Sick Monkeys = Worthless Research

"AAALAC contends that good animal care and good science are inextricably linked, since medical and scientific bounty emanate only from the use of healthy research animals". [my emphasis] F. Key Kidder. Vivarium Forum: Accreditation A-Z. ALN Magazine; September/October 2005.

"Animals, like humans, are living organisms, and if you are trying to study a phenomenon that is characteristic of a living organism, there are certain kinds of questions that you only can answer using a living organism, complex questions where a response involves all of the feedback mechanisms that exist within the organism, but don't exist when you have an isolated piece of tissue or cells that are cultured.” Eric Sandgren, vivisector, and Chair of the University of Wisconsin, Madison Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee quoted by Nathan J. Comp in “Comp Time with Eric Sandgren.” Isthmus. 10/10/2007.

These dual claims – living animals are needed and they must be healthy – are commonly heard from those who defend the use of animals in research. The claims frequently go hand-in-hand as a rebuttal when an institution’s animal care is criticized. Researchers claim to be very concerned about the animals’ health because research results would be hopelessly skewed if the data came from sick animals; it is the complex biology of healthy living animals that is needed as a test bed, they claim. Setting aside the general absurdity that one species is a predictive biological model of another, following the researchers’ arguments to their conclusion, if they use sick animals in their experiments, the results won’t be meaningful. But, in the case of monkeys, all the animals are chronically ill. Following the researchers’ logic, much of the data coming out of the monkey labs is tainted due to the poor health of the animals. Poor health? Consider the health of two monkeys. One from Wisconsin, s93052, and one from California, MCY28114. If you think these cases might be exceptional, consider this:

In recent years, a substantial number of macaques have died at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, USA, following protracted intractable diarrhea. The diarrhea could last for up to two years and occurred in infant, juvenile or young adult animals. The histopathological diagnosis at autopsy was chronic colitis. Rubio CA, Hubbard GB. Chronic colitis in Macaca fascicularis: similarities with chronic colitis in humans. In Vivo. 2002.

Chronic enterocolitis is the leading cause of morbidity in colonies of captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)... In colonies of nonhuman primates, recurring diarrhea is the leading cause of animal morbidity requiring veterinary care. Sestak K, Merritt CK, Borda J, Saylor E, Schwamberger SR, Cogswell F, Didier ES, Didier PJ, Plauche G, Bohm RP, Aye PP, Alexa P, Ward RL, Lackner AA. Infectious agent and immune response characteristics of chronic enterocolitis in captive rhesus macaques. Infect Immun. 2003 Jul;71(7):4079-86.

Put this in perspective: researchers claim to need healthy animals, but the monkeys are sick. They claim to be on the verge of a cure for every known human ailment, but are unable to cure diarrhea, even with an endless supply of animals with the naturally occurring condition. In addition to the “protracted intractable diarrhea” so common in the monkeys, they are also, universally, suffering from a condition known as hypervitaminosis A

Chronic vitamin A toxicity develops after taking too much vitamin A for long periods. Bone pain and swelling of the bones is common, often associated with high levels of calcium in the blood. Other symptoms include hair loss, high cholesterol, liver damage, and vision problems. Symptoms are often subtle and may include fatigue, malaise, and nausea. In children, hypervitaminosis A can cause craniotabes (abnormal softening of the skull bones). Irritability, decreased appetite, itchy skin, and poor weight gain are common. There may be skin changes with seborrhea (extremely oily skin and hair), and cracking at the corners of the mouth. Medline Plus

Now this:

The purpose of this study was to determine what types of feed are used at the National Primate Centers and to estimate the amount of VA [vitamin A] that rhesus macaques are consuming. Five of the eight centers responded to a short survey that was administered through telephone and electronic mail contacts. VA intakes are well above those that are considered adequate for humans, and VA concentrations in commercially prepared standard primate diets exceed National Research Council (NRC) recommendations by as much as four times. Penniston KL, Tanumihardjo SA. Vitamin A intake of captive rhesus monkeys exceeds national research council recommendations. Am J Primatol. 2006.

Recent work examining vitamin A (VA) status of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) used as models for human biomedical research has revealed subtoxic hepatic VA concentrations. Livers of marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus), another experimental animal, were also high in VA as was serum retinyl ester concentration. Both species consumed common research diets that provided up to four times the amount of VA (retinyl acetate) as currently recommended by the National Research Council. Mills JP, Penniston KL, Tanumihardjo SA. Extra-hepatic vitamin A concentrations in captive Rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and Marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) monkeys fed excess vitamin A. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2005.

We showed previously that hepatic vitamin A concentrations of captive rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) are subtoxic to toxic, with livers exhibiting stellate cell hypertrophy and hyperplasia. Penniston KL, Thayer JC, Tanumihardjo SA. Serum vitamin A esters are high in captive rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) monkeys. J Nutr. 2003.

Although the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) is a widely used experimental animal, its exact vitamin A requirement is unknown.… Our goal was to determine hepatic vitamin A concentrations of captive monkeys. Liver autopsy samples from rhesus and marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) monkeys were obtained from the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center.… Liver samples were extracted and analyzed…. The vitamin A concentration of the rhesus monkey livers was very high…. Considering that the natural diet of the rhesus monkey (fruits, seeds, roots and insects) is not high in preformed vitamin A, the vitamin A content of the diet appears excessive, supplying four times the NRC recommendation and resulting in high liver stores. Penniston KL, Tanumihardjo SA. Subtoxic hepatic vitamin A concentrations in captive rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). J Nutr. 2001.

Adding to the problems of “protracted intractable diarrhea” and hypervitaminosis A is the problem of chronic captivity-induced mental illness. In its extreme version, self-mutilation, it effects at least 10% of the rhesus monkeys in US labs. In its less extreme versions, it may effect nearly all laboratory housed macaques. "Medical and scientific bounty emanate only from the use of healthy research animals." If, as primate vivisectors claim, they need whole living animals because they need to see all the feedback systems at work, or in the words of mouse vivisector Eric Sandgren, “[I]f you are trying to study a phenomenon that is characteristic of a living organism, there are certain kinds of questions that you only can answer using a living organism, complex questions where a response involves all of the feedback mechanisms that exist within the organism,” then the research with monkeys is bound to fail. Essentially, the animals they are using are sick to their stomachs, have chronic diarrhea, are being poisoned with vitamin A, and are insane. I imagine one or two feedback systems might be affected.

"Good Animal Care and Good Science Go Hand in Hand"

If good animal care and good science go hand in hand, it follows that poor animal care results in poor science.

The most appropriate behavioral management program houses macaques in a sufficiently enriched and safe environment to prevent the development of abnormal behaviors.

Abnormal behaviors include repetitive movements, such as pacing, circling, rocking, spinning, somersaulting and bouncing. Cage-licking, self-clasping, self-sucking, masturbation, “saluting,” and eating feces are some other aberrant, repetitive behaviors. Abnormal behaviors in macaques also can hurt or injure the animals, as in the case of hair plucking, self-biting and head banging.

Abnormal behaviors are an undesirable consequence of captive housing, reflecting an inadequate environment for maintaining the animal.” Macaques Kathryn Bayne, M.S., Ph.D., D.V.M., DACLAM, CAAB AAALAC International. (NIH Publication No. 05-5744).

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the undercover investigations and whistle-blower reports documenting a variety of serious behavioral problems like self-wounding, pulling out their hair, repetitive movements, and chronic diarrhea afflicting monkeys at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center is that the "science" being conducted there is not good science.

From Peta's 2020 undercover investigation at UW-Madison Keeping a monkey alone in such a bleak environment is obviously very cruel. It should be illegal.

This begs the questions of why does NIH continue to fund poor science? Why are the university's Animal Care and Use Committees consistently approving the resulting poor scientific projects? Why haven't USDA-APHIS inspectors cited the primate labs for their poor care? Why hasn't NIH OLAW required the reporting of behavioral problems and chronic diarrhea?

Unfortunately, the answer is the same for all of these questions. No one really cares. All the claims about good science being dependent on good animal care are just propaganda. Everyone on the inside must know this, which makes all of them liars.

And, of course, the reason no one cares is that there is no reason to. The money keeps pouring in.

The ABCs of Opinion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Streiffer's Ethical Blindness

I'm responding here to comments made by Robert Streiffer, a UW-Madison associate professor of bioethics and philosophy in an article that appeared on the Captital Times website on September 15, 2009, "Is monkey experimentation ethical?"

The relevant passages from the article:

"I think it's good to have an active, informed discussion about these things and I think Rick Marolt has helped to stimulate that debate," says Rob Streiffer, a UW-Madison associate professor of bioethics and philosophy. "But I think it's also important to note that this conversation was ongoing and that all of the researchers here that I've had contact with take their responsibilities very seriously."

and,

Conversely, Streiffer, the UW-Madison bioethicist and philosopher, argues that it's not necessarily a good thing for a university to bow to public pressure when it comes to what its professors and researchers study.

"Is animal research ethical?" Streiffer asks. "It depends. We have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. But the thought that we should restrict anybody's research just because the public is upset strikes me as not a good idea. Part of the reason universities exist is to have a place where a wide range of research can be conducted."

First, a caveat: I've been misquoted, quoted out of context, and have read things written about me that are inaccurate on a number of occasions. I don't know that what was written above and attributed to Streiffer is fair or not. In any case, it is these passages from the article that motivated my comments here, and for the sake of argument, I am responding as if they are accurate.

Streiffer: "I think it's also important to note that this conversation was ongoing."

Coincidentally, UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin had a guest editorial printed just last week. She said:

A new initiative at UW-Madison is designed to make a larger point about what it means to engage in a process of integrated, rigorous and unfettered thinking.... We have developed additional events .... - all to provide opportunities for community participation... I believe promoting rigorous discussion of ideas, including those that are controversial, is one of a university's particular gifts to the larger society.... we hope our community will come away with a greater understanding of the complex issues.... Our long-term goal for Go Big Read is to continue to provoke questions and stimulate debate on issues of relevance. In this way, we hope to instill in our community a lifelong love of learning and a commitment to the continuous "sifting and winnowing" that defines the character of this great university.

Streiffer says that the issue of whether or not experimenting on monkeys (maybe he was speaking broadly, and about animal experimentation more generally?) has been the subject of ongoing conversation at the university. If so, it has been hidden from the public's observation, let alone participation. The faculty senate, as is noted in the Cap Times article, refused to discuss the matter. Where is this discussion taking place? Chancellor Martin's words reflect the role that a university should have when it comes to controversial issues affecting society. Unfortunately, and sadly, the university hasn't lived up to this ideal or even come close on the issue of primate experimentation. It has repeatedly refused, point-blank, to engage in any discussion of the matter. I suspect that they fear the results of genuine and fearless "sifting and winnowing." In light of the reality of the university hiding from the matter, Martin's editorial should be seen as a sad joke that dupes the state's citizens.

Further, who is having this discussion that Streiffer claims is ongoing? If the discussion doesn't include multiple points of view, then it amounts to something akin to Bible study where everyone involved is a devout believer.

Streiffer: "[I]t's not necessarily a good thing for a university to bow to public pressure when it comes to what its professors and researchers study."

But all Marolt is asking for is genuine discussion. And, researchers at universities should not be given the carte blanche implied by Streiffer's comment. There are absolute limits on what can be done in experiments involving humans. The roots of these limits are the direct result of public pressure brought to bear after learning what was being done. (See for instance, my essay, "Human Experimentation".) Public opinion should influence what is and isn't allowed to be done in a university lab.

Streiffer: "Is animal research ethical? It depends. We have to look at it on a case-by-case basis."

But the question of experimenting on monkeys is just that. In the case of monkeys, is it ethical to capture them, breed them, keep them in conditions that lead to self-mutilation, chronic diarrhea, mental illness, and to subject them to painful or frightening or otherwise distressing experiments?

Maybe Streiffer means that we should consider the individual experiments on a case-by-case basis. But this would sidestep the issue of whether we should use them in the first place. Consider following this "ethic" in the case of innocent humans, Jews for instance, locked into small cells. The notion of considering how they might be used on a "case-by-case basis" would be odious and clearly immoral. Streiffer's suggestion suggests that he has missed the larger issue altogether or else made up his mind (based on some fearless sifting and winnowing that took place in a prayer meeting?)

Streiffer: "[T]he thought that we should restrict anybody's research just because the public is upset strikes me as not a good idea."

This comment reflects profound confusion. Who pays for this research? Who is it that the researchers claim will benefit? Who is it that the university itself claims benefits from its mere existence? The answer in every case is "the public." From Streiffer's lofty ivory tower behind the wide moat it must be hard to see just who is footing the bill and who is supposed to be beholden. Dismissing the public's concerns strikes me as not a good or ethical idea.

Why is it that someone with training as an ethicist, purported to be an 'expert' can view this matter in such a shallow elitist way? I think the answer is that we aren't able to do a very good job of self-policing. Our self-interests are so overwhelming that they blind us to other perspectives and truths. Streiffer is paid by the university. This simple fact biases him. He has made friends with people on the animal oversight committees. (For an on-point look at the difficulty of self-policing see Plous, S., & Herzog, H. (2001). Reliability of protocol reviews for animal research. Science, 293, 608-609. [See also the press release]

As we know from a litany of past problems associated with self-policing, humans commonly find it difficult or impossible to fairly judge and control their own actions or the actions of their friends or close colleagues when self-interest conflicts with societal norms or plain facts. This is exactly why institutions and industries involved in potentially harmful or ethically problematic endeavors must have public oversight of their decisions and practices. This is exactly why broad public discussion and involvement is needed in decisions regarding the use of monkeys in research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and elsewhere.

Marolt to Streiffer on Housing

Below is another post from Rick Marolt. I supplied the title. The 'Housing' bit is simply to tag it with a term that will distinguish it from other possible future related posts.

R

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I have asked Rick Bogle to elevate this comment to a main post because 1) some issues raised in the discussion merit more visibility and 2) I want to encourage other people to participate in the discussion. Many people read this blog. What do you think of these issues? See the original post and comments here.

Rob Streiffer:

Second, I asked whether IACUCs have the authority to address ethics questions. I argued that they do and fail to understand your basis for saying that IACUCs "are constituted by law not to make ethical decisions." To which federal regulation are you referring? At any rate, it is misleading to say I made this claim "without providing evidence," as I cited examples of rules from the U.S. Government Principles which require IACUCs to frequently make ethical determinations about animal housing and about whether the value of the research justifies the harm to the animals. Perhaps you disagree with my argument here, but I did make one.

I cannot tell what statement of mine you think is misleading. I wrote: "The committee claimed, without providing evidence, that they make ethical decisions all the time." I think that statement is true. I see no such evidence in your statement or Sandgren's statement and I do not recall hearing such evidence at the committee meeting. Citing rules that require the ACUCs to do something, which you have done, is not evidence that they actually do it. Saying that the ACUCs do something, which Sandgren has done, is not evidence that they actually do it.

After the ACUC meeting last January, I asked Sandgren for evidence: minutes of meetings where specific experiments were approved, documentation of decisions not to approve an experiment because the benefits were not projected to exceed the costs, and evidence that benefits of completed experiments exceeded their costs. Sandgren was not able to provide such evidence.

Rick Bogle has responded to the point about ACUCs and ethics. Note also that the Animal Welfare Act, which contains the requirement of research organizations to have ACUCs, says: "Such members shall possess sufficient ability to assess animal care, treatment, and practices in experimental research ..." and the responsibilities listed have to do with assessing animal care, treatment, and practices. Members are not required to have expertise in ethics. The words "ethics" and "ethical" do not appear in the AWA. The AWA says nothing about larger ethical decisions such as whether or not experimenting on a given species is ethical, and those are the decisions that I am talking about.

ACUCs exist to ensure compliance with federal regulations concerning the treatment of non-human animals. They operate within a system that assumes that keeping monkeys in cages for their whole lives, giving them diseases, birth defects, and brain damage, and killing them are acceptable actions. (You might say that the ACUCs decide case-by-case when these things are ethical and when they are not. But the ACUCs have approved very many experiments of these kinds, and I am aware of no evidence that the ACUCs ever find such experiments unacceptable or unethical.) There is a deep, underlying assumption that treating monkeys in a certain way -- much differently from how we treat people -- is acceptable. The ACUCs do not question that assumption.

Let's imagine that UW-Madison keeps people in small cages their whole lives and conducts injurious and fatal experiments on them. I question the ethics of experimenting on people. You say "We make ethical decisions all the time about how to house the people and we approve experiments only when we think that the value of the research justifies the harm to the people." Most reasonable people would say that you missed the point. And you're missing the point about monkeys.

I did not mean to say that the ACUCs cannot or should not (or even do not) make ethical decisions, only that ACUCs are constituted primarily to make other decisions. My wording probably could have been better. And, yes, decisions about housing can have an ethical component. But what about a bigger question such as whether or not experimenting on a given species is ethical? That's the question that matters most. And you have argued that the ACUC should not even try to answer it. So all this talk about the ACUCs making ethical decisions is pretty minor quibbling and not very relevant to the bigger issues.

Except ... your statement includes this excellent paragraph:

IACUCs are required by law to prohibit any research that is not in compliance with what are referred to as the U.S. Government Principles. Principle VII requires that “the living conditions of animals should be appropriate for their species and contribute to their health and comfort.” It would thus be within the IACUC’s jurisdiction to prohibit research with a species if they concluded that appropriate housing conditions on campus could not be secured. (Imagine a researcher trying to bring chimpanzees onto a campus that can only secure funding for cages of the size typically used for macaques.) A decision about the appropriateness of housing conditions, which falls squarely within the jurisdiction of an IACUC, can amount to a prohibition on a certain kind of research. An even clearer, second, example comes from Principle II, which requires that “procedures involving animals should be designed and performed with due consideration of their relevance to human or animal health, the advancement of knowledge, or the good of society.” So if an IACUC finds that procedures involving animals do not produce sufficiently important knowledge, then it is within the IACUC’s legitimate authority to prohibit that research.

So let's ignore the bigger issues for a moment and just focus on housing, since you have brought it up. Both you and Sandgren have cited the U.S. Government Principles. Now, there is much evidence that monkeys suffer in their little cages, that they get chronic diarrhea, and that they mutilate themselves out of boredom and isolation. Some people say that the monkeys become neurotic or even go insane. A former UW-Madison veterinarian has written:

Each monkey was kept alone, in a cage that was so small that he/she could not take a few steps in one direction, let alone jump or run in monkey fashion. There was no companion to huddle, groom or play with.

It should be remembered that macaques are primates - just like us - who have an intensive need for social contact and social interaction. Solitary living conditions are similarly unbearable for them as it would be for us.

Most cages were completely barren, offering not even a perch that would have allowed the animals to make use of the arboreal dimension. In the wild, macaques spend most of the day in elevated sites - away from ground predators - and seek the refuge of trees at night.

When kept in cages without a high perch, the animals have no way of retreating to a "safe" place during alarming events, such as when a staff member approaches them. Being cornered in this manner must, indeed, be a very distressing experience for a helpless monkey who associates people with painful and distressing handling procedures.

In order to accommodate as many monkeys in one room as possible, cages were arranged in double-tiers with one row stacked on top of the other. This condemned half of the animals to confinement in a permanently shady, cave-like environment. Needless to say, this was not a living quarter that was suitable for diurnal animals.

The conditions I witnessed were so depressing that most monkeys had developed stereotypic behaviors such as pacing, rocking, bouncing, somersaulting, swaying from side to side, biting parts of their own bodies, pulling their ears, tossing their heads back and forth, or smearing feces on the cage walls. (Viktor Reinhardt, "The Impossible Housing and Handling Conditions of Monkeys in Research Laboratories")

It's impossible to argue that the monkeys' housing is "appropriate for their species and contribute[s] to their health and comfort". (Please don't tell me that the little enrichment that the monkeys receive makes their housing appropriate for their species and contributes much to their health and comfort.) If the ACUCs make ethical decisions all the time about things like housing, when are they going to correct this situation? And if they cannot correct it, isn't it time for a "decision about the appropriateness of housing conditions" that "can amount to a prohibition on a certain kind of research"?

If your argument means anything, this topic will be on an upcoming ACUC meeting agenda and the committee will consult with experts before making a decision.

Let's talk about Principle II, which you brought up. If a utilitarian standard is used, only actual benefits matter, not just knowledge (unless you're going to argue that the satisfaction that a few people get from gaining and having knowledge justifies the suffering and deaths of monkeys). So I would revise your sentence: "If an IACUC finds that procedures involving animals do not produce sufficient benefits, then it is within the IACUC’s legitimate authority to prohibit that research."

Paul Kaufman and Eric Sandgren have said that there is a "low hit ratio" in translating basic science into health benefits, and one survey of 25,000 articles concluded that that hit ratio is just about 0% (W. F. Crowley, Jr., Am J Med 114, 503 - Apr 15, 2003), so there must be a lot of research that should be prohibited.

If your argument means anything, then the ACUCs will identify research that does not produce substantial benefits and prohibit it.

While I'm critiquing the ACUCs, I must note also that they are required to "represent society's concerns regarding the welfare of animal subjects". Evidence that many people and organizations in Madison have deep concerns about experimenting on monkeys became clear during discussion of Resolution 35 on the Dane County Board of Supervisors last summer. But UW-Madison declined, with the help of your statement, to study the ethical issue and it fought hard against Resolution 35. How and when do the ACUCs at UW-Madison represent society's concerns regarding the welfare of animal subjects? (If you, like I, distinguish the main ethical question from welfare issues, note that the scope of Resolution 35 included treatment of monkeys.) Please don't tell me that just having one or two ACUC members come from outside the UW takes care of this responsibility of the ACUCs.



Third, I asked whether UW was obliged to comply with your request. I argued that it was not. Not because I ignored "all the scientific and morally significant findings about monkeys that raise the ethical question," as you mistakenly say I did. To the contrary, I explicitly acknowledged them.

You did indeed mention some scientific and morally significant findings about monkeys. The committee then ignored the implications of those findings when it chose not to study the ethical issues.



The validity of most or all of your other points is clear and I have no disagreement with them. But they are not very relevant to the main issue.

Primate Vivisectors Target and Mislead Children

"Saving Lives With Biomedical Research" [.pdf] is a comic book produced by the National Institutes of Health's Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) paid for by the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, and intended to be used to propagandize middle school-aged children. Their propaganda efforts target children as young as 6 years of age.



At ONPRC's sister facility, the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, vivisectors have said that the issue is far too complex and nuanced for lay people to grapple with... simple-minded citizens ought not be empowered to make ethical decisions about the use of animals in the labs. They must wish we'd all been forced to read the "Lucky Puppy" when we were six.

In any case, "Saving Lives With Biomedical Research" is a gem of the propagandist's art. Bright colors, characters the target audience can (hopefully) identify with, a talking monkey, half truths, hidden realities, falsehoods, and its all just so politically correct.




It's my sincere desire that readers will come away from this essay a bit more informed and aware of the efforts underway nationally to convince young children that hurting and killing animals is a good thing.



This is how the story begins. Readers have no idea what Brandon might have said in his report. Did he have visual aides? Lots of pictures from inside ONPRC are available. Maybe he even showed the video of the macaque having his penis electro-shocked and the technician saying that if the animal rights people ever saw what was going on that they would probably be able to shut down ONPRC. We just don't know what Brandon said in his report.

The rest of the comic book is dedicated to a debunking Brandon's classmate Zach's apparently erroneous impressions about vivisectors and animal experimentation.

It's more than a little odd that ONPRC chose to use a very anthropomorphic monkey to be its chief spokesman in the story; criticism has been leveled at animal rightists with claims that they are doing exactly what ONPRC is doing:

Groups such as PETA and the Animal Liberation Project (ALP) frequently employ graphic photos of animals suffering in laboratories and slaughterhouses. They make Holocaust analogies or employ anthropomorphic depictions of animals that would make Walt Disney blush. (The Nonhuman Animal. Michael P. Orsi. The American Spectator August 10, 2010. Linked to by the Discovery Institute.)

Should we be surprised that Zach's mother has cancer or that she believes that experiments on animals were necessary for the development of her treatments, or that Zach's opinions might be pitted against his mother's health?

This picture of Max, the talking monkey, is sort of funny. His hands and feet are very un-monkey like. I'd have thought that an institution dedicated to using monkeys would have at least not misled children this way. I think too, that they ought to have named him something else, maybe Quisling?







This is a bit of oleo. The title of the page says that these animal types are needed for research, but it offers a conglomeration of reasons. Scientists "need" lobsters to study Parkinson's? Pigs have certainly been used by scientists studying burns, but whether they were needed is a question left unasked in this comic book. I wonder whether Brandon showed pictures of pigs being burnt with blow torches in his report?
There is a lot wrong on this page. At ONPRC, no one can just ride up to the front door on their bike. At ONPRC, no buildings can be seen from the road. A winding drive leads to an electric gate where surveillance cameras determine whether or not the security staff ought to be sent to interrogate you.

And tours? Please. Vivisectors at the Wisconsin primate center promised repeatedly in public to show people around their facility. When they were asked for a tour, they quickly changed their minds and offered instead a very limited number of people a very carefully guided tour.

"Open air shelter"? ONPRC calls them corrals; they raise monkeys to sell to other labs. Wisconsin keeps all its monkeys indoors, as do most labs using monkeys. At ONPRC, a USDA inspector cited them for the poor conditions in the corrals. They had to walk through feces-fouled slime covered pools of rain water to get to their food. Disease outbreaks were common.

The page below is particularly misleading.

A few years ago, it was discovered that ONPRC vivisector Martha Neuringer had been videotaping some of the many individually caged monkeys there. She left cameras running for hours on end. It took a protracted lawsuit to get the tapes, but when they were finally turned over, we saw hours upon hours of endless pacing and "looping." Essentially all monkeys used in the labs live in small barren stainless steel cages, many of them alone (approx 200 in Wisconsin) and driven mentally ill from the grotesquely unnatural isolation forced upon them.

And positive reinforcement? Here's a less-comic glimpse of the reality:




The page above is filled with gibberish. Veterinarians in primate labs are not infrequently also vivisectors. At the Wisconsin center, for instance, the head vet, Saverio "Buddy" Capuano III, (no buddy to the monkey) has coauthored a number of scientific papers documenting monkeys' declining health after injecting them with always-terminal disease-causing viruses.

And the tired claim that monkeys live longer in the labs than in the wild is just that, a tired propaganda device. In order to fairly judge the comparative risks between a life in the wild and in lab, one would need to look at the age of death of a population of monkeys. Except in very rare cases, every monkey in the labs will die an unnatural death. Almost all of them will be killed by a vivisector. And the ones who aren't are likely to be found dead in their cage after a long bout of incurable diarrhea, or dehydration from a clogged water tube gone unnoticed by the lab staff, or a chronic undiagnosed infection, and even in some cases death from being scalded in a cage-washer. The claim that monkeys live longer in the labs than they do in the wild are far-fetched wild unscientific assertions intended only to mislead the public, and in the case of this comic book, intended to mislead children.





The claim above is a common one: something said to be the result of some use of animals could not have occurred otherwise. But this is a fallacy. It's sort of like saying that for want of the nail, the war was lost, or in this case, without dogs insulin couldn't have been discovered. But this is nonsense. It's like saying that without Christopher Columbus, Europeans would never have found North and South America.

The numbers the comic book cites are also misleading. Type 2 diabetes represents about 90 to 95 percent of the cases in the US and its frequency is increasing. Sadly, the primary risk factors are diet and lifestyle. It wasn't the use of animals that led to the understanding that overweight sedentary consumers of diets high in meat and dairy are at much greater risk of developing the condition. ONPRC could have served their targeted audience by including characters more representative of American children and urging them to eat less animal fat and to exercise more.













Complete baloney. In fact, even USDA inspectors sometimes have a difficult time getting into the labs. These people look forward to visitors the way normal people look forward to a colonoscopy. Saying otherwise in a comic book for children is manipulative and dishonest.

Zach's report is misleading. It conflates "needed" with "used." Even vivisectors admit that other vivisectors may not be doing important work and are using animals in ways that they ought not to. Also, the report says that since 1970, there has been a 50% reduction in the number of animals used. But the USDA didn't start keeping such statistics until 1973, so it's hard to know where Zach got his information. And, the USDA reported that 1,653,345 animals were used that year, and that 1,134,693 were used in 2010, hardly a 50% drop, and moreover, most observers agree that the widespread demand for mutant mice has added an astronomical number of animals to the actual total, but because neither rats nor mice are counted by the USDA, they do not appear in the reported numbers. All told, Zach seems to have been duped by the vivisectors he spoke with and the information they gave to him.



You'd think that by now, given the essentially limitless number of mice and rats experimented on, that rats and mice would be disease free and now would be more or less immortal. But, of course, they aren't. A few years ago we took a sick rat to the vet. He had no idea whatsoever how to help him. He tried some drug that was used in cats to no effect. He did help the poor guy a little by giving him some oxygen, but in spite of at least many hundreds of millions of rats having been dissected, injected, force fed everything under the sun, subjected to millions of different surgeries, help them when they are dying is still just as difficult as it is to help a dying human. As much as anything else, this simple fact would seem to put the lie to the specious arguments that experiments on them will benefit us; those experiments don't even lead to cures for the animals the vivisectors use the most.







It's telling that most of the sources ONPRC encourages children to consult are matter-of-fact special interest groups whose common mission is selling snake oil.

ONPRC: flops of the past five years

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

40 years of health discoveries:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This links to news release that claims:

OHSU SCIENTISTS ADVANCE FERTILITY PRESERVATION PROCEDURE

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

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

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

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

Found that the smallpox vaccine provides long-term protection

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

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

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

Confirmed that physical exercise is beneficial to brain health

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

Uncovered new information to help menopausal women suffering from depression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From a pamphlet written by Dr. Speede:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I really don't like these people.

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

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

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

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

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

Developed therapeutic strategies and surgical techniques to prevent premature births

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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