Today's Tuskegee

Originally published in the Sacramento Bee Mar. 14, 2011.

Animal tests are today's Tuskegee experiments

by Justin Goodman

An experimenter at the University of California-Los Angeles who addicts monkeys to methamphetamines, kills them and dissects their brains recently defended the practice of tormenting animals in laboratories by saying that it was a "fact of science."

Animal experimentation is indeed a "fact" in the sense that it takes place, but its mere existence is not a sound ethical defense, with all its accompanying violence and death. This sort of argument implies that the way we conduct science - and the way we treat animals - is constant, unchangeable and not up for debate. Fortunately, this is not how science (or society) actually works.

Other "facts of science" that history ultimately deemed atrocities include experiments on unconsenting humans - among them, the poor, prisoners, the developmentally disabled, Jews and blacks. J. Marion Sims, the so-called "father of gynecology," developed life-saving treatments for difficult pregnancies that are still in use today by conducting surgeries on the genitalia of unanesthetized female slaves he "rented" from local owners.

A century later, one government researcher defended his involvement in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments by stating that because the people being deprived of medical treatment were poor black sharecroppers, "The men's status did not warrant ethical debate. They were subjects, not patients; clinical materials, not sick people." Back then, using black men and women against their will in experiments was as much a "fact of science" as slavery and racial segregation were a "fact of life." Both then and now this abhorrent cruelty and racism was indefensible.

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Invertebrates

A recent short conversation led to someone sending me two articles that they said supported their notion that there is a consensus among scientists that invertebrate animals are not sentient.

It is certainly easy to find scientists and philosophers who have this opinion. But there is some reason to wonder whether there is a genuine consensus.

Philosopher/neuroscientist Sam Harris notes in The End of Faith (2004):

... Consciousness may be a far more rudimentary phenomena than are living creatures and their brains and there appears to be no way of ruling out such a thesis experimentally.

And so, while we know many things about ourselves in anatomical, physiological, and evolutionary terms, we currently have no idea why it is “like something” to be what we are. The fact that the universe is illuminated where you stand, the fact that your thoughts and moods and sensations have a qualitative character, is an absolute mystery...

Cognitive ethologist Donald Griffin addressed this question in the final chapter of Animal Minds (1992; 2001 Revised Edition): "The Philosophical and Ethical Significance of Animal Consciousness":

If we grant that some animals are conscious and that we should therefore refrain from causing them pain and suffering, are there other animals for which we need have no such scruples because we can be confident that they are unconscious? Sometimes this question is expressed by asking how far down along some assumed gradient of higher to lower animals such ethical concern is appropriate. Biologists bristle at such a question because biological evolution has been a branching tree rather than a linear progression. There is of course an enormous difference in the complexity of animals, and it is reasonable to ask where a line can be drawn between those that do, and those that do not suffer. The difficulty is that we simply do not know, and it is not clear how we can find out in the near future.

If we accept communication as evidence of conscious thinking, we must certainly grant consciousness to honeybees. Yet we can scarcely manage to avoid the injury and suffering of all insects, many of which have small but elaborate brains. Recognizing that central nervous systems produce conscious experience, how can we judge how complex a nervous system must be to permit at least a simple perceptual consciousness?

An important point here is that we know very little, nothing really, regarding the generation of consciousness. Any claim about which animals are and aren’t sentient is speculation.

Aside from whether or not the papers I was sent prove that there is a consensus on this matter, they do provide examples for what is claimed as evidence that some invertebrates are not sentient.

One of the papers I received was chapter two, “Localizing Desire,” from philosopher Gary Varner’s book, In Nature's Interests? Interests, Animal Rights, and Environmental Ethics (2002). Much of Varner’s work is available on his webpage.

The other was chapter five, “Feelings,” from David DeGrazia’s Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (1996). Much of DeGrazia’s work is available on his webpage.

Varner writes:

Like the comparative argument about the mental states of nonhuman animals, the comparative argument in defense of the claim that nonhuman animals are capable of feeling pain is an argument by analogy. ... [Functional] analogs of functional nociceptors have yet to be found in fish[*] and herps, but endogenous opioids (opiatelike substances) have been found in all vertebrates and in a variety of invertebrates including insects, planaria, and earthworms. These considerations, taken in isolation, suggest either that no cold-blooded animals feel pain, or that all animals feel pain. When the comparisons are taken as a package, however, the evidence for saying that invertebrates (with the exception of cephalopods) can feel pain is distinctively weaker than that for saying vertebrates (n.b., fish) can feel pain. Because the consciousness of pain is presumed to require a central nervous system it is implausible to say that lower vertebrates like insects whose nervous systems consist of several loosely organized ganglia are conscious of pain.

* Varner’s observation is a good example of the risk to others when we base our decisions about how they should be treated on tenuous scientific claims. See for instance: Do fishes have nociceptors? Evidence for the evolution of a vertebrate sensory system. Lynne U Sneddon, Victoria A Braithwaite, and Michael J Gentle. Proc Biol Sci. 2003. “We assessed whether a fish possessed cutaneous nociceptors capable of detecting noxious stimuli and whether its behaviour was sufficiently adversely affected by the administration of a noxious stimulus. Electrophysiological recordings from trigeminal nerves identified polymodal nociceptors on the head of the trout with physiological properties similar to those described in higher vertebrates.... This study provides significant evidence of nociception in teleost fishes and furthermore demonstrates that behaviour and physiology are affected over a prolonged period of time, suggesting discomfort.”

DeGrazia:

It is worth noting, summarily, that available evidence suggests that consciousness is associated with complex central nervous systems (CNSs). A vertebrate’s CNS consists of a comparatively complex brain and a spinal cord. Lacking spinal cords, octopi, squid, and cuttlefish – the cephalopods – have CNSs of a different sort. For example, much of an octopus’ movement is controlled by nerve cords in the arms, which contain nearly three times as many neurons (nerve cells) as does the brain – a highly diffuse CNS by vertebrate standards! [emphasis in original] In contrast, while some insect behavior is very impressive, insects have very primitive CNSs consisting of a nerve cord, ganglia (bundles of nerve cells found at intervals along the nerve cord), and a “brain” at one end composed of several fused ganglia. The extreme simplicity of their CNSs make it unlikely that insects are conscious.

DeGrazia and Varner believe apparently that both Harris and Griffin are wrong when they say that we don’t understand how sentience or consciousness comes about. They seem to believe that it is more or less a matter-of-fact that relatively large complex CNSs are a requirement.

From here on out I’m not going to worry too much about which one said what since they both agree for somewhat the same reasons that invertebrates are not sentient.

They both cite research that seems to support their position. One of them pointed to an observation that (at least some) grasshoppers may continue eating while being eaten, suggesting perhaps that a grasshopper doesn’t care that he or she is being eaten or that they experience no negative physical sensations. They point to the fact that some insects do not seem to protect a damaged limb. One of them cites a study in which a grasshopper’s leg removed from their body could learn to avoid an electric shock, implying apparently, that learning doesn’t necessarily require a brain. One of them pointed to the phenomena of caterpillars blinded on one side walking around in circles until they die. One of them argues that the awareness of pain is beneficial only if an organism lives long enough for whatever it learned to somehow aid in its survival, and thus, very short-lived species have no need and would gain no benefit from being able to sense pain, thus, insects don’t feel pain.

Mind is the subject of much study and speculation. There is ample disagreement about what it is. The subject of non-human minds is necessarily even more speculative. As we try to imagine the subjective experiences of organisms ever farther from us in evolutionary time, the likelihood of doing so accurately quickly diminishes.

Because our knowledge in this area is so lacking, and because the results of wrongly deciding that some animals are insensate automatons are potentially so very harmful to them, we should constrain our actions and avoid harming any animal that shows even an inkling of willful behavior.

As interesting as the grasshopper being eaten phenomena is, it is impossible to say what it means relative to any subjective experience the grasshopper might be having. Any conclusion must remain in the realm of speculation at this point in time.

Many insects act as if they are driven by compulsions. The case of the digger wasp (Sphex) has been written about many times. Females of this solitary species seem to have a set program that they must repeat from beginning to end associated with stocking their subterranean burrow with a paralyzed insect that the wasp’s developing larva will feed on. Any disruption of this set program resets it, and the wasp will start over. For instance, when the wasp returns to her burrow, she sets the paralyzed insect next to the entrance and goes inside (to inspect, make sure all is well?) and then comes back out. Normally, she would then drag the paralyzed insect into her vault, lay an egg on it, seal the entrance, and then depart, never to return. But if, while she had gone below to inspect(?), a stone or twig near the opening is moved, when she comes back out she notices the change and after looking around, goes back down to reinspect. She will do this, apparently, until the researcher moving the stone tires of the game.

One common conclusion is that digger wasps are mindless. The wasp’s behavior is pre-programmed; she is simply an automaton, and thus, we need have no scruples about mashing her under our boot.

On the other hand, maybe she is compelled to do things just so, knows she is doing them, and just can’t stop. A brief review of case studies of humans with obsessive-compulsive disorder shows that humans will repeat the same behavior repetitively for hours on end, knowing all the time that what they are doing makes no sense, may be harming them, and all the while wishing they could stop. The point here is not that digger wasps might have a mental illness, but merely that repetitive pointless behavior isn’t necessarily evidence that the one being repetitive is doing so mindlessly.

The observation that grasshopper legs may be able to learn is an interesting one. It was cited as evidence that moving away from noxious or injurious stimuli might be reflexive rather than willful. There is another and rather bizarre (from a human perspective) alternative interpretation. Both DeGrazia and Varner admit that the behavior of the cephalopods is relatively strong evidence that they are conscious beings. DeGrazia notes that octopi have a diffuse CNS and that nerve cords in their arms control arm movement. According to one source, the nerves in their arms actually process information and can respond independently from the brain. An octopus arm apparently thinks on its own to some degree. Whether there is an actual “seat of consciousness” in an animal with such a diffuse nervous system is unknown. But maybe, in a severed octopus arm or grasshopper leg, there is rudimentary sentience. In other words, maybe the severed grasshopper leg really does have a simple perceptual consciousness that wants to avoid being hurt.

One of the things that struck me in the DeGrazia and Varner chapters was their contradictory position on evolution. On the one hand they acknowledged that there isn’t a great chain of being, but they go on to defend a scala naturae when it comes to consciousness. They claim to see a fairly linear progression of improvements leading up to us, the crown of creation. (Let the trumpets sound!)

This is, as Griffin pointed out, at complete odds with the modern understanding of evolution. One of the authors, as I noted above, claimed that there isn’t a good reason for short-lived animals to be able to learn, and so they don’t need to feel much of anything at all. He was probably thinking of the insects. But there are many long-lived invertebrates. It is impossible to determine the age of individuals from species without mineralized anatomical structures. There may be sea anemones and other such organisms hundreds of years old; some may be much older.

Relatedly, there are a multitude of characteristics possessed by many species that have no discernible survival benefit. Genetic mutations induce new characteristics. Deleterious characteristics (those that reduce reproductive fitness) are deselected, while advantageous characteristics (those that increase reproductive fitness) are selected; but many mutations result in characteristics that are neutral. One example is the hair on the back of a human’s fingers. Trying to explain the emergence of any characteristic based on a need or the lack or a characteristic based on a lack of a specific need is the result of a misunderstanding of evolution.

There is a widely held a priori assumption that the experiences of animals don’t matter; this is frequently defended with the extreme claim that they don’t even have experiences. Mostly, the idea of an animal’s subjective experience doesn’t enter into most people’s thoughts. In this sense, humans are mindless automatons.

Events that illustrate this well were the initial investigations of the deep-sea hydrothermal vents. In 1977, the deep submersible Alvin visited the Galapagos Rift. An entirely new ecosystem was discovered. Scientists discovered colonies of four to five foot-long organisms they had never seen before or even imagined. Their response was to reach out with Alvin’s mechanical arm and grab some of them to bring to the surface. In other words, without knowing anything at all about these beings other than the fact they were large and unknown to science, the scientists’ first choice was to kill some.

This isn’t much different from early Europeans rounding Cape Horn for the first time and shooting the first natives they saw. Those naked dark beings clearly weren’t human, so what did it matter?

I take Griffin’s and Harris’s observations to at least suggest that there isn’t a matter-of-fact consensus that invertebrates are insensate. Moreover, an ethical minefield surrounds those who try to intuit the presence or absence of behaviors in animals based on their behaviors under experimental conditions or based on their physiologic similarity or dissimilarity to human physiology. When the observers themselves behave as if they don’t really care one way or the other, or worse, that they would prefer a particular conclusion, we should weigh their conclusions with a hefty dose of skepticism. It seems reasonable to imagine that someone who routinely eats and otherwise consumes animals might have a bias toward interpreting data to mean that their own behavior isn’t actually doing any harm.

Finally, I think an unbiased observer watching animals must acknowledge that they often appear to be acting willfully. To me, any being that appears to act willfully must be assumed to be sentient. The more one looks, the more one finds examples of what appear to be willful actions among most members of Anamalia.

One interesting case. A behavior apparently not uncommon in ants is “social carrying.” Some ants, like honeybees, recruit others to visit a new food source. Sometimes this recruitment is chemical; ants famously leave pheromone trails. The recruitment appears more personal in other cases. Sometimes an ant will lead another ant back to the food source, essentially showing them the way. In some cases, an ant will physically carry another ant to the new food source.

It seems reasonable to wonder whether the ant carrying the other ant to the new food source has the expectation that the recruited ant will join her in carrying food back to the nest. In spite of her ant-sized brain, there seems to be some sense of willful purpose in the recruiter’s behavior.

I don’t step on ants.

Recent UW-Madison Animal Use and Related Mishaps, Problems, and News You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else

Madison, Wisc. Sometime between October 15, 2010, and mid-November the USDA Enforcement Division – that has been on campus investigating the multiple problems with animal use oversight at the university, for what seems like a very long time now – informed the university that they are widening their investigation.

On November 12, Robert Streiffer, Chair of the College of Letters and Sciences Animal Care and Use Committee reported to the All Campus Animal Care and Use Panel that another deer mouse pup was found in a cage in a cage-washer room.

Campus Veterinarian Janet Welter reported that yet again, there have been “some trends of inconsistent compliance” regarding NIH select agent regulations and BSL-3 protocols. Biosafety level 3 is required when the agent being studied poses a public health risk if it escapes from the lab. The university has a history of failing to adequately regulate such research on and off campus.

Another of Michelle Basso’s monkeys dislodged a recording cylinder screwed to his/her skull which was replaced. Veterinarian Kevin Brunner from the primate center provided advice on the surgery.

Veterinarians applying to work with the animals being experimented on at the university continue to turn down job offers from the university. I'm sure this means that they will end up with a top quality vet.

On November 15, many months after again being cited by the USDA for failing to ensure that vivisectors are considering alternatives to painful and distressful procedures, the Graduate School ACUC continued to struggle with how this could be accomplished.

The same committee continued to wonder why a monkey had died from a spinal tap.

The same committee learned that mutant mice particularly prone to distress died (of fright?) when a fire alarm sounded. (Don’t tell Ned Kalin or local little-love-for-all-beings guru Richie Davidson about these fearful mice.)

Between September 7 and September 9, a monkey was left unfed when a “Do not feed” sign was left on his/her cage.

On October 4, after having a hole cut in his/her skull and a “cranial pedestal” screwed into place, a monkey had seizures for four days and finally died, in spite of the efforts of primate center vet Saverio Buddy Capuano III, who tried to save him/her so he/she could be used in a series of experiments and then killed.

On October 11, “Biochemistry animals” were found dead in their cages with no food. Animal care staff were “retrained.”

An entire colony of mice (probably owned by a pharmaceutical) was “rederived” (a euphemism for killed and replaced) when mouse parvo virus was detected in two of the mice.

Vet Lisa Krugner-Higby reported that “poor mothering” had led to unexpected high mortality in some secret building.

She also reported that a cage of “weanlings” was found dead. Their watering tube was calcified and blocked. They died of thirst.

Dr. Messing reported on another cage of adult females of some disclosed species that had been left without food for several days. He opined that “retraining” would be necessary. (Lesson one for the “highly trained” staff: Feed the animals every day.)

On December 3, Dr. Collins shared the news that a turtle (probably a tortoise, but you can’t expect them to know the difference) had been sent to the Research Animal Resource Center for an autopsy without having had his/her head cut off first. Instead, his/her brain had been severed from his/her spine (decerebrated). Apparently, an argument had ensued as to whether the “turtle” was dead on arrival.

Dr. Sunde of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) reported that yet another steam valve malfunction led to “some mouse deaths.”

And finally, Dr. Benevenga, also of CALS, reported that yet another (unnamed) researcher was not caring for her animals.

And the beat goes on ....

“peripheral nerve crush”

According to PubMed Health, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, upper and lower motor neuron disease, or motor neuron disease has no known cause. PubMed Health explains that it “is a disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement.” And that in ALS, “nerve cells (neurons) waste away or die, and can no longer send messages to muscles.” The web page goes on to describe the advancing problems that lead almost invariably to death. Stephen Hawking’s relatively long survival is a notable exception.

The key point is that motor neurons in the spine and brain die, and except for a small percentage of those who may have a genetic predisposition for the condition i.e. a family history of the disease, the cause is entirely unknown.

It seems reasonable to imagine that scientists working on this disease would be trying to determine the cause with an eye to preventing it.

I lost a close friend a few years ago to this condition and watched her decline slowly and surely. Prior to her death, I interviewed her for a local cable access television program and asked her how she felt about using animals in ALS related research. She was adamantly opposed to it and said it would be immoral to want others hurt and killed in research purported to be looking for a way to help her.

She would have been outraged by a recently re-approved protocol at the University of Wisconsin, Madison titled: Neural Stem Cells for Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). It is protocol #G00515-0-09-09 for anyone who cares. It was re-approved on or about November 8, 2010.

The principal investigator’s (PI) name has been censored. The graduate school Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) first approved this use of mice and rats on November 23, 2009. The ACUC approved multiple surgeries on these animals including laminectomy (the surgical removal of bone to expose the spinal cord), spinal cord injury, “peripheral nerve crush,” ovariectomy, a cannula implant (anatomical location unstated), unspecified behavioral tests, blood collection, the creation of unspecified lesions, and eventual (thankfully) killing.

Earth to UW vivisectors: damaging the spine and crushing peripheral nerves will not explain why motor neurons die in the only species known to be afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It will pay your boat payment, but it won’t help people stricken or yet to be stricken with this malady.

Projects like this one should be considered in light of the university’s multiple and repeated USDA citations for failing to require researchers there to adequately demonstrate that they have looked for alternatives to painful or distressful procedures.

Dr. Lawrence Hansen's Visit Frightens UW Vivisectors into Hiding

A key component in the University of Wisconsin, Madison's successful derailment of the creation of a Dane County-sanctioned citizens' advisory panel on the use of monkeys at the university was a promise made to County Board Chair, Scott McDonell that the university would hold a series of public forums to address the matter. This promise gave McDonell a small amount of political cover for the criticism that he had earlier promised the authors and proponents not to interfere with the proposal -- Resolution 35.

After months of inaction, the university finally announce a series of three speakers, only one of which Charles Snowdon, has any connection to the university's use of monkeys. Arguably, Snowdon's work there is the least cruel, least disturbing to those haunted by the knowledge of what is going on there day and night.

Matter-of-factly, the forums are a public relations ruse. The university staff involved in the use of monkeys and the university administrators involved in reaping the financial windfall that accrues from the taxpayer-funded grants paying for the experiments are not in the least bit interested in public discussion about his issue. This was made crystal clear at the first of the three planned monthly forms.

When the matter of Resolution 35 came before the two county committees that deliberated on it (well, one did and approved it; McDonell's didn't and essentially killed it), the room was filled to overflowing with maybe a third of the people coming from the primate center.

But at the first of the forums, there was essentially no one from the primate center in attendance (I say "essentially" because the primate center vet, Saverio (Buddy) Capuano III, was there, but didn't say a word.)

Eric Sangren, the Research Animal Resource Center Director and chair of the forum committee was there and introduced Dr. Hansen, but he didn't ask a question or challenge a claim either. There was no discussion between anyone from the primate center, or the university at large, about the use of monkeys, the claimed reason for the forums. The forums are a public relations ruse.

On the up-side however, the university painted itself into corner by coming up with the forums and then inviting two pro-animal people to be a part of the planning committee. After the university's continued failure to locate anyone willing to talk about the issue, they suggested inviting Dr. Lawrence Hansen, and so the committee was stuck when he accepted.

Three possible reasons that essentially no UW vivisectors or policy-makers attended are that 1) they aren't actually interested in the topic or public discussion about anything that poses a potential threat to their income stream; 2) they were intimidated by Dr. Hansen's credentials; 3) some mix of 1 and 2.

In any case, Dr. Hansen's presentation turned out to be the best such talk I've attended. Watch it yourself:

Dr Lawrence Hansen from luciano M on Vimeo.

Here's the Q&A:

Dr Lawrence Hansen Q&A from luciano M on Vimeo.

Primate/Animal/Human Cognition

http://vimeo.com/album/1526128

These lectures, put on line by Dario Ringach, are well worth watching.

See too, my earlier post and the discussion that followed: The Structure of Cognition, December 19, 2010.

Hypervitaminosis A in experimental nonhuman primates

Hypervitaminosis A in experimental nonhuman primates: evidence, causes, and the road to recovery. Dever JT, Tanumihardjo SA. Am J Primatol. 2009 Oct.

Collectively, we believe that the detection of very high VA [vitamin A] concentrations and stellate cell hypertrophy in rhesus and vervet monkeys strongly suggest that hypervitaminosis A is widespread among captive nonhuman primates and that this nutritional anomaly threatens to invalidate any data obtained from their experimental use.

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Using primate models to answer sophisticated biological questions requires an equally sophisticated understanding of their basal nutritional needs. We have identified a systemic hypervitaminosis A in at least two different species of experimental primates (i.e., rhesus and vervet). This condition may be causing unknown degrees of data corruption and erroneous conclusions from any study involving their use, but especially studies aimed at immune function and vaccine development [i.e. SIV] against infectious diseases where VA is a known modulator.

"Animals in Medical Research: The Ethics of Stewardship of Creation"

A discussion at Blessed Sacrament Church, Madison, Wisconsin on November 15, 2010, Feastday of the natural scientist/ theologian St Albert the Great. Father Pat Norris, Matt Rassette, a UW-Madison veterinarian, and Rick Marolt, an expert on the ethics of primate research, examine society's use of God's animals in experimentation.

Click To Play

Why Animal Experimenters Should Be Vegetarians

By Joel Marks, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of New Haven and a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University.

When antivivisectionists protest the use of animals in biomedical research, they are commonly met with retorts like this:

“Our faculty members employ animals only when there are no alternative models for advancing their research; our laboratories comply with or exceed all federal regulations and independent accreditation standards. As we continue to advance modern medicine, and provide hope for millions of patients and their families, [our] scientists will sustain their commitment to the humane use of animals in research.” (Yale University press release, July 13, 2010.)

This press release is in line with the so-called 3Rs – replacement (of animals with nonanimal alternatives), reduction (in the number of animals used when their use is deemed essential), and refinement (in the treatment of animals so as to minimize their pain and distress) – the standard of animal research since the 1950s. Nevertheless, it is possible to question whether the use of animals in laboratories may not have been or at least no longer is crucial to medical advances. And even if it is, it does not automatically follow that it should be done or is even morally permissible.

Why not? Simply consider the human analogue. It would no doubt be even more useful to use human beings for the same sorts of medical research that animals are used for; after all, what could be a better “model” for human disease than a human being? But the contemporary consensus is that that would be unconscionable. But then utility, even to the point of “necessity” (for example, to find the cure for cancer as quickly as possible), does not by itself justify laboratory research on a sentient being.

But let us suppose that animal research were both useful for medical progress and morally permissible due to some relevant distinction between human and other animals. Apparently this is what the medical community itself believes, judging by its support for animal research. What I want to argue now is that it would follow that medical researchers should be vegetarians.

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The ABCs of Opinion

Robert Streiffer rightly argues that attributing beliefs to people based on their actions may lead one to false conclusions about their beliefs.

[I]f you are attributing beliefs to people on the basis of their actions, rather than on what they say their beliefs are, it must be kept in mind that the actions in question are not the product of people’s beliefs about the moral status of NHPs taken in isolation. Rather, the actions are the product of (a) their beliefs about the moral status of NHPs, taken in conjunction with (b) their beliefs about the harms of research and (c) their beliefs about the value of the research.

His comment was in response to my claim that those conducting harmful experiments on monkeys or those approving the research – as Streiffer does in his role as an ACUC member – must believe that monkeys have almost no moral status and that even a researcher’s whim is sufficient justification for using monkeys or other animals in ways certain to harm them.

Streiffer strongly denied that he holds such a position. My perception and explanation for why he and others support experiments on monkeys must therefore, he seems to imply, be erroneous.

Helpfully, Streiffer identified three key factors that may influence the opinions of those who engage in or otherwise support primate experimentation (and by extension, the use of all animals):

(a) their beliefs about the moral status of NHPs [nonhuman primates] taken in conjunction with
(b) their beliefs about the harms of research and
(c) their beliefs about the value of the research.

Strieffer seems to be arguing albeit implicitly that words should have precedent over actions when trying to divine a person’s actual beliefs. He has in the past pointed to the language in the regulations governing the use of some animals in some research that appear on the surface to imply some ethical weighing. In actual fact, ethical weighing occurs rarely in research using animals but is overt and required in research using humans. See my essay "The Ethics Underpinning Oversight" November 28, 2010.

People’s actual, operational beliefs about the moral status of monkeys (or any other belief, it seems to me) can be determined or gleaned much more accurately by their actions in settings that give them an option of behaving one way or another. No matter what someone claims, their actions are telling. No matter how honest one claims to be, if he or she repeatedly engages in fraud, theft, plagiarism, lying, etc., claims of honesty will ring hollow.

It is common to hear from the industry that those using animals “respect” them and consider it a “privilege” to use them and wish there was some other way. But how would researchers at a university or elsewhere behave if they genuinely respected the animals they used? At a minimum, it seems reasonable to expect that surgical suites would be kept clean, yet UW-Madison has been cited recently by the USDA for not keeping such facilities clean.

People’s operational, as opposed to their stated beliefs about the moral status of animals can be surmised by observing their actions. In circumstances where one’s beliefs could be expected to guide one’s behavior, that behavior will be a more accurate measure of a person’s beliefs than their public claims.

Streiffer seems to imply that in most instances researchers may believe that the harms to the monkeys and other animals are not very great. But if this is true then they must be ignorant of the use of monkeys on the whole because even monkeys not used in an experiment suffer from chronic diarrhea and signs of confinement-induced stereotypic behavior (pacing, spinning, odd postures, over-grooming, etc) and self-mutilation. Just keeping monkeys in the typical laboratory setting is clearly and demonstrably harmful to them. See for instance Stereotypic and self-injurious behavior in rhesus macaques: a survey and retrospective analysis of environment and early experience. Lutz C, Well A, Novak M. American Journal of Primatology. 2003.

But maybe they actually do recognize that the harm is great, which I believe even a casual observer would recognize. If the harm is great, it appears that only Streiffer’s third point could salvage his claim that vivisectors don’t consider the monkeys used to have a very low moral status:(c) their beliefs about the value of the research.

Presumably, if they believe the research has low value, then we are back to the conclusion that they must not have much moral concern for the monkeys’ lives and experiences. So Streiffer must be arguing that the researchers and those who approve their work believe that the research has high value. (It certainly has high monetary value to the researchers and even greater monetary value to the university, but I take it that he is thinking in terms of benefit to human society and those suffering or who will in the future suffer from some malady that might be ameliorated through the knowledge gained during the experiments.)

The industry and its shills are wont to claim that essentially every advance in healthcare is the result of experiments on animals and moreover, research using animals is a veritable fount of new treatments and cures.

A more sober look at the history of medicine and public health coupled with the current concern over the woeful lack of results (benefiting actual patients) from basic research suggests something much different.

A friend recently asked me for a good citation for my observation that sanitation and providing clean water are far and away the most significant advances in public health, ever. I hadn’t made quite this bold of a statement, but I am now confident in doing so.

At the time, I referred him to Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, 1997. Norton. 426-427 passim, which I quote here:

Interpretations of the retreat first of epidemic diseases, and also of the increase in life expectancy, have been hotly debated. Some maintain the mass of the population was slowly but surely becoming less pauperized, and was enjoying better nourishment and hence improved health. Others argue that improving health was not due to rising prosperity but to better environmental salubrity due to public health measures, reducing the disease risks to which the hungry huddled masses were exposed.

Historians have distinguished between the retreats of epidemics in the eighteenth century and of endemic diseases in the nineteenth. Since plague was probably halted by the cordon sanitaire along the Habsburg border with the Ottoman empire, public health measures (‘medical police’) probably contributed to the reduction of epidemics. Smallpox vaccination from the early nineteenth century served to make epidemics less severe and frequent. The decline of plague and smallpox would thus have nothing to do with nutrition standards but some link with public health action. Endemic diseases such as tuberculosis and infant diarrhoea, by contrast, do seem to have been made more sever by under-nutrition. The reduction in such diseases might be linked to wage improvements. In either case little that personal physicians did was reflected in improved health.

Did public health measures actually do any good? The distinguished epidemiologist Thomas McKeown (1912 – 1988) maintained that reductions in deaths associated with infectious diseases (air-, water-, and food-borne diseases) cannot have been brought about by medical advances, since such diseases were declining long before effective means were available to combat them. Applying much the same argument to sanitary measures, McKeown concluded that resistance to infectious disease must have increased through improvement in nutrition. Overall he mapped out three phases: a rising standard of living from about 1770; sanitation measures from 1870; and better therapy during the twentieth century.

McKeown, however, underestimated the effectiveness of the public health movement. Changing public opinion, the labors of medical officers of health, the creation of filtered water supplies and sewage systems, slum clearance, the work of activists promoting the gospel of cleanliness, and myriad other often minor changes – for example the provision of dustbins with lids, to repel flies – combined to create an improving urban environment.

Porter’s observations are compelling to me, but I wasn’t fully satisfied that he presented the facts in a way that would lead an uncritical reader to the same conclusion as mine. As a consequence, I began reading a little more about the history of public health.

George Rosen’s 1958 A History of Public Health is a classic in the field. It was reprinted in an expanded edition by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 1993. With the expanded and helpful bibliographies (there are two) it is just over 500 pages in length. For those with an interest in this area of study, I recommend it; I have many pages marked and passages starred.

The introduction is written by Elizabeth Fee, Ph.D., Chief of the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, NIH. In her introduction, she too mentions Thomas McKeown:

Rosen also asks whether the new scientific methods bore any relation to the actual decline in infectious diseases. This question was also to be addressed, and answered largely in the negative, in Thomas McKeown’s enormously influential book, The Modern Rise of Population, (1976.)

This citation first led me to Thomas McKeown and R. G. Record’s “Reasons for the Decline of Mortality in England and Wales During the Nineteenth Century.” Population Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2. (1962), pp. 94-122 which is an earlier less detailed account of McKeown’s thesis and includes some graphical data not in the later work. His thesis is more fully developed and a few potential errors corrected in The Modern Rise of Population.

McKeown’s work is not without its critics. Interestingly, and germane to the discussion here though, is the nature of the controversy. See for instance: The McKeown Thesis: A Historical Controversy and Its Enduring Influence. James Colgrove. American Journal of Public Health. 2002:

The consensus among most historians about the McKeown thesis a quarter century after it first stirred controversy is that one narrow aspect of it was correct—that curative medical measures played little role in mortality decline prior to the mid-20th century...

The ongoing interest in McKeown's ideas, not only among historians but also among policymakers addressing contemporary issues, is striking. What accounts for his work's remarkable durability? Why has the influence of the McKeown thesis persisted even after its conclusions were discredited? In part, his writing continues to generate responses because many scholars believe that although McKeown's analysis was flawed, his underlying ideas regarding the effects of poverty and economic well-being on health were essentially correct. More broadly, McKeown's influence has continued to be felt because his research posed a fundamental question that has lost none of its relevance in the decades since he began writing in the post–World War II era: Are public health ends better served by narrow interventions focused at the level of the individual or the community, or by broad measures to redistribute the social, political, and economic resources that exert such a profound influence on health status at the population level?

... Far from fading in prominence, the questions he raised have assumed new salience at the beginning of the 21st century, especially in debates about how best to confront health threats such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in the developing world. For example, commenting on the recent initiative to provide AIDS drugs in poor nations, a health activist based in Nepal summed up the 2 sides of this debate when he noted, “There has been an overemphasis . . . [on] drugs. The lack of drinking water is a much bigger priority in most countries than anti-retroviral treatments.”

McKeown argued that the dramatic decline in the death rate was due to the decline in mortality from infectious disease. On this point, there is wide agreement. The controversy arose because McKeown argued steadfastly that the largest share of this decline was unrelated to the work of the sanitary movement, but rather due to the decline in tuberculosis which he argued was the number one cause of death from infectious disease and that the decline was due largely to the improvement in diet.

The controversy is of absolutely no consequence to the well respected broadly acknowledged fact that there was a dramatic drop in the death rate from infectious disease prior to any accurate understanding of the cause of these diseases or effective treatments. Thus, experiments on animals played absolutely no role in the most dramatic drop in death rate in human history.

Readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of charts and graphs, and The Modern Rise of Population is full of them. Below is one that demonstrates the decline in deaths from whooping cough (Pertussis)

Keep in mind that the pro-vivisection organizations argue that essentially all medical progress is due to animal experimentation, and whooping cough is no exception. (Just google whooping cough animal research.) The whooping cough example has implications for the larger question at hand, namely the actual opinions of vivisectors vs their claimed opinions. I will come back to this below.In the meantime, consider the dramatic decline in mortality that occurred in the nineteenth century prior to any meaningful medical therapy or prophylaxis, or even knowledge of microorganisms, as a sort of bookend to the history of modern public health advancement, at the other end, is the modern critique of the basic research enterprise.

This second bookend is comprised of recent scientific papers and articles in the popular press such as:

Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science. David H. Friedman. Atlantic Monthly. 2010.

Where Are the Cures? Sharon Begley. Newsweek. 2008.

Comparison of treatment effects between animal experiments and clinical trials: systematic review. Perel P, Roberts I, Sena E, Wheble P, Briscoe C, Sandercock P, Macleod M, Mignini LE, Jayaram P, Khan KS. BMJ. 2007.

Translation of Research Evidence From Animals to Humans. Daniel G. Hackam, Donald A. Redelmeier, 2006, JAMA.

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. John P. A. Ioannidis. PLoS Med. 2005.

Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans? Pound P, Ebrahim S, Sandercock P, Bracken MB, Roberts I. BMJ.

Does animal experimentation inform human healthcare? Observations from a systematic review of international animal experiments on fluid resuscitation. Roberts I, Kwan I, Evans P & Haig S. BMJ 2002.

At one end of this tableau is the largest decline in mortality in human history - in the absence of animal research, and at the other end, the promised benefits of the modern basic (animal) research paradigm are apparently lacking.

Between these bookends lies the entirety of modern medical research. I am not implying here that no benefit has resulted from the use of animals. For instance, Robert Koch’s 1879 paper on the etiology or cause of infectious disease was based on his work with animals. While his work resulted in no immediate advance in treatment, it did explain the phenomenal results and gave more authority and impetus to the hygienic/sanitation movement’s efforts.

The point in calling attention to the dramatic progress that occurred prior to Koch is that it demonstrates the real and significant progress that is possible without the use of animals. This severely undermines claims that animal experimentation is necessary. The growing body of systematic reviews and reports questioning the overall results of basic research implies that the value of the research that is taking place is suspect.

This takes us back to Streiffer’s third point: That researchers and their supporters’ beliefs about the moral status of NHPs must be considered in conjunction with (c) their beliefs about the value of the research.

It seems to me that an informed unbiased observer would have to seriously question the value of research with monkeys (or any animals) in light of the history of public health and the crisis the basic research enterprise is facing. Claiming that the value of the research is high seems unreasonable and unsupportable.

Look again at the graph depicting the decline in deaths from whooping cough.

I believe that if there were no vaccine for whooping cough, that research using animals would be underway today in the effort to produce one. This is a hypothetical situation, but given the small number of people afflicted with some of the maladies being studied today, I think it is a reasonable assumption.

If it is, then we can look at the graph as a sort of measure of the actual sympathy and moral concern those who propose, approve, and engage in animal experimentation actually hold for the animals they use.

By the time the vaccine was generally available, the mortality rate had already collapsed. Yet someone asking for permission to use monkeys to develop a vaccine today, assuming there wasn't one, would – without any doubt – be given the go-ahead, even though the disease is no longer a major threat. That is, even a relatively insignificant gain would be deemed adequate justification to infect and kill monkeys.

If you think this is an unreasonable assumption, consider the very limited importance and value of UW-Madison primate vivisector Richard Wiendruch’s caloric restriction studies.

In summary, Robert Streiffer accurately I think observed that when attributing beliefs [about the moral status of monkeys] to people on the basis of their actions, rather than on what they say their beliefs are, it must be kept in mind that the actions in question are not the product of people’s beliefs about the moral status of NHPs taken in isolation. Rather, the actions are the product of (a) their beliefs about the moral status of NHPs, taken in conjunction with (b) their beliefs about the harms of research and (c) their beliefs about the value of the research.

Given the very real demonstrable harms and the information available regarding the questionable value of the research, it is fair and likely accurate to surmise that those using monkeys and approving their use have very little actual sympathy or moral concern for them, in spite of public pronouncements to the contrary.