davidson

See too:

A minimal amount of suffering
Compassion and Kindness Redefined
Cruel Buddhist Sick Shrink
Dalai Lama Disciple Makes Big Discovery!
His Mental-ness
The Buddha of Compassion
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a Callous Prick
Group Asks the Dalai Lama to Renounce Support for Animal Cruelty
My Enlightening Meeting with Lama Lhundub Sopa
Could You Recognize Evil if It Stared You in the Face? (Will the anti-Christ come wearing a t-shirt saying I'm the anti-Christ?)

“It's really pretty embarrassing.”

Indeed.

I had a sad chuckle at the unintentional irony of Bill Wineke’s blog entry, “The "Old" CIA Is Back.”

Wineke writes about the CIA’s destruction of the videotapes of its interrogations of two people. Wineke says, “I think what the powers were worried about is not that foreign terrorists would target CIA officials, but that American courts would discover their actions. It's really pretty embarrassing.”

Pretty embarrassing? It’s outrageous. But what should embarrass Wineke and the paper he writes for, is his and the paper’s studied silence on the University of Wisconsin’s own destruction of 628 videotapes on Feb. 13, 2006, documenting over 15 years of experiments on monkeys. It was a cover-up plain and simple. The university is frightened to death at the prospect of being before the court of informed public opinion.

Public officials hiding the truth and trying to keep the public in the dark isn’t, in-and-of-itself, a worrisome matter to Wineke or his paper, apparently. He ought to be embarrassed.

See: Primate tapes get trashed

628 Pieces of Primate Research Garbage