SIV isn't HIV

SIV, the so-called simian immunodeficiency virus isn't the same virus as HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, and rhesus macaques aren't human beings.

These two confounding facts were again responsible for yet another HIV vaccine clinical trial being shut down.

Federal researchers have faced a major setback in the pursuit of an HIV vaccine, shutting down a clinical trial on Thursday after determining that volunteers who received the vaccination shot were more likely to contract the virus than those who were given a placebo. The vaccine also failed to reduce virus levels in the blood of volunteers who contracted HIV, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). ...

The study began in 2009, and researchers had immunized half of the 2,504 volunteers with a DNA-based vaccine called HVTN 505 that was intended to “prime the immune system to attack the AIDS virus. Then a different vaccine, encasing the same material inside a shell made of a disabled cold virus, acts as a booster shot to strengthen that response. Neither vaccine could cause HIV,” according to the Associated Press.

....

Results from a series of nonhuman primate studies influenced the decision to expand the HVTN 505 trial, says Dieffenbach. Animal data showed that about half of rhesus macaques given a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) vaccine regimen similar to the HIV vaccine regimen used in the HVTN 505 trial were protected against SIV following SIVsmE660 challenge, and that a low level of neutralizing antibodies to Env, and an Env-specific CD4+ T-cell response correlated with this protective effect.

Dieffenbach says the large number of animals (129 macaques) used in the study, and the fact that the protection occurred in the presence of robust cellular responses and low levels of SIV-neutralizing antibodies, suggested that the HVTN 505 regimen could have the capacity to prevent HIV acquisition in people. “You are only as good as the data you have in front of you,” says Dieffenbach, reflecting on the expansion of the HVTN 505 trial. “We [haven’t had] many efficacy trials and if we have the opportunity and there is plausibility, we need as a field to take a chance.”

....

The study, led by Louis Picker, a professor of pathology at the Oregon Health & Science University [Oregon National Primate Research Center], showed that 12 of 24 Indian rhesus macaques vaccinated with a replication-competent rhesus cytomegalovirus (rhCMV) viral vector vaccine candidate encoding the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)mac239 proteins Env, Pol, Gag, and Vpr/Vpx demonstrated early and complete control of viral replication for more than a year after repeat, homologous, low dose SIVmac239 challenge....

No surprises here.

Davidson and his guru back in the news

Read this: http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Madison-Magazine/May-2013/The-World-Wide-Web/

Now read this by the same author: http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Madison-Magazine/June-2008/Its-a-Jungle-in-Here/#.UXH_KJ2ZGmg.facebook

This is the video linked in the above article.

Fabricating Importance

University of Wisconsin-Madison vivisectors Ned Kalin and his colleagues have come under criticism, both from people who abhor cruelty, and even from some with somewhat similar sensitivities who work within the university's guarded walls.

How might a public relations department go about diffusing the criticism or work to set the stage to defend itself from future criticism?

One way to confuse the public, to mislead any nosy independent journalist, or to just build the walls of illusion a little bit higher would be to claim importance where little to none exists.

This is a very common vehicle for spin doctors. Dramatic medical breakthroughs are announced by university PR departments almost every day; and yet, articles written by less biased observers, by people not being paid to hype their institution's work, convey a much different picture. See for example:

The Medical Revolution: Where are the cures promised by stem cells, gene therapy, and the human genome? Emily Yoffe. Slate. Aug. 24, 2010.
Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong. Sharon Begley.

In my last post, Conflicts of Interest, I pointed out some of the glaring conflicts of interest that limit legitimate reporting of controversies involving the University of Wisconsin-Madison's use of animals.

I failed to notice another staff member of the Department of Life Sciences Communication (LSC) who is yet another previous staff writer for the Wisconsin State Journal. Coincidentally, the university recently issued a release about a newly published paper by Ned Kalin, et al. The release was written by LSC Senior Lecturer, Susan Lampert Smith.

Here's the release: UW researchers discover the brain origins of variation in pathological anxiety.

And here's the published abstract: Neural mechanisms underlying heterogeneity in the presentation of anxious temperament. Shackman AJ, Fox AS, Oler JA, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013.

The university's news release hyping this new paper must read like something from America's Finest News Source to clinical psychiatrists and others with even a passing familiarity with neurosurgery. The fundamental claim, in much of Kalin et al's work is that by identifying areas of the brain associated with some disabling mental affect like severe anxiety that it will be an easy next step to drill a hole through someone's skull and fix them or to come up with a new miracle drug.

But right now, brain surgery is relatively crude. Surgeons remove tumors, ablate small regions, and perform some vascular repairs. The idea that we are anywhere close to having the understanding and ability to fix a part of the brain associated with something as complex as a disabling emotion is like saying a surgeon could fiddle with your neural pathways and give you an extra hundred IQ points if only we knew where in the brain geniuses differ from the average Joe. An analogy from history is William Harvey' small book on the heart and circulation published in 1628. The first cardiac surgery wasn't conducted for another two-and-a-half centuries, until 1895, and the heart-lung machine wasn't in use until the 1950s. Arguably, Harvey's observations were so far ahead of the technology needed to put them to use that that they were of no material value at all.

But you can just imagine the hype that the UW spin doctors would have made of it.

And a new miracle drug that will be more effective than the drug therapies currently available, as a result of some brain scans on frightened young monkeys? Any celebration is premature. Kalin is a psychiatrist, not a pharmacologist or even a chemist.

The release about Kalin's new publication, written by LSC Senior Lecturer, Susan Lampert Smith, says that "this line of research sets the stage for improved strategies for preventing extreme childhood anxiety from blossoming into full-blown anxiety disorders." Unfortunately, that's far-fetched nonsense. It is an example of invented importance. It is a fabrication widely divergent from the plain facts. But that's the nature of propaganda.

Nothing in a brain scan or a dissected slice of a young frightened monkey's brain is going to help anyone prevent extreme childhood anxiety from blossoming into a full-blown anxiety disorder. The prevailing opinion is that childhood anxiety disorders often go undetected or untreated and that early identification and intervention is of great importance. To put Kalin's announcement of having identified brain regions associated with fearfulness in young monkeys into practice, it would appear that every preschooler will need a brain scan. A wholesome breakfast for all kids might be a better goal.

Kalin et al have been "setting the stage" for better care of anxious children for decades by frightening baby monkeys, burning away various regions of their brains, killing, and dissecting them. The stage has become very dusty and bloody. No one has yet been able to write a script that incorporates the frightened monkey "discoveries" into a story line that concludes with better care or treatments for anxious children.

Clinical pediatric psychiatrists are unlikely to glean much from this latest hyped announcement that will help them help their patients. Where are the cures and preventions? They're certainly not hiding in Kalin's experiments on fearful young monkeys. In spite of the spin doctoring by LSC staffers.

In the process of writing this I stumbled across an interesting article written by a Wisconsin State Journal reporter on the Association of Health Care Journalists website: Reporter offers advice on avoiding embarrassing incident. The reporter blames himself for an unfortunate incident, but it seems to me that the university might have been so focused on some good PR that they just couldn't think of anything else. Notice too, the name of the UW Hospital "PR person" near the end.

You may find this article worth reading if the general topic of research into anxiety is of interest: Understanding the Anxious Mind. NYT Magazine. September 29, 2009.

Conflicts of Interest

The University of Wisconsin-Madison promised four years ago to provide public forums to help the public understand its use of animals in it various research programs. You can read about those promises here.

But even the organizers have admitted that the promised forums have not met the goals spelled out by Martin T. Cadwallader, Professor of Geography, Vice Chancellor for Research, and Dean of the Graduate School. Lots of titles, but Mr. Cadwallader should have asked a real teacher or two to help organize the forums because the university staff involved either don't know how to design a meaningful and effective educational activity or else don't really want to talk about the university animal labs, or both.

I've written enough about the "forums" elsewhere. I'm writing here because I have recently gained a little bit more insight into ways that the university tries to control their image. The forums are an example of the university saying one thing and then doing another. The thing they say gets some news exposure, and then the thing they actually do, doesn't. A recent example is the things they said to media about the cats in Tom Yin's lab and PeTA's complaint, and the things they actually did about the problems and about the USDA citations. Their claims were dutifully dispersed by media, but when caught in a series of lies, nothing got reported.

It all comes down to their active propaganda effort. It turns out that you can actually earn an undergraduate degree, a Masters, and a PhD in how to manipulate public perceptions at the university.

Degrees and certificates in "science writing" are offered by a handful of colleges and universities around the country. UW-Madison offers a handful of degree programs in UW-Madison's Department of Life Sciences Communications (LSC).

The LSC webpage explains: "As a department, we further fulfill The Wisconsin Idea through our relationships with UW-Extension, WSUM Madison Student Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television."

To begin to see why local media won't report on the problems, lies, cover-ups, and suffering associated with the use of animals at the university, consider the staff at LSC.

It is far too idealistic or naive to imagine that Wisconsin Public Radio or Wisconsin Public Television would ever cover the problems at the university. According to a conversation I had with the NPR Ombudsperson, self-censorship by NPR affiliates associated with universities is a recognized problem that no one has taken the time to address.

In the case of UW-Madison and Wisconsin Public Radio, the reason for the self-censorship could be related to the fact that the Madison station is physically on the UW campus, in a UW building, and that some of the senior staff are university employees. The most obvious example is Larry Meiller, host of the Larry Meiller Show. Mieller is also a Professor, and the Director of Undergraduate Advising and Career Placement, and the Department Chair of UW-Madison's Department of Life Sciences Communications (LSC). You won't ever hear Meiller say something critical of the university's use of animals.

One of his common guests, and his co-host of Calling All Pets, is Patricia B. McConnell, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Zoology at the university. I remember once hearing them on the show laughing together about what was being done to rats in an experiment they were talking about. You can't expect to hear any criticism of the university's use of animals on that show either.

And things aren't any better at the Wisconsin State Journal. Ron Seely is the science and environment reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal and a Senior Lecturer at LSC. Seely ought to be talking about the treatment of animals at the university but steers clear of the issue. It's easy to see why.

And then there is Tom Still, former associate editor of the Wisconsin State Journal and a currently a regular columnist in the business section. Still is a Lecturer at LSC.

Still is also president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, which has strong ties to the university. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors of the very creepy Wisconsin Security Research Consortium (WSRC), a UW sock puppet. Over the years, Still has been a defender of all things harmful to animals that might be economically profitable.

This incestuous intertwining of the university's interests with the programming and reporting in the Wisconsin State Journal and on Wisconsin Public Radio goes a long way to explaining why there isn't much local coverage or discussion of the problems at the university.

But the problem isn't just these obvious conflicts of interest.

UW-Madison's Department of Life Sciences Communications is worth digging into a bit. For instance, the statewide effort to recruit children and turn them into adults who like to kill animals, was apparently designed by staff at LSC:

A new initiative called the Hunters Network of Wisconsin, led by LSC Assistant Professor Bret Shaw, aims to understand how social networking technology may be used to promote hunter recruitment and retention in Wisconsin.....

"The Hunters Network of Wisconsin is targeting people who are interested in hunting but have not been raised in families that hunt,” said Bret Shaw, environmental communication specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Extension and assistant professor of life sciences communication at UW-Madison. “Many people, particularly young people, are heavy users of social networking technologies, and this may be an important way to inform them about hunter education opportunities in their local communities and connect with others who are interested in hunting,” said Shaw. "

It is interesting to read through some of the info at the LSC scimep lab (Science, Media and the Public.)

They explain that the lab is involved in "experimental studies of message processing and public understanding of controversial science, and long-term tracking of media coverage." But as far as I can tell, out of the approximately fifty papers from the lab over the course of its seven years of existence, there hasn't been even one paper concerning the public's perceptions of, or the media's framing, or anything whatsoever, regarding the use of animals in science. This is distinctly odd. The Department of Life Sciences Communications, the department's lab looking at public understanding of controversial science, the matter-of-fact reality that the use of animals is the epitome of controversial science, and yet nary a word. Maybe someone has alerted them to the institutional strategy of keeping the subject hushed up.

It is notable that investigators in a lab that is supposed to be involved in experimental studies and analysis of message processing and public understanding of controversial science aren't looking at the most controversial topics. They aren't looking into the messaging about and the public perception of abortion (When does an embryo begin to feel pain?) or medical testing on animals, or cloning animals, or the use of stem cells from human embryos, or even cloning humans. No, their big investigations and research are focused on the public's perception of nanotechnology. This might seem odd until one realizes that they aren't interested in the topic. They are interested only in how public opinions about controversial areas in science are formed, with the goal, apparently, of being able to manipulate them.

It seems to me that when taken together the unavoidable conflict of interests in media employing UW staff and quasi-staff to report on the university, the university's active encouragement of harming animals, their undeniable financial dependency on harming animals, and their managed propaganda campaign, it all adds up to a likely explanation for why all critical reporting has been dependent on one or two reporters independent enough to report the facts. Now that they have left the field, there is no one left who doesn't have their hand in the university's pocket in one way or another.

Paid to lie, to you. (Updated 3-28-2013)

"Furthermore, in two separate complaints filed with the USDA, PETA accused UW-Madison of multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act. When two comprehensive, multi-day investigations by USDA veterinarians failed to substantiate PETA's accusations, PETA changed its tune and now says they don't care that the study is being conducted responsibly, they still think it's wrong." -- Eric Sandgren. February 16, 2013. In "Eric Sandgren: Cat research, after all the drama." Wisconsin State Journal.

---

"Sandgren said an investigation will validate the department's handling of the research cat, calling PETA's complaint 'a stunt.'" September 12, 2012. "PETA complaint alleges mistreatment of cats in UW research." Wisconsin State Journal

---

Eric Sandgren | September 20, 2012 at 6:34 pm | Reply

At UW-Madison, we heard about the complaint, and received a copy from a reporter, at 10:00am on a Wednesday, By 1:00pm that afternoon we were able to state verbally to reporters and anyone else who asked that all of PeTA’s statements were unsupported (we could not respond to specific charges until we knew what they were going to be). That’s 3 hours! The detailed written point-by-point response went up on Monday the next week, after careful review by a lot of people, and we may consider posting something like that sooner should we find ourselves in a similar situation. This all worked because we have developed excellent cooperation among University Communications, our animal research program, and faculty and staff regarding animal activist attacks. We also have people willing to respond immediately. I too am amazed that PeTA keeps getting away with this stuff. How do we put them on the defensive? From the fringe group "Speaking of Research" website/blog

---

Federal inspectors have cleared UW-Madison on charges by the animal rights group PETA that university researchers violated multiple provisions of the federal Animal Welfare Act in their treatment of cats used in a 2008 eye movement study.

"I believed all along that we had remained in compliance," said Eric Sandgren, animal research oversight director at UW-Madison. "I'm comforted that the USDA agrees." " On Campus: UW-Madison cleared by feds in PETA cat research complaint." October 11, 2012. Wisconsin State Journal

---

Those damn lying animal rights activists; making up things about the University of Wisconsin. How dare they impugn the integrity of the vivisectors at UW-Madison!

The excerpt above is taken from the University of Wisconsin, Madison's appeal of the USDA citations that resulted from PETA's complaints regarding the care and use of the cats used in Tom Yin's highly invasive and cruel experiments on cats.

This is the opening of their appeal of the results of the USDA inspection report dated December 14, 2012.

Less obvious is that the citations they are appealing are the result of a four day investigation that resulted in the USDA documenting the chronic infections endured by the cats in the Yin lab.

So, all the while Eric Sandgren was telling anyone who would listen that PETA's assertions concerning the cats suffering in the Yin lab were false, he obviously knew otherwise -- because he is the university's head vivisector, the university's animal research public apologist, and he is the director of the university's Research Animal Resource Center. The cats in Tom Yin's labs were and are suffering from chronic infections so severe that some cats' eyes have had to be cut out of their heads.

From December 14, 2012, Sandgren knew that the USDA had indeed found problems that even they  thought deserved citations for violations of the minimal standards set by the Animal Welfare Act.

Come on, say it with me: Eric Sandgren is a paid liar.

Update: A few days after posting this demonstration of the most recent example (among many) of Eric Sandgren's and the university's matter-of-fact lying to the public, I was sent a reminder of Sandgren's appearance on the Jane Velez-Mitchell show with me on February 15, 2013.

The university issued a statement which starts out like this:

The information now being disseminated by People for the Ethical Treatmentof Animals (PETA) and advocates like James Cromwell about research at our university is unsubstantiated and flawed. We have conducted a detailed review of PETA's complaint and can find no evidence to support a single claim the organization makes. Moreover, a lab inspection was conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in response to PETA's complaint and their review found no substance to any of PETA's allegations.

The pictures released by PETA show an animal undergoing surgery to receive cochlear implants. Just like in human surgeries, such procedures are performed under anesthesia and animals receive pain-relieving medication during and after a surgery. After surgery, the cats adapt readily to the implants, which do not cause discomfort or distress. They are healthy and behave normally.

This propaganda is chocked full of lies. In fact, the university was secretly appealing the USDA's citations at the same time they were saying that no violations had been found. There is little about what is being done to the cats in the Tom Yin lab that is "just like" therapeutic surgery on willing humans. In fact, the university knew full well that the cats were not readily adapting to the implants and that the  rate of very serious life-threatening infection from the surgeries was sky-high. Sandgren and the university knew all of this, but said the opposite on a nationally-broadcast television program.

Come on, say it with me again: Eric Sandgren is a paid liar.

"It's important to know what the cost is to the animal. It's important to know what the potential benefit is to, in this case it's humans, but a lot of animal research also benefits animals. And then you you you come up, you compare those, and decide for yourself whether or not something you think it's ethical, and that where people have a right to differ." -- UW-Madison Research Animal Resource Center Director and university spokesperson Eric Sandgren, February 15, 2013, in a statement to WMTV, NBC 15, on the occasion of James Cromwell's participation in a disruption of a meeting of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to protest the Regents continuing support for highly invasive and painful brain and ear experiments using cats in Tom Yin's laboratory.

Pictured here is one of Yin's victims, Double Trouble. 

I can't get Sandgren's statement out of my head; it is grotesque and matter-of-factually misleading and dishonest. Moreover, many people at the university and at the Wisconsin Department of Justice must know the facts and yet they stand mute.

PeTA spent three years in court trying to get these photos from the university. The Wisconsin Department of Justice acted as the university's counsel -- at the public's expense -- and argued to the court that the photos shouldn't be released.

It was only when they were caught lying about the "proprietary" nature of the hardware that can be seen in the photos that the university, through their Department of Justice de facto accomplices, finally gave up, tacitly admitting that their arguments had been fabricated nonsense.

"Decide for yourself whether or not something [is] ethical," says Sandgren, all the while knowing that the university had unsuccessfully tried for three years to keep you from knowing, to stop you from seeing the pictures of only one of the cats butchered in Tom Yin's lab.

"It is hardly to be expected that a man who does not hesitate to vivisect for the sake of science will hesitate to lie about it afterwards...." -- George Bernard Shaw. The Doctor's Dilemma. 1909.

The Calculus of Deceit

Liars calculate the costs of telling the truth and the potential costs of lying, weigh the results, and then choose to tell a lie.

This seems pretty straightforward.

Liars convince themselves that their lies won't be found out. Or, maybe they reason that the costs of being caught lying, while embarrassing and perhaps costly, are less of a problem than the results of telling the truth. After all, if one lies, the truth might not come to light. Maybe the  benefits of the lie, if it remains unrealized, are great enough that the risks of being caught lying simply pale in comparison.

When I was a kid, I lied. The risk of telling my parents the truth was greater than the risk of telling them the truth. I reasoned that the punishment for admitting to having done something that I knew they wouldn't approve of was no worse than the punishment I would have to endure if they caught me in a lie. So, all things being equal, even as a ten-year-old, I understood the odds: certain punishment vs. possible punishment. A no-brainer.

But I grew up. Honesty actually matters. And it matters a whole lot when one is in a position of public trust.

When people involved in the public's business lie to the public, their lies are much more serious than the lies of someone else, or the lies of a ten year old boy.

In the case of the University of Wisconsin, Madison's claim that the United States Department of Agriculture didn't find anything wrong with the treatment of the cats in Tom Yin's laboratory, the institution lied to the public.

It's important to understand this point.

The state university lied to the citizens of the state. 

It's not that they misspoke. They weren't mistaken. No one misled them.

 They lied.

They lied to you.

They lied knowingly. They told calculated lies. Repeatedly.

They hoped and banked on the likelihood that you would never learn the truth. They miscalculated.

But they knew all along that there was at least some possibility that their lies would be discovered.

They must believe that the public, you, are simply too stupid to notice. They believe that you are too stupid, too dull to do anything about it.

It's true that PeTA's first complaint to the USDA about the conditions in the Yin lab was dismissed. But the USDA is filled with people who have varying degrees of respect for animals, so big deal.

Their follow up complaint included statements from a UW veterinarian who added to and validated their observations. The USDA was forced to pay more attention.

The USDA inspected the lab and found wide-spread suffering and evidence of sloppy surgical procedures that failed to meet modern aseptic standards. Many of the cats had serious life-threatening infections associated with the screws driven into their skulls and the surgically implanted eye coils.

And the university knew this. 

And they told the public repeatedly that the USDA had found nothing amiss.

They believe that you are too stupid to notice or to do anything about it.

They might be right.

The university has lied to the public so many times over the years that they have come to believe that they are never, ever, held accountable for their lies.

Eesh.

The willing gullibility of reporters and newscasters makes any genuine discussion of the details of the university's use of animals nearly impossible.

Liars. Matter-of-fact habitual liars lying about the things they do to animals in their hidden labs. Despicable.

Get active. Get involved. Speak out. Call your state legislators today.

UW-Madison caught lying yet again and again and ... Wake up Wisconsin.

USDA Cites UW for Violation of Law: Cats Suffered From Infections, Deprived of Food, and Burned in University Laboratory

For Immediate Release: March 18, 2013

Contact:Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Madison, Wis. -- A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report has confirmed PETA's allegations of unrelieved, ongoing suffering of cats in the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) laboratory that was first exposed by the animal rights group with the release of photos of a cat with a steel post screwed to her skull. The graphic photos prompted a high-profile protest by actor James Cromwell at the February 7 Board of Regents meeting.

According to the report just obtained by PETA through the Freedom of Information Act, the USDA cited UW for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act by negligently burning a cat named Broc so badly with a heating pad that she required surgery. The USDA report—which includes federal inspectors' photos of seven mutilated cats who are still being used in the invasive brain experiment—also details widespread suffering of cats who had steel posts screwed into open wounds on their heads and metal coils implanted into their eyes. The federal inspector stated that there was "a pattern of recurring infections" and that all the cats profiled by PETA in its complaint had been "diagnosed with chronic infections."

"When I close my eyes at night, I'm haunted by the images from inside UW's laboratories of cats whose heads had been sliced open, skulls penetrated by metal rods, and infected eye wounds from metal coil implants," says Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell. "It's torture for these animals, plain and simple. Now the government has confirmed what PETA has been saying all along: UW left these cats to suffer from chronic infections, with some dying slow, lingering deaths."

The USDA noted that some cats have died from the infections and that one cat named NJ, who is depicted in one of the new photos, even had to have her eye removed after the metal coil caused an incurable infection.

"The USDA has confirmed what PETA alleged and what UW tried so hard to distort: that UW has inflicted tremendous suffering on the cats it has imprisoned, mutilated, and killed in its laboratories," says PETA Director of the Laboratory Investigations Department Justin Goodman. "Federal funding for this pointless cruelty must end now."

The USDA report, which was written in December but just now released to the public, starkly contradicts UW's many recent op-eds, media statements, and interviews claiming that it has not been cited by the USDA for these cruel experiments and that PETA's allegations were "unsubstantiated."

For more information, please visit PETA.org/DoubleTrouble.

A brief history review.

628 Pieces of Primate Research Garbage

More discussion about Kalin's goals and methods

These are observations from "The Ethics of Animal Experimentation: A conversation between bioethicist Rob Streiffer and research critic Rick Marolt" that was held on March 11, 2013, sponsored by the UW Animal Rights Society and recorded in the video at the end of this post. I've written here in regard only to the part of the conversation that specifically addressed the details of Ned Kalin's project.

Both Rick Marolt and Rob Streiffer are familiar with the details of the procedures; they both had access to the protocol for months, and in Streiffer's case, many months. In Streiffer's case, this has to have included significant focused discussion about those details with people who were also familiar with the protocol.

Their difficulty with these details underscores just how devilishly hard it is to talk with people about these matters. I don't understand why it is so hard to understand what is in store for these baby monkeys, but quite clearly, even people familiar with the protocol and who have had ample opportunity to think about it still find it difficult to understand.

(Times here are fairly accurate but could be off by a few seconds.)

24:10 Marolt: My understanding is that the researchers are interested in developing an anxious personality.

This is sort of right, but it misses Kalin's main point. A significant part of Kalin's decades of experiments on monkeys has been based on his ability to identify monkeys with the trait-like characteristic of being highly anxious. (They use the term "trait-like" and phenotype, because the genetics underlying this characteristic is not understood.)

See my post from July 8, 2008: "Trait-like anxious temperament in primates." And see too the the papers: Lateralized effects of diazepam on frontal brain electrical asymmetries in rhesus monkeys. Davidson RJ, Kalin NH, Shelton SE. Biol Psychiatry. 1992. And, "Lateralized response to diazepam predicts temperamental style in rhesus monkeys. Davidson RJ, Kalin NH, Shelton SE. Behav Neurosci. 1993.

Since learning that he could identify monkeys with an anxious temperament, Kalin's experiments have used such monkeys almost exclusively.

His point in this case is to record brain development over time in an effort to identify the molecular differences between the brains of monkeys who were raised under adverse conditions and those who were raised under less adverse conditions.

At about 26:00 Streiffer explains that the surrogate the infant will be kept with during the first three to four weeks of his life will have the ability to "rock back and forth, which past research has shown, helps infants develop [more normally, he seems to imply.] Kalin's protocol says: "While in the incubator, an upright surrogate covered with a soft material that is able to move back and forth at the infant's discretion will be provided for the animal."

Streiffer's comment regarding past research is correct. But from the very limited description offered in the protocol, it isn't completely clear what the surrogate will actually be. There is research showing that the "standard" moveable surrogate that seems to be referred to in the protocol, isn't the best choice if one wants the infants to develop normally, which of course, in this particular case, they don't. See: Surrogate mobility and orientation affect the early neurobehavioral development of infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Dettmer AM, Ruggiero AM, Novak MA, Meyer JS, Suomi SJ. Dev Psychobiol. 2008.

At about 26:48, they try to explain the changes in housing over the course of the babies' lives. When they are removed from the surrogates, Marolt thought they would be placed in a colony situation at some point, but Streiffer corrected him and said that they would remain with a peer throughout their life. Marolt was sort of right when he says that they will be re-caged with a different peer later on, but he mistakenly thought it was to facilitate the study of the formation of a new social relationship. This is understandable because Kalin does make this claim, but it appears to be a second thought.

In fact, the babies will be placed with a new peer at six months of age because that is the age at which the 20 control monkeys will be taken from their mothers and placed with a peer, a common husbandry method used in the labs. (In the wild, infants remain with their mothers for a year, and can remain in the same troop as their mother throughout their life.) The change in peers of the peer-reared monkeys is intended to mimic -- at the same developmental time point -- the social upheaval that will be experienced by the mother-reared monkeys when they are removed from their mothers.

The idea in and of itself seems to make some sense in an experimental design sort of way, but a moment's thought suggests that it's pretty silly; it flies in the face of the fundamental design claim. The whole idea of maternally depriving the infants and subjecting them to other various stressors is to alter their brain development. It makes sense that it will, but at six months, many, research suggests most, of these changes are likely to have already occurred. So, the brains of the monkeys in the two groups, the deprived-adversely-effected group, and the control group, will already be too dissimilar to think that the removal from their peer, and the removal from their mother, will have similar neurodevelopmental effects, yet that is the reason given by Kalin.

At about 28:25, Streiffer says that the surrogate-reared babies have to be placed with other surrogate-reared babies rather than mother-reared babies because the peer-reared monkeys "don't know how to behave in a normal social environment."

It's not clear to me how he came to this conclusion. I cannot find such a claim in the protocol, but maybe I keep missing it. In any case, if this is what he was told, or what Kalin has claimed, it seems unlikely.

The infants are placed with a peer sometime between their third and fourth week of life. Kalin says that they cannot be placed with a peer earlier on because there isn't room in the incubator for two infants, and that they cannot be taken from the incubator until they are able to self-thermo-regulate, or control their own body temperature.

At three to four weeks of age, a macaque's social environment has been nothing other than close physical contact with his or her mother. "Social behavior" in a monkey of this early age is simply clinging and some exploration of the mother's body. The immediate reaction by a "normally socialized" four week-old infant to being taken from his mother is unlikely to be any different than the reaction of a surrogate-reared monkey taken from his "mother." They would both suffer profound emotional distress.

There actually isn't a reason not to pair the maternally deprived infant with a mother-reared infant (if you could even call being with one's mother for three to four weeks rearing); the actual reason is that they have the orphans on-hand because they created them. There isn't a need to look for some other rationale, and Kalin does not appear to offer one, but again, maybe I missed it.

Beginning at about 30:10, Streiffer explains Kalin's goals. He begins with Kalin's claim that he will discover changes in gene function and the genes involved in the development of an anxious phenotype. (Phenotype is the word used in biology to say observable or observed characteristics, like hair color, behavior, etc. It is commonly used to mean the characteristics that result from an organism's genotype, or genetic make-up.) I've recently written about this line of study here, and about Kalin's methods regarding the genetics underlying depression here.

At about 30:43 Streiffer quotes Kalin's protocol and says that the research has the "potential" to identify new targets for the treatment of the effects of early adversity.

But in correspondence with others, Kalin hasn't been so guarded. He has said that "Using primate models allows us to be certain that the knowledge we acquire is directly relevant to understanding the causes of human suffering." But even using humans hasn't meant any certainty about the knowledge gained being relevant to the understanding of the causes of human suffering. See: Molecular Neurobiology of Depression: PET Findings on the Elusive Correlation with Symptom Severity. Smith DF, Jakobsen S. Front Psychiatry. 2013.

It you have an interest in the philosophical framework of ethics, you may find the discussion of interest in spite of the occasional misunderstanding of Kalin's methods and goals.

The Ethics of Animal Experimentation from luciano M on Vimeo.