Harlow, Responsibilty, and HIV

Meaningful discussion requires an attempt at honesty. We all make mistakes of course, and can unknowingly make false claims and hold unfounded opinions, but making things up, trying to mislead, and refusing to acknowledge plain facts is something altogether different.

Animals in Research and Testing seems like an effort to hoodwink the uninformed and unwary (or maybe just UW employees).

There are many silly claims on the site. Consider the statement below regarding the work of Harry Harlow on a page titled: “UW Animal Research Achievements. The Tangible Benefits of Animal Research.” This is matter-of-factly wrong.

In the forum I linked to at the bottom of the previous essay, you can hear Eric Sandgren saying that people should look up the facts themselves. Indeed, but people trying to do so have a reasonable expectation that information presented on a UW-Madison website is accurate, and they have an even stronger expectation that the information on the website is believed to be true by the authors. The public rightly expects that the state university will not knowingly mislead them. The problem is significantly compounded when publishing the false information is intended to benefit the institution itself. This is, I believe, an abuse of authority.

The importance of mom

Monkey research by Wisconsin’s Harry Harlow proved the importance of mother-child attachment to human development during the 1950s, when many psychologists discounted the relationship. In studies with a few animals, Harlow showed that food, water and medical care were not enough: young primates cannot grow into normal, healthy adults without contact with their mother. Harlow’s discoveries are widely applied in such settings as neonatal intensive care units.

This claim might not be recognizable as a lie if the actual historic facts had not been pointed out to the “author” of the “blog" associated with the university website, Eric Sandgren. But they have been, very clearly, and yet he – and by extension his employer – continues to make matter-of-fact false claims about Harlow’s work.

It is one thing to defend honestly one’s opinion that animals’ experiences and lives don’t matter very much, that scientists or ranchers or dog fighters should be able to kill them or hurt them in any way they choose, but it is an altogether different matter to present straightforward falsehoods as facts, and this seems to be a common tactic used on this University of Wisconsin-Madison website. Everyone acting as a university agent – everyone who produces copy for the site – has a higher than ordinary duty of honesty to the state’s citizens and Internet users everywhere.

Rather than repeat what I have written before regarding the actual facts surrounding Harlow’s work, I refer the reader to my essays: “Harry Harlow's Dark Shadow,” September 18, 2008, and “Monsters: Harry Harlow and Stephen Suomi,” web posted: August 29, 2010.

Repeating the Harlow myth isn’t the half of it. It’s not the tenth of it. Half-truths abound.

This university accepts responsibility for the stewardship of all animals under its care.

How would one go about judging the veracity or even determining the meaning of a statement like that? One way might be to look at how the university responds to citations for its violations of the Animal Welfare Act. If one took responsibility and acted responsibly, one wouldn't let things deteriorate to the point that a team of inspectors would be called in, or at least act responsibly and fix the problems pointed out to you.

USDA inspectors returned recently to the university and discovered that major violations like the university approving experiments even though researchers have not demonstrated that they have looked for alternatives to painful procedures, have gone uncorrected.

Because animal models are used only to answer questions that cannot be answered in any other way, experiments are not approved unless the lead investigator can show that no effective alternatives exist.

This is a half-truth because the animal models are themselves demonstrably ineffective.

Here’s a really misleading statement:

Nobel Prizes for Medicine or Physiology routinely recognize research that relied on animal models. The 2008 prize was awarded for discovering the human immunodeficiency virus, based on work with monkeys, chimpanzees and mice.

Like the false claim about the importance of Harry Harlow’s work, I believe the university’s claim that the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was based on work with monkeys, chimpanzees and mice is factually incorrect.

The isolation of HIV was first reported and published in 1983, as explained below by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi in her Nobel acceptance speech.

UW-Madison professor and author Deborah Blum tells the story of the discovery of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in “Not a Nice Death,” Chapter 9 of her 1994, The Monkey Wars, (which are still raging.)

She tells us that in 1976, a fatal epidemic swept through the stumptail macaque colony at the California Regional Primate Research Center at the University of California-Davis (now the California National Primate Research Center.) It turned out to be SIV, but at the time the cause of the disease was unknown. She quotes California primate center veterinarian Roy Henrickson: “They were suddenly dying, and whatever it was, it was a terrible death, a cascade of infections, cramming one on top of another, wearing the little monkeys out.”

In 1980, another wave of the same disease swept through the rhesus colony. A disease with the same symptoms broke out at the New England Regional Primate Research Center at Harvard University at about the same time. (The facility is in Southboro, a few miles from Boston.)

Blum:

And this time, there was something similar spreading into the human population. A troubling illness was emerging, a disease that caused a lethal collapse of the immune system, crippling the body’s ability to fight off infection. The human disease was AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

The New England scientists realized, and then the California researchers, that the monkey disease was almost a mirror of the human one....

The discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus, was not based on work with monkeys, chimpanzees or mice.

The opposite is true. The discovery of the simian immunodeficiency virus was based on work with humans. HIV was first described in 1983.

SIV was first described in 1985. See: Isolation of T-cell tropic HTLV-III-like retrovirus from macaques. Daniel MD, et al. Science.

Consider the beginning of Françoise Barré-Sinoussi’s Nobel acceptance speech.

Does this sound like monkeys, chimpanzees, and mice were used?

The Early Days

The story begins more than 25 years ago, when the initial clinical observations of a new alarming epidemic were made. In June 1981, clinicians in the United States first reported a number of cases of Pneumocystis carinii in homosexual men. Subsequently, the first cases of what would later be known as AIDS were observed in France. At the time, I was working at the Institut Pasteur with Luc Montagnier and Jean-Claude Chermann. In December 1982, we were contacted by clinicians in France who provided us with a biopsy of a lymph node from an AIDS patient, with the aim of isolating the etiological agent causing the disease.

The hypothesis at the time was that a retrovirus might be the etiological agent responsible for AIDS. The only human retrovirus known at that time was the human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV), known to cause transformation of T cells, and arguably it would have been possible to culture the cells from the lymph node biopsy and simply observe for T-cell transformation. Luckily, we did not assume that HTLV was necessarily the cause of the disease, and we decided to sample the culture supernatant every three to four days to detect for reverse transcriptase activity. Indeed, we started to observe a reverse transcriptase activity, which decreased shortly after, in correlation with cell death. Initially we were concerned about possible toxicity related to tissue culture components, but following the addition of fresh lymphocytes and fresh components to the culture, the same cell-death phenomenon was observed, in correlation with the detection of reverse transcriptase activity. We thus realised that the virus itself was responsible for this phenomenon.

The isolation of this new human retrovirus (at the time known as LAV, lymphoadenopathy-associated virus) was first reported and published in May 1983. In this first report we described that LAV could be propagated on peripheral blood mononuclear cells and on cord blood lymphocytes. We also described the viral protein p25, and importantly we determined that there was no, or weak, cross-reactivity with HTLV-1 proteins, indicating that we were dealing with a new human virus. In the same report we demonstrated the presence of antibodies against LAV in a second patient affected by AIDS. The report of the virus was, however, just the beginning.

The isolation of the virus was not sufficient, however, to convince the scientific community of the implication of the virus in AIDS. It was, therefore, essential to further characterize the virus and establish a clear link between the virus and the disease to persuade the scientific community and the relevant authorities that the newly isolated virus was the etiological agent responsible for the emerging epidemic. In 1983, we decided to immediately halt all other research projects which were ongoing in the laboratory (including determining whether MMTV sequences could be associated with breast cancer—a hypothesis still valid today) and to mobilize a network of efficient collaborations with clinicians, immunologists, and molecular biologists. In order to determine whether this newly isolated virus was truly responsible for the disease affecting AIDS patients, we quickly developed a serological test to perform sero-epidemiological studies. Crucially this same test was subsequently used as a diagnostic tool for blood testing. The development of the diagnostic test was made possible by a strong and efficient partnership with the private sector, namely Sanofi Pasteur.

And the date of this paper also from Barré-Sinoussi:

Isolation of a T-lymphotropic retrovirus from a patient at risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Barré-Sinoussi F, et al. Science. 1983.

Abstract

A retrovirus belonging to the family of recently discovered human T-cell leukemia viruses (HTLV), but clearly distinct from each previous isolate, has been isolated from a Caucasian patient with signs and symptoms that often precede the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This virus is a typical type-C RNA tumor virus, buds from the cell membrane, prefers magnesium for reverse transcriptase activity, and has an internal antigen (p25) similar to HTLV p24. Antibodies from serum of this patient react with proteins from viruses of the HTLV-I subgroup, but type-specific antisera to HTLV-I do not precipitate proteins of the new isolate. The virus from this patient has been transmitted into cord blood lymphocytes, and the virus produced by these cells is similar to the original isolate. From these studies it is concluded that this virus as well as the previous HTLV isolates belong to a general family of T-lymphotropic retroviruses that are horizontally transmitted in humans and may be involved in several pathological syndromes, including AIDS.

Maybe the university’s writer is correct, maybe the discovery of HIV was dependent on experiments on chimpanzees, monkeys, and mice, but dates and statements from people who were there at the time strongly suggest otherwise.

I challenge them to provide clear relevant references for their claims. I don’t believe they can; I don’t believe they exist.

Symposium Addresses Ethics

Symposium Addresses Ethics, Standards, Beneficiaries of Research
10/20/2010

Madison, Wisconsin - Drawing on issues raised by this year's Go Big Read selection, a fall symposium at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will address responsible conduct and ethical decision-making in research.

The Integrating Research Ethics and Scholarship (IRES) is an initiative, sponsored by the Graduate School, that offers both novice and seasoned researchers and scholars educational opportunities and resources that reflect best practices in ethics education and scholarly integrity.

....

A public evening session, "Who Decides and Who Profits: Research at UW-Madison," will feature a panel discussion about the decision-making and administrative processes behind campus research. The panel will include a mix of researchers, research administrators and deans.

"We are hoping to put an open, public face on how we, as an institution and as individuals, go about the process of research," says William Mellon, professor of pharmacy and associate dean for research policy, who will moderate the discussion. "In general, researchers are interested in producing results that will benefit people. Most researchers are motivated by making a difference."

Discussion topics will include the costs and benefits of research, research oversight and infrastructure at UW-Madison, how the public can influence the research agenda, how federal and state money is spent and why basic science research is done.

"To the general public, the nature of how research gets done - the organization and administration - is not transparent and so complex. There are many misconceptions," says horticulture professor Irwin Goldman, one of the panel members.

.....

I attended the evening panel discussion held on November 4, 2010. The event was video-recorded; when it becomes available, I’ll link to it here.

The moderator was William Mellon, the Associate Dean for Research Policy. The participants were Susan Ellis Weismer, Associate Dean in the College of Letters and Science, Professor, Communicative Disorders; Sharon Dunwoody, Interim Associate Dean for Graduate Education, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication; Eric Sandgren, Director, Research Animal Resources Center, Associate Professor, Experimental Pathology; Nichelle Cobb, Director of the Health Sciences Institutional Review Board; Richard Moss, Senior Associate Dean for Basic Research, Biotechnology, and Graduate Studies, School of Medicine and Public Health, Professor of Physiology; Irwin Goldman, Professor of Horticulture; and Jill Sakai, University Communications.

The event was interesting in a geeky sort of way though it did not answer the questions posed in the advertising. I enjoyed it and came away with some new insight. One thing that struck me was the gigantic chasm between oversight of human-based research and animal-based research.

The event grew out of the university’s Go Big Read campus-wide book circle’s first selection (a play on the university’s Go Big Red athletic slogan): The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. http://www.gobigread.wisc.edu/

Before, via email, and during the panel discussion, the audience was invited to submit questions. These were vetted and edited by Associate Dean Mellon, and no follow-up was allowed.

Nichelle Cobb, Director of the Health Sciences Institutional Review Board, the committee responsible for oversight of human-based experiments answered questions read by Mellon concerning human experimentation. She said that even the use of tissue left over from surgery is highly regulated, and that informed consent is expected and required in certain cases.

It is apparently common and accepted practice in hospital admissions to include a generic approval clause in the fine print granting permission for the use of incidental tissue residues. These tissues are apparently not associated with a patient’s identity and apparently may be used generically in research. On the other hand, if a researcher has a specific desire for certain types of tissues from certain patients, then informed consent is required, and if there is a profit motive behind the collection of specific tissues, then the request, according to Cobb, would be almost certainly denied.

This sensitivity to the use of leftovers from surgery on humans is at distinct odds with the de facto rubber-stamping of nearly any requested use of whole live animals. Yet we hear repeatedly by industry spokespersons and other vested parties that the oversight of experiments on animals is more stringent than oversight of experiments on humans. For instance:

FACT: GOVERNMENT AGENCIES WORLDWIDE MONITOR THE TREATMENT OF RESEARCH ANIMALS.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has set rigorous standards for the use of animals in research that are more stringent than those used for human studies. Our Commitment to Ethical Animal Care and Use. (p 7) Johnson and Johnson

I had not previously looked into these claims and had merely assumed that they were false, but as a result of the panel discussion, I did a little research. I can say now, and support it with evidence, that such a claim – that animal-based research is more highly regulated than human-based research is absolutely ludicrous. I imagine that those who make such claims are either repeating falsehoods they’ve heard or else are making them up themselves.

I submitted two questions to the panel, neither of which was asked fairly by Mellon.

The first one had to do with the ever-growing body of research demonstrating through meta-analyses and retrospective reviews that clinical care of human patients is not being appreciatively improved as a result of basic biomedical research using animals.

When a protocol comes before an Animal Care and Use Committee for approval, there is a near certainty that the research results will provide no new knowledge that will lead to an improvement of human patient care. [See for example, Lindl T, Völkel M & Kolar R. 2005 and 2006.] Yet the public is told that the oversight committees weight the costs to the animals against the potential benefits to humans. But the costs to the animals are a lifetime of being caged in bleak tight confinement, often-serious discomfort, stress, and almost always death, and the benefits to humans are nil.

Thus, in every approved project, and generally all projects are approved, the ethical weighing that occurs is this: no likely benefit to humans vs. certain suffering and death to the animal = an approved project.

How could an informed honest person argue that this system is ethical?

One of the panelists, Irwin Goldman, Professor of Horticulture, was a spokesperson in the university’s strong efforts to host the Department of Homeland Security and USDA jointly sponsored BSL-4 laboratory, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF).

The university argued vigorously that the NBAF would be perfectly safe and should be built in the Town of Dunn, a few miles from Madison, and successfully cajoled some local politicians to get behind their effort. [See my essays: "regrettable consequences" July 30, 2009; UW Experts Dead Wrong, again. July 28, 2009; Are UW Vivisectors Anti-Knowledge? June 8, 2007. NBAF Fiasco Reveals Idiocy of UW Decision-Makers. May 10, 2007; Wanna buy a bridge? March 12, 2007.]

But the Government Accounting Office reported in 2009 that the lab would pose unnecessary risks if it were built anywhere on the mainland. The GAO reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s analysis of the risks was flawed in a multitude of ways. See: Observations on DHS’s Analyses Concerning Whether FMD Research Can Be Done as Safely on the Mainland as on Plum Island. United States Government Accountability Office. Report to Congressional Committees. 2009. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09747.pdf

So I asked whether it was ethical for the university to ask the Department of Homeland Security to build the facility here and to tell the public that there was no appreciable risk, without first seeking an analysis of the risks from experts at the university?

Apparently the university had conducted no independent analysis of the risks; instead, they merely argued that the facility would be an economic boon to the community and that any concern over safety was mere hand wringing by uniformed or misinformed Luddites. Mellon twisted this question, like my question about the ethical weighing of costs and benefits of experiments on animals, into something nearly unrecognizable.

There was no discussion with the audience. There were no follow up questions.

A couple interesting tidbits:

Associate Dean Mellon started out by saying that the panel, or maybe IRES, was: “[O]ur initial foray into this area.” Public discussion about ethics is apparently a new idea at the university.

Mellon “read” a question that asked what the university was doing to counter the negative press about its use of animals. There was much hemming and hawing, but Jill Sakai of University Communications said she was aware that a recent telephone opinion poll by a group named CURES or C.U.R.E.S. or something like that, there was no opportunity for follow-up questions, had found great support for university research.

As far as I can tell, there isn’t an organization by this name. I contacted Ms. Sakai (twice) and asked her for a reference or a link, or any information whatsoever she might have about this survey, but she said she knew nothing, had nothing, and could point to nothing about it. This seems odd to me given her significant “knowledge” of it at the panel.

Associate Dean Mellon had told me in an email that the panel would not address animal research, but of course, with two vivisectors (Moss and Sandgren) on the panel, it did. Mellon also told the audience that the university is planning a series of “forums” specifically addressing the use of animals. The “forums” were proposed by the university as part of their successful efforts to defeat Dane County Resolution 35, though Mellon didn’t mention that. As of this writing, as far as I am aware, the “forums” planning committee has met only once. If the IRES symposium can be used as a indication of the substance and value of these promised “forums,” they may be more form than substance.

P.S. and a little aside: I recently participated in a genuine forum with actual discussion with the audience at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, Wisconsin. One of the other two panelists was Eric Sandgren. You can watch it here. Sandgren told the audience [beginning at about 16:08 and then again at 1:10;15] that he had opposed Resolution 35 because it had a fatal flaw, the committee proposed by the Resolution created would decide for the County whether experiments on monkeys are ethical. The actual text reads:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Panel’s “Final Report” will include a recommendation to the Dane County Board of Supervisors either to officially endorse or officially oppose experimenting on monkeys in Dane County.

Eric may need some reading remediation. He should look up the meaning of recommendation.

"Animal Research: Groupthink in Both Camps"

You might think that in a dispute when one party asks the other to meet it 0.1 percent of the way, a mutually agreeable resolution could be readily reached. But no, researchers will not renounce vivisection of monkeys, dogs, or cats.

--- Lawrence A. Hansen, M.D., professor of neuroscience and pathology at the University of California at San Diego, where he also leads the neuropathology core of the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

From: Animal Research: Groupthink in Both Camps. The Chronicle of Higher Education. November 7, 2010.

The Basso Affair

An October 4, 2010 letter from an executive committee of UW-Madison’s Faculty Senate to Chancellor Biddy Martin is the newest bit of the ever growing mountain of evidence that oversight of research using animals at the university is out of control and grossly ineffective.

The failures were recognized by the university’s senior administrators years ago, according to them, but left uncorrected until a crisis loomed, threatening the immense flow of cash from the public coffers, now said to be over $1 billion annually. (That's a lot of motivation.)

As a result, a dramatic and controversial restructuring of oversight was announced by Chancellor Martin and Provost Paul DeLuca in 2009. Martin explained in a letter to faulty and students that restructuring was needed because: “a number of safety and compliance problems ... have led to investigations and fines by major federal funding agencies and have required crisis-like efforts on the part of the university administration to avoid harsher sanctions...”. Biddy Martin. “From the desk of the chancellor: Chancellor addresses Graduate School proposal.” Oct. 21, 2009.

The provost says that the complexity involved in administering a research enterprise as large as UW-Madison’s was shown in a pair of incidents during the past six months.

A threatened loss of accreditation through the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care could have caused “a suspension of research funding in all areas using animals,” DeLuca says. “Only by a last-ditch effort were we able to put into place needed facilities and processes to engender a successful review,” he says. “That’s an example of not aligning our resources to our needs.”

The second concerned biosafety compliance, he says. “We were behind in biosafety protocol management by hundreds of protocols. We had not marshaled the resources and manpower, and did not have a mechanism to get that done,” he says. (“Graduate School proposal aired at meetings.” David Tenenbaum. University of Wisconsin News. Oct. 21, 2009.)

[For more on this second problem, see: "Say no to new UW-Madison germ lab." Rick Bogle. Isthmus. October 8, 2009.]

The current case puts the lie to the university’s perennial claim that all is well in its animal labs. It underscores in bright red the plain undeniable fact that the care of the animals is the lowest priority and that their welfare is the first thing jettisoned when egos clash.

From late in 2009 throughout most of 2010, the Alliance for Animals worked to establish a county-sanctioned citizens’ advisory panel to consider the use of monkeys at the university. Opposition to this idea came almost entirely from university staff paid to experiment on monkeys and from a few others outside the university also with financial interests in the use of monkeys. [See: "Opposition to Res 35."]

Scott McDonell, Chair of the Dane County Board of Supervisors and his protégé Jeremy Levin apparently worked with the university behind the scenes to successfully scuttle this effort. [See "UW animal research agenda merits closer community scrutiny." Rick Marolt. Isthmus. October 14, 2010.] They argued that what's happening in the labs is no business of the public’s, that we are too dull to understand why the animals are being used, that the university is completely trustworthy, that the university is the best arbiter of its animal use, and that the experiments are fully and meaningful regulated. (Toadies or just duped? Either way, they are poor public representatives.)

Unknowingly, even as we worked to establish a citizens’ panel, the UW Faculty Senate was investigating researcher Michele Basso’s allegation that she was treated unfairly and without due process when her experiments on monkeys were suspended in February 2009. [An aside: public access to the Basso lab web page is now blocked and requires a password. See: "Visit the Basso Lab."]

A common concern raised by UW researchers regarding the proposed citizens’ panel was the possibility that it would be biased; because the panel was never convened, the validity of their concern cannot be determined. Arguably, this concern doesn’t apply to the University Committee, which makes its findings particularly worthy of notice.

Their report is made up of thirty-seven Findings, four Conclusions, and nine Recommendations.

To understand the nature and severity of the problems exposed by this internal report, consider the weight and implications of Findings 3, 4 and 6:

3. Professor Basso’s research is more invasive that that of any other UW-Madison non-human primate researcher.

4. Due to the invasive nature of Professor Basso’s research, there are predictable complications for her research animals.

6. By all accounts, neither her department nor the School of Medicine and Public Health were prepared to support Professor Basso’s research program. The Medical Sciences Center facilities, where Professor Basso conducted her research, did not have veterinarians on staff who were adequately trained/prepared in the care of the non-human primates Professor Basso used in her studies, nor did it have a sufficient number of veterinarians....

Basso apparently agrees that her procedures may be the most invasive ones using monkeys (and probably any other animals) on campus. She wrote in her response to Welter:

Our experiments are more complicate than [redacted] or [redacted] We have multiple cylinders (up to three) on our explants. This leaves the underlying support structure [a monkey’s skull] less stabile and reduces the life expectance of the explants. We perform recording experiments from very deep midbrain and brainstem structures making each penetration more risky than experiments performed on cerebral cortex for example.

Basso has been at UW-Madison since approximately 2000/01. During the past decade she has had a number of problems, documented as early as 2002. In her May 4, 2009 letter to William Mellon, Associate Dean for Research Policy, chief campus veterinarian Janet Welter wrote: “Starting 4/24/02, an animal (# 09089) was noted to have 9 eye coil replacement surgeries, with the last one being 9/21/06. Despite multiple instances of eye coil failure, the PI sought no assistance until pressured by the SMPH [School of Medicine and Public Health] ACUC.”

Now we know, from the University Committee letter to Chancellor Martin, that in spite of multiple deaths, recurring problems, and unending bickering between the Basso lab and campus veterinarians, nothing substantive was done for half a decade.

And it turns out that the All Campus Animal Care and Use Committee* suspended her animal use only after years of multiple serious problems, yet did so in a bumbling manner that violated the university’s internal due process for disciplinary matters.

This isn’t a surprise because the animal oversight committees seem unable to comply with any regulations, whether internal, state, or federal.

So Basso’s research methods were known ahead of time to be highly invasive. Yet no provisions were made to provide the animals with qualified veterinary care. Even after the SMPH ACUC twice tried to suspend her work, the senior university administration stood by and did little; they allowed more surgeries, abscessed brains, and more deaths.

There is a suggestion hidden in the University Committee’s letter to Chancellor Martin that Basso’s methods and problems were whitewashed, that she received tenure in response to criticism of her experiments by animal rights activists.

Finding 13: Former Chancellor John Wiley distributed a letter date 13 March 2006 to residents of Madison’s Nakoma neighborhood alerting them “that animal rights activists may be protesting the use of animals in biomedical research ... in your neighborhood because many of you are faculty, staff, or students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, some of whom are involved in biomedical research.” He goes on to make reference to Professor Basso’s work and states that “professor Basso’s laboratory has passed all inspections with no reports of non-compliance.”

How would it have looked if the university had admitted that her research was being challenged internally as well, that the university was doing a poor job overseeing her research or even supplying her animals with adequate veterinary care? They needed to downplay claims being made by activists that her research was causing profound suffering (which in fact, internal documents say was indeed the case.)

Later on in 2006, she testified before WI Congressman Petri’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security's Legislative Hearing on H.R. 4239, the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act," saying that she had received unwanted magazine and book club subscriptions in the mail.

In her testimony she said:

“It is critical to point out that biomedical research is subject to very strict regulations and oversight.”

“We have an animal care and use committee for each school at Madison and an all campus committee that oversees all schools. My research meets or exceeds all standards set by the USDA, Public Health Service Policy as well as local guidelines for the care and use of non human primates in research.” [See: "Basso: Cover-Up? Conspiracy? Scandal."]

But in spite of “no reports [from USDA/APHIS] of non-compliance,”...

Finding 15: In late 2008, SMPH administration sought to have the SMPH ACUC shut down Professor Basso’s research program. Subsequently, there were two motions by the School of Medicine and Public Health Anima Care and Use Committee to revoke professor Basso’s animal use privileges, both of which failed on tie votes. SMPH administration then sought successfully to have the All Campus ACUC shut down her research.

We need to place all of this in context.

First, the admission/claim/assertion that Basso’s experiments are the most invasive is remarkable given the extreme invasiveness of Ei Terasawa’s experiments on monkeys’ pituitary gland, Kalin/Davidson’s monkey brain ablation experiments, or even Paul Kaufman’s experiments on monkeys' eyes.

Second, this new evidence of the university’s long failure to provide qualified veterinary care to the monkeys in Basso’s lab is diametrically at odds with official and unofficial university statements concerning its animal care program.

Third, as was pointed out in the coverage of the University Committee’s report, no one other than Basso has claimed that the monkeys she was using were appropriately care for.

Fourth, and I will write more about this later, the Basso affair and the university’s assertions that all is well must be seen against the backdrop of the unprecedented scrutiny being paid to their animal care and use program by the USDA and NIH.

And fifth, all efforts by the public to look more deeply into the university’s use of animals have been either rebuked outright or else, when legal constraints force them to comply, have resulted in a reluctant release of heavily redacted documents.

Clearly and beyond any silly assertion to the contrary, oversight of animal care and use at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is a catastrophe for the animals. It could be a significant problem for the university as well since a team of federal investigators is now on campus trying to determine exactly where things fell apart, why they were not corrected, who is responsible, and what fines, if any, should be levied.

It should be clear at the very least that the responsibility for the many problems and great suffering rests ultimately with the Chancellor. But just below her in the chain of command, and arguably even more personally responsible are Provost DeLuca and Vice-Chancellor for research Martin Cadwallader.

But more than them, it would be difficult to find anyone who failed more miserably in their responsibility to maintain the paltry minimum requirements of the Animal Welfare Act than the current director of the Research Animal Resource Center and past chair of the All Campus ACUC, Eric Sandgren.

It is past time to open the university to public scrutiny and to get rid of the deadwood protecting the bad apples and bamboozling the public. This long history of bamboozing, hoodwinking, and cover-up, brings us right back to the university’s efforts to deflect public concern over the use of monkeys and other animals.

Finding 21: The members of the All Campus ACUC had little expertise/experience with non-human primate research.

[But see “Campus Connection: Panel says ethics considered before monkey research.” Todd Finkelmeyer. The Capital Times January 9, 2010.] Chancellor Martin felt that the All Campus ACUC was the appropriate body to consider the ethics of experimenting on monkeys. During Biddy’s short tenure at the university she has demonstrated a rather remarkably poor decision-making ability when it comes to anything regarding the use of animals. She has argued that there is no reason to debate the use of animals, but then has told the All Campus ACUC to consider the ethics of experiments on monkeys; she has argued that there is no reason for the public or the county to look into the university’s use of animals, but has announced a series of “public forums” to address the matter. She also wrote a long rambling letter to faculty, staff, and students about the Basso affair, but then had the letter taken off the university website.

In her defense, when it comes to the use of animals in laboratory-based research, few if any defenders are able to mount a consistent cogent argument.

Finally, there is one bit of ironic dark humor in the University Committee’s letter to Chancellor Martin. The committee’s first recommendation is this:

1. Whenever the welfare of a research animal is at risk, the institutional official should be promptly informed and that institutional official should make a decision whether to suspend the investigator’s animal use privileges. In dire situations it may not me possible to convene the responsible ACUC to examine the situation.

This naiveté is mind-numbing. “Whenever the welfare of a research animal is at risk...”? The welfare of every animal used in research on campus is at risk. It is precisely this risk that necessitates the implementation of laws and regulations – regardless of their limited effect – to govern animal use. If the institutional official was actually notified and expected to make a decision “whenever the welfare of a research animal is at risk,” that is all that person would do day in and day out. Right now, their only job is to sign a statement to NIH promising that their institution will obey all local and federal regulations. The UW-Madison institutional official hasn’t even been able to keep that promise.


*Unlike most (all?) other institutions using animals, UW-Madison has multiple Animal Care and Use Committees. There is one each for the vet school, the grad school, the ag school, Arts and Sciences, the med school, and (now said by NIH to be in violation of the Public Heath Services regulations) the All Campus ACUC. Most institutions (all the rest?) have only one.

Related posts:

UW panel violated Basso's rights
Who killed Res 35?
Opposition to Res 35
What's Bucky Afraid Of?
Biddy Martin’s Argument
Planet Biddy
Primate Center Director Hopeful Calls Sifting and Winnowing “Undemocratic”
Biddy Urges Less Winnowing
Basso: Cover-Up? Conspiracy? Scandal.
Biddy Martin on Basso
Dane Co. Board Debates Controversial UW Animal Research
Public Debate on the Ethics of Monkey Research
"No real accountability."
The pattern is easy to see
UW Madison's New Chancellor
New USDA Investigation at UW-Madison
WSJ: Much more than a day late
I told you so...
Basso's Relevance
Dirty laundry to be publicly aired: Basso's cruel crap
Dogma: Basso's lab's best argument?
UW-Madison Animal Research - More Problems Ahead
The "Best Science"
Michele Basso is Being Investigated
AETA and FACE
The Party Line
"Stay the course!"
Ethics at UW-Madison
Not So Deep Thinking
Eric Sandgren: “We do not make excuses.”
“Is experimenting on monkeys ethical?”
UW's Big Rug

UW panel violated Basso's rights

Report: UW panel violated primate researcher’s rights
TODD FINKELMEYER | The Capital Times | October 19, 2010

The animal care committee on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus that temporarily shut down a researcher’s lab in a high-profile case violated her right to due process and failed to follow established procedures, a faculty committee says after conducting its own investigation.

The seven-page report, which was obtained by The Capital Times, was dated Oct. 4 and addressed to Chancellor Biddy Martin. It outlines the University Committee’s findings from an investigation into a grievance filed by Michele Basso, an associate professor of physiology whose neurological research using monkeys was the subject of a long letter to the entire campus from Martin earlier this year.

In particular, the report says two committees that oversee the care of research animals failed to conduct formal investigations into allegations that Basso improperly cared for her animals, that the All Campus Animal Care and Use Committee overstepped its authority in suspending her research .... much more

Animal Consumption Falls Dramatically in US*

[A larger view.]

Over 400 million fewer chickens were killed and eaten last year according to recent numbers from the USDA. That's about four and a half percent. Maybe the downturn has something to do with the economy, but I wonder. Maybe the methods of reporting or gathering data have changed.

But chicken meat is the cheapest meat. If an economic downturn was responsible, there would probably be a reduced consumption of cows and pigs - since their meat is more expensive -- and a somewhat commensurate increase in the consumption of chickens. But USDA reports that the number of animals slaughtered was reduced across the board, as was the consumption of many animal products. Only egg production remained firm.

Half a million chickens is a lot of animals. Maybe these absolutely large numbers (even if relatively small) are the result of reduced demand for reasons other than economics. Maybe fewer people feel good about eating each other. Time will tell.

*2009:

Commercial hog slaughter totaled 113.6 million head, 2 percent lower than 2008;
Commercial cattle slaughter during 2009 totaled 33.3 million head, down 3 percent from 2008;
Commercial calf slaughter totaled 944,200 head, 1 percent lower than a year ago;
Commercial sheep and lamb slaughter, at 2.52 million head, was down 2 percent from the previous year.

Livestock Slaughter 2009 Summary Agricultural Statistics Board
April 2010, NASS, USDA
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/LiveSlauSu/LiveSlauSu-04-29-2010.pdf

-----

Commercial chicken slaughter totaled 8,658,860,000 down from 9,075,112,000 in 2008;
Commercial turkey slaughter totaled 245,768,000 down from 271,265,000 in 2008;
Commercial duck slaughter totaled 22,767,000 down from 24,149,000.

Poultry Slaughter 2009 Summary Agricultural Statistics Board
February 2010, NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service), USDA
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/PoulSlauSu/PoulSlauSu-02-25-2010.pdf

-----

Total cheese production, excluding cottage cheeses, was 10.1 billion pounds, 2.0 percent above 2008 production. Wisconsin was the leading State with 26.0 percent of the production.

Butter production in the United States during 2009 totaled 1.57 billion pounds, 4.3 percent below 2008. California was the leading State in butter production and accounted for 33.1 percent of the production.

Dry milk powders: (2009 U.S. production, comparisons with 2008);
Nonfat dry milk, human --- 1.51 billion pounds, down 0.7 percent;
Skim milk powders --- 222 million pounds, down 40.6 percent.

Whey products: (2009 U.S. production, comparisons with 2008);
Dry whey, total --- 1.00 billion pounds, down 7.5 percent;
Lactose, human and animal --- 723 million pounds, down 3.1 percent;
Whey protein concentrate, total --- 415 million pounds, down 6.3 percent.

Frozen products: (2009 U.S. production, comparisons with 2008);
Ice cream, Regular (total) --- 920 million gallons, down 1.1 percent;
Ice cream, Lowfat (total) --- 381 million gallons, down 0.6 percent;
Sherbet (total) --- 53.1 million gallons, down 8.0 percent;
Frozen Yogurt (total) --- 74.4 million gallons, down 5.3 percent.

Milk Production 189,992 million lbs in 2008. 189,320 million lbs in 2009.

Dairy Products 2009 Summary Agricultural Statistics Board
April 2010 49 NASS, USDA
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/DairProdSu/DairProdSu-04-29-2010.pdf

-----

U.S. Average Number of Layers Down 1 Percent: Layer numbers during 2009 averaged 337 million, down 1 percent from the year earlier.

The annual average production per layer on hand in 2009 was 268 eggs, up 1 percent from 2008.

U.S. Egg Production Up Slightly: Egg production during the year ending November 30, 2009 totaled 90.4 billion eggs, up slightly from 2008.

Table egg production, at 77.7 billion eggs, was up 1 percent from the previous year.

Hatching egg production, at 12.7 billion eggs, was down 5 percent from 2008.

U.S. December 1 Inventory Numbers: The total number of chickens on hand on December 1, 2009 (excluding commercial broilers) was 450 million birds, up 1 percent from last year.

Chickens and Eggs 2009 Summary Agricultural Statistics Board
February 2010 NASS, USDA
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/ChickEgg/ChickEgg-02-25-2010.pdf


US Population

2009: 307,006,550
2008: 304,374,846
http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html

New USDA Investigation at UW-Madison

After the Terasawa incident was exposed by the Alliance for Animals, coming on the heals of the cows being left to starve to death, university spokesman and (now) Research Animal Resource Center director Eric Sandgren claimed that the university had learned it's lesson about public disclosure; from here on out, he said, whenever problems arose, rather than allowing anti-cruelty activists to be the ones letting the public know what was happening, the university itself would be the first to announce any problems. That wasn't true during the Michele Basso affair, and it may not be true once again.

Multiple inside sources are saying that the university is again being investigated by the USDA.

Reportedly, APHIS Investigative & Enforcement Services arrived on campus on October 6, and announced that an investigation will evaluate the university's Animal Care and Use Program over the past three years.

This highly unusual investigation comes on the heals of the unprecedented joint investigation by the NIH and the USDA that reported nearly a hundred violations of the federal regulations governing the care and use of animals on campus.

This new investigation will apparently be launched on, Monday, October 18, and will continue through the end of November, at least.

As usual, everyone has been told to keep quiet about this.

Apparently, the USDA investigative team is comprised of nine people from across the country and is being led by Eastern Region Field Investigator Harry G. Dawson.

Apparently, the national pro-vivisection industry front group, the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR) has been contacted by worried scientists and is said to be alarmed at the possible national impact of likely findings.

The most recent closed session of the All-Campus Animal Care and Use Committee meeting was reportedly "very loud." When the meeting broke up, members left quite upset and undoubtedly very worried.

Stay tuned.

Wisconsin Ag Connection

I don't know what to make of the people working at Wisconsin Ag Connection, although I'm not sure anyone actually works "there." Wisconsin Ag Connection turns out to be a template produced by an outfit called USAgNet.com.I would not normally have paid much attention to them, but an article they posted on their website, and that apparently showed up on [every-state] Ag Connection, had to do with the disturbing case of the North Carolina contract research lab, Professional Laboratory and Research Services, or just PLRS as it is more frequently referred to.

And coincidentally, I had just read a story posted by another Ag group called FarmFutures.com calling readers' attention to a report from yet another Ag group called the Center for Food Integrity. The article posted by FarmFutures starts out like this:

Farm Groups Face Uphill Battle in Animal Welfare
New research shows consumers believe HSUS, PETA over farm groups.
Mike Wilson
Published: Oct 6, 2010

New research from the Center for Food Integrity shows most consumers as twice as likely to believe the Humane Society of the United States and People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals over farm organizations when it comes to humane treatment of farm animals.

The research was released this morning at the CFI's Food Summit, held in Chicago.

Apparently, Ag groups like USAgNet.com are part of the reason the industry's credibility is so very low. From their website:

• News & Information - Unlike many other Web sites, our own editors generate the daily news content found on this site each day. When you see it on USAgNet.com, you usually do not see it anywhere else.

Interesting. And complete bull manure. Here's the start of the article that caught my eye:

Virginian-Pilot Story Misleads Readers on Animal Care
USAgNet - 10/11/2010

Contrary to a report in last week's Virginian-Pilot newspaper, a comprehensive inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of NC-based Professional Laboratory and Research Services has found no evidence of animal neglect or abuse. The USDA finding follows People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' September release of a contrived video that inaccurately depicts the conditions at PLRS, in a malicious attempt to force the small business to close its doors.

Two USDA veterinarians visited PLRS on September 13 and 14 and conducted a thorough medical review of every animal at the facility. Their inspection revealed no evidence of abuse or neglect. In addition, USDA performed a routine inspection of the facility on July 7--during the time PETA's operative was working there--and found no evidence that would corroborate the group's baseless claims.

continues....

There are two major problems here. First, the story from USAgNet is almost a complete falsehood, and secondly, it's not from USAgNet's "own editors," it's a cut and paste job from a PLRS press release.

The Wisconsin Ag Connection (think industry front group USAgNet) swallowed PLRS's claims without question. Obviously, anyone hurting animals for profit -- like vivisectors and dairymen and ranchers -- must be on the side of truth, and anyone criticizing them, or having the audacity to actually go and find out for themselves, like those pesky PeTA radicals, certainly can't be believed, even if they get hours of videotape.

But there is no reason to take PeTA's word on this. Apparently, the truth seekers at Wisconsin Ag Connection (think industry front group USAgNet) couldn't be bothered to actually read the USDA's inspection report that PLRS claims gave them such high marks. Here are some of the details from the USDA documenting the "no evidence of abuse or neglect":

At the time of the inspection a large number of dogs were noted to have health problems such as periodontal disease, pododermatitis [an inflammatory (red, hot, painful) disease of the feet], otitis externa [an inflammatory (red, hot, painful) disease of the outer ear], and conjunctivitis [an inflammation or infection of the tissue lining the eyelids.]

In the cases of periodontal disease, the inspectors noted dental tartar accumulation, plaque accumulation at the gingival margins, receding gingival margins, sometimes exposed roots, and sometimes loosened teeth....

In the cases of the pododermatitis the inspectors observed that the feet were moist, erythematous [redness of the skin, often a sign of inflammation or infection], had dark staining of the fur, and sometimes swelling/interdigital cysts.

Many of the animals with pododermatitis also had lick granulomas [a raised, usually ulcerated area] located on their carpal/tarsal joints.

[And on and on... ]

You can read the report here.

And in spite of this overwhelming evidence of extreme neglect, Wisconsin Ag Connection (think industry front group USAgNet) reported to all their readers that "a comprehensive inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of NC-based Professional Laboratory and Research Services has found no evidence of animal neglect or abuse;" that PeTA had made it all up.

No wonder the public believes animal advocates over farmers and other animal abusers.

Want to bet how many Wisconsin Ag Connection (think industry front group USAgNet)'s readers actually took the time to look at the claims made by their "own editors"?

Syphilis Tests in Guatemala Like Animal Labs in US

Scientific skill is no innoculant against moral collapse; indeed, if scientific skill has any relation to moral decline, history suggests it may be a risk factor. -Patrick G. Derr, "Hadamar, Hippocrates, and the Future of Medicine: Reflections on Euthanasia and the History of German Medicine." Issues in Law and Medicine. 1989.

We now know of still another case of medical researchers experimenting on the weak, on those who have little voice or power. There is a pattern here, but researchers deny it and many others refuse to see it, but the times they are a changin'.

U.S. Apologizes for Syphilis Tests in Guatemala
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
The New York Times
October 1, 2010

From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.

much more....

Keep in mind too, that penicillin was not produced in quantity until 1945, so almost as soon as the drug was available, US scientists started their experiments, at essentially the same time the German and Japanese were experimenting on prisoners, not a new practice, to be sure. See my essay:"Human Experimentation." March 20, 2008.

Vivisectors -- those who experiment on living humans or other animals without their informed consent -- like to say that past examples of their ilk's socio-psychopathology should be forgotten, but of course, like this official US apology for something that happened almost seventy years ago, genuine evil behavior isn't forgotten.

Res 35: Supervisors' Public Comments

You can watch some discussion of Supervisor Matano's motion to withdraw the resolution from committee that took place at the September 16, 2010 Dane County Board of Supervisors' meeting. Argument on the motion to withdraw the motion from committee begins at approximately 10:30.

See: http://www.cityofmadison.com/mcc12/archive/bs091610.ram