The Book I Wish I Had Written

I’ve written and published four books with the same theme, the same message. Each time I hoped that readers would come away caring more about how we treat animals and having some concern about the system that normalizes the many bad things we do to them. I’ve hoped that my words would change their behavior at least a little. I’ve written hundreds of essays about these things. I’ve lectured and participated in televised and numerous public debates. I’ve twice traveled coast-to-coast, protesting and leafleting, trying to call attention to the animals’ plight. I’ve worked for animal rights organizations, built websites for them, have edited other’s books for them. I’ve had numerous op/eds in the local newspapers about the treatment of animals. I’ve been arrested for protesting a few times – twice in one day. Nothing that I have done has had much, if any, positive effect.

Almost nothing. I was involved in the successful (hopefully) permanent cancelation of a nearby town’s annual pig wrestling contest. A smallish thing, the pigs were still killed, but at least, so far, they aren’t as frightened and beat-up before being slaughtered.

The book I wish I had written would have been widely read. Its message would have been talked about and widely repeated. It would have motivated a mass movement for the animals. But I didn’t write that book. No one else has either.

Would Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s influence been less if it had been one among hundreds of anti-slavery books? Maybe, but philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) “the question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” and Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (1975), though well known among animal advocates, don’t seem to have had much of an impact. Amazon reports over 30,000 results for "animal rights" in its book list.

None of them have had a measurable impact. A 2023 Gallop poll reported that in the U.S., 4% identify as vegetarian and 1% as vegan, ±4%. Yet, the American Veterinary Medical Association reports that in 2024, 45.5% of American households had dogs as pets, and 32.1% had cats. In 2023, the Pew Research Center reported that: “And nearly all U.S. pet owners (97%) say their pets are part of their family.”

I wish I had written a book or done something that moved the needle just a little toward kindness to the other animals. I haven’t. No one has. Amazon reports that it has over 30,000 books related to “animal rights”. None of them have had much of an impact. I suspect none will, but I still hope. It’s a sad and bloody state of affairs.

I have friends who care deeply about animals; a couple of them have told be that it is because of my work. A couple. A hand-full at the very most. I haven’t written the book that will change the world. No one has.

There is a nearly instantaneous negative reaction when someone urging people to be kind to animals mentions the hideous things done to Jews or Blacks. How dare you equate Jews or Blacks to animals they say. But in fact, you and me, my wife, my friends, and my dogs, are animals. We should all be treated with kindness and respect.

The reason for not doing so is plain old bigotry, plain old prejudice, plain old bad habit, plain old lust in some cases.

Rights are slippery. Even when interacting with other humans, it isn’t always clear where we should draw the line between the things we do that are right and the things we do that are wrong. Should we let someone cut in line?

Are rights won or are they inherent? It seems that there might be both kinds. A driver’s license sort of gives us a right to drive. Life itself seems to give me the right to live. If life itself gives me the right to live why wouldn’t an elephant’s life give them the same right? Why doesn’t a cow’s life give them the right to life? I think it does, but the right to life isn’t universal. I think it applies only to those who are conscious and have emotions. We should assume that animals have emotions until proven otherwise. Plants don’t. Raising and eating them harms no one.

We should assume that animals have emotions until proven otherwise because they act so often in ways that we understand and can relate to. Dogs jump for joy, get angry, worry, are sometimes leery of strangers, get frightened, have long memories, are curious, have friends, are glad to see their peeps if they’ve been away, have expectations, snuggle, and on and on. Moreover, the degree to which they have these characteristics vary by the dog. They truly are individuals. Just as many animals are.

In spite of us having so much in common with them, they have no legal rights. Many are kept in deplorable conditions, are hurt and consumed in laboratories, are worked to death, are treated terribly, and are forced to perform and behave in ways that place them at high risk. They are raised and sold as simple commodities.

If we can’t or won’t protect dogs, the other the animals don’t have a chance. A few are protected because they are the last of their kind, not because we are being kind. They are the last of their kink because we killed the rest of them. None of what I’ve written above is likely to turn you into an ethical vegan. I differentiate ethical vegans from dietary vegans, though, as far as animals are concerned, they’re equally desirable.

Nothing I’ve written here would be in the book I wish I’d written. I don’t know what would be in it, but its clear from all I’ve written, from all I’ve said and done, from all I’ve read that others have written, that they have said and done, that no one has found the right words, the right observations, the right time, or the right steps to take. It’s a crushing realization.

Blast from the past

Peace Corp reporting on voluteers after being back home for a time. I had forgotten about this page.

http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/467/2014818.html

A response to: Mutilation of the tree of life via mass extinction of animal genera.

Ceballos, G., & Ehrlich, P. R. (2023). Mutilation of the tree of life via mass extinction of animal genera. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39), e2306987120. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306987120

We wouldn’t be facing mass extinction if we were nicer and more kind to the other animals. We may already be too late to save very many humans; which of us might survive will be a matter of luck. Our only real hope is a planet-wide decision to halt our exploitation of animals. That seems unlikely, but all of us have the option of embracing a low-impact vegan life style. We could, if we choose to, take personal steps to slow, maybe even reverse, this otherwise likely calamity.

But maybe, if we look at the big picture and consider the gazillions of animals who would thrive if humans were no longer around, maybe it would be best if we ignore or deride the predicted likely future. If we do nothing to avoid the worse case scenario, many animals are likely to benefit.

It seems to come down to this: If you want humanity to survive, you’ll have to embrace veganism. You’ll have to limit yourself to having only one child, or better, none. You’ll have to avoid air travel. You should plant a vegetable garden and dramatically reduce your consumption of almost all commercial products. If possible, bicycle rather than drive. Use mass transit. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

It seems likely that few of us will do very many of these things, and in a twisted sort of way, for the animals, maybe that’s a good thing.

A response to:

Ceballos, G., & Ehrlich, P. R. (2023). Mutilation of the tree of life via mass extinction of animal genera. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39), e2306987120. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306987120

We wouldn’t be facing mass extinction if we were nicer and more kind to the other animals. We may already be too late to save very many humans; which of us might survive will be a matter of luck. Our only real hope is a planet-wide decision to halt our exploitation of animals. That seems unlikely, but all of us have the option of embracing a low-impact vegan life style. We could, if we choose to, take personal steps to slow, maybe even reverse, this otherwise likely calamity.

But maybe, if we look at the big picture and consider the gazillions of animals who would thrive if humans were no longer around, maybe it would be best if we ignore or deride the predicted likely future. If we do nothing to avoid the worse case scenario, many animals are likely to benefit.

It seems to come down to this: If you want humanity to survive, you’ll have to embrace veganism. You’ll have to limit yourself to having only one child, or better, none. You’ll have to avoid air travel. You should plant a vegetable garden and dramatically reduce your consumption of almost all commercial products. If possible, bicycle rather than drive. Use mass transit. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

It seems likely that few of us will do very many of these things, and in a twisted sort of way, for the animals, maybe that’s a good thing.

The sixth mass extinction event. Maybe a good thing?

Why aren’t we nicer, kinder, more caring, and less mean to each other? I wish I knew; it appears that our animosity toward each other has been with us for a long time, maybe forever. Our closest primate cousins, the chimpanzees, engage in wars with other chimpanzee groups. [Sandel AA, Watts DP. Lethal Coalitionary Aggression Associated with a Community Fission in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda. Int J Primatol. 2021 Feb;42(1):26-48. doi: 10.1007/s10764-020-00185-0. Epub 2021 Jan 7. PMID: 34267410; PMCID: PMC8277110.]

Negative feelings about “others” seem almost baked into our genes. I grew up around people who routinely disparaged Blacks, Mexicans, Jews, and homosexuals. Slurs were common. Even now, decades later, I wince a bit when I hear someone referred to as a Mexican, even when they are Mexican. If we could pile up all the disparaging terms and all our prejudices toward other nationalities, races, creeds, religions, genders, sexual orientations, every word, act, and prejudice, it would be a mountain of ugliness. It would be a mountain that we would be wise to try and bulldoze flat. And if we do ever flatten that mountain, one much higher will remain.

On top of the disparagements of minorities and those outside the main stream we grow up hearing, are those using animals. She’s a pig. He’s a snake. Chicken, ass, worm, crab, hippo. She’s an animal. He’s an animal. They’re animals. These disparagements rest on our near universal opinion that there is a hierarchy that puts humans at the top of some sort of scale of value. We do this to other humans as well; at times it has been used as a justification for slavery, internment, and caste. Those in power always see themselves at the apex of some pyramid of importance and value. Acting on that belief has had costly consequences.

We are in the sixth mass extinction event. Unlike the previous five, this one is caused by the overgrowth of a single species, Homo sapiens. Although the episode is often viewed as an unusually fast (in evolutionary time) loss of species, it is much more threatening, because beyond that loss, it is causing rapid mutilation of the tree of life, where entire branches (collections of species, genera, families, and so on) and the functions they perform are being lost. It is changing the trajectory of evolution globally and destroying the conditions that make human life possible. It is an irreversible threat to the persistence of civilization and the livability of future environments for H. sapiens. Instant corrective actions are required.

Mutilation of the tree of life via mass extinction of animal genera Gerardo Ceballos https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8374-2656 gceballo@ecologia.unam.mx and Paul R. Ehrlich https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8753-9292

Authors Info and Affiliations

Contributed by Gerardo Ceballos; received May 2, 2023; accepted July 31, 2023; reviewed by Gregory P. Asner and David Tilman September 18, 2023 120 (39) e2306987120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306987120

We wouldn’t be facing mass extinction if we were nicer and more kind to the other animals. We may already be too late to save very many humans; which of us might survive will be a matter of luck. Our only real hope is a planet-wide decision to halt our exploitation of animals. That seems unlikely, but all of us have the option of embracing a low-impact vegan life style. We could, if we choose to, take personal steps to slow, maybe even reverse, this otherwise likely calamity.

But maybe, if we look at the big picture and consider the gazillions of animals who would thrive if humans were no longer around, maybe it would be best if we ignore or deride the predicted likely future. If we do nothing to avoid the worse case scenario, many animals are likely to benefit.

It seems to come down to this: If you want humanity will survive, you’ll have to embrace veganism. You’ll have to limit yourself to having only one child, or better, none. You’ll have to avoid air travel. You should plant a vegetable garden and dramatically reduce your consumption of almost all commercial products. If possible, bicycle rather than drive. Use mass transit. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

It seems likely that few of us will do very many of these things, and in a twisted sort of way, for the animals, maybe that’s a good thing.

One of the Oregon National Primate Research Center's Silly Claims

Primate vivisectors and Oregon Health Sciences University administrators are freaked out by state legislators', the Governor's, and the public's swell of concern for the monkeys at the university's taxpayer-funded Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC). There is a real chance that, finally, the hideousness will be stopped. (Finally, because there have efforts to close this hell-hole since at least the mid-1990s.)

They aren't going down without a fight. And, as is the case for every defense of experimenting on animals, ONPRC claims that experiments conducted on monkeys there have been "lifesaving."

Oregon news outlet KOIN
OHSU takes public stance against calls to close primate research center
by: Jashayla Pettigrew
Posted: May 1, 2025 / 06:01 PM PDT
Updated: May 1, 2025 / 06:01 PM PDT
"Oregon National Primate Research Center critical to advancing human health."

Here's one of their recent efforts to convince the public that they are doing important work: Scientists, OHSU leaders speak out to defend lifesaving research at ONPRC By Erik Robinson April 30, 2025 Portland, Oregon

They claim, as does every vivisector, that their use of animals will benefit humans, and thus, is worthy of continuing. Aside from their ugly frank biggotry, their claim of making important discoveries is plain old propaganda. A good example is the essay they included about Jamie Lo, M.D., M.C.R.

Recently, she and co-authors published research in nonhuman primates that definitively showed consuming THC, the psychoactive compound found in cannabis, while pregnant affects the lung development and function in their offspring.

She conducted the study because existing human observational data has only low to moderate evidence for harm. Given the limited safety data, she found that many patients are reluctant to give up using cannabis during pregnancy because it helps to reduce common prenatal symptoms such as nausea and pain.

In research with animals, it’s possible to tightly control and measure exposures while eliminating the use of other substances that confound observational studies in people.

“You can’t do that with a human study,” she said. “This is the kind of information my patients need to understand the potential risks to make the best decisions for themselves and their baby. The goal is to avoid repeating what we saw happen with nicotine and alcohol use in pregnancy before we had strong evidence along with public health messaging.”

It is highly unlikely that many doctors, if any at all, pay any attention to her publications. Why would they when there is a huge and ever growing body of research on the use of cannabis during pregnancy.

The Health Effects

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/24625/chapter/12

The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research (2017) Chapter: 10 Prenatal, Perinatal, and Neonatal Exposure to Cannabis

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Just parking this here

file:///C:/Users/imapr/Downloads/APHIS-2014-0098-0814_attachment_1.pdf

I abhor cruelty. From decades ago...

I abhor cruelty. My consideration of the experiences of others has led me to change the course of my life. No longer do I eat others, wear their skin, laugh and hoot at their fear and pain, nor support, in any way, their - or your - harm. Reflection has led me to the conclusion that our wish not to be hurt is one thing we all have in common. Whether you are a Catholic, a Mormon, a Hindu, an elephant, a lobster, or a dog, we all share this common desire. This desire not to be hurt is our common ground; it is our undeniable common experience. This leads me to the Golden Rule. If someone were hurting me, I would want someone to try to help me. The Golden Rule means that I have to try to help those who are being hurt. As I look around I am struck by the callousness I see all around me. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the billions (that's not rhetoric) of others suffering and killed simply because their cooked flesh has a nice flavor. I'm also aware that most people really - when it comes right down to it - just don't care very much about anyone outside their immediate or extended family. This is why human slavery has been so very hard to stop. Nevertheless, the Golden Rule means that I have to try. Most people simply laugh when you discuss the suffering of a fish, a chicken, or a rat. They deny - out of hand - that these animals suffer, or else, simply don't care one way or the other. Most people start to get uncomfortable when you begin to speak about starving children and their own SUVs or condos in Vail. Lots of people are working on behalf of other humans. And, in reality, humans are not being tortured in the millions and billions. Other animals are. Who speaks for them? This problem has consumed my life. How to help the billions? My own answer has been to point out the undeniable similarities between the minds and emotions of us and the species most like us, the other primates, and to ask how like us they need to be before what we do to them should be seen in the same light as it would be if it were human children being tortured. See my essay: (http://www.primatefreedom.com/essays/howmuchlikeus.html) But humans are typical. Like all other animals we are driven by self-interest and care very little about others. We generally don't adhere to the Golden Rule. If we did, we'd all be vegan.

Scientific American on Xenotransplantion

Editor@sciam.com

Greetings,

I was bowled over by Sciam's article "The Inner Lives of Insects" by Lars Chillka. [Scientific American. July/August 2023.] The notion that we should be concerned for even a moment with what nonhuman beings might be experiencing, even that they have experiences, is a topic that most people shy away from.

Excerpts from pg 31-32 passim:

More than a trillion crickets, black soldier flies, mealworms, and other species are killed annually and the sector is expanding rapidly.... there are supposedly no ethical concerns with insects like there are with cows and chicken(s). In fact, some insect-farming companies promote the notion that insects lack any capacity for pain.

This claim is demonstrably incorrect for all insect species tested so far.

The 'colony collapse disorder' that you may have heard about in the media is not the result of some well-known pathogens but also of honeybees being literally stressed to death by ruthless beekeeping practices. Even brief shaking of bees induces a pessimistic emotionlike state. Now imagine the effects of intense and prolonged vibrations imposed on bees when they are trucked across continents in sealed hives, sustained on artificial food and unable to defecate outside the hive. Then typically finding themselves in crop monocultures that lack the diversity of the floral food bees normally require.

People avoid this topic I think mainly because the implications might force us to consider the interests of animals. Most readers probably avoid thinking about this altogether.

In light of Sciam's publishing "The Inner Lives of Insects" I was disappointed that the issue was glossed over in the article "Gift of Life" Tanya Lewis Scientific American November 2023:

"Although human welfare is the biggest concern, xenotransplants also bring up questions about the ethics of raising animals for their organs. Animal welfare groups have asked whether it is ethical to kill an animal to save a human life. Xenotransplant advocates counter that animals raised to feed people vastly outnumber any that would be used for transplants."

Very poor reporting. It is overwhelmingly likely that the organizations and individuals Ms Lewis alluded to are also opposed to raising animals to eat.

Sincerely,

Rick Bogle

Insects are persons too.

"The Inner Lives of Insects" Lars Chillka. Scientific American July/August 2023:


Excerpts from pg 31-32 passim:
"More than a trillion crickets, black soldier flies, mealworms, and other species are killed annually and the sector is expanding rapidly.... there are supposedly no ethical concerns with insects like there are with cows and chicken(s). In fact, some insect-farming companies promote the notion that insects lack any capacity for pain."

"This claim is demonstrably incorrect for all insect species tested so far."

...

"The 'colony collapse disorder' that you may have heard about in the media is not the result of some well-known pathogens but also of honeybees being literally stressed to death by ruthless beekeeping practices. Even brief shaking of bees induces a pessimistic emotionlike state. Now imagine the the effects of intense and prolonged vibrations imposed on bees when they are trucked across continents in sealed hives, sustained on artificial food and unable to defecate outside the hive. the typically finding themselves in crop monocultures that lack the diversity of the floral food bees normally require.

"Over 60 Years of Humane Animal Care"

http://web.archive.org/web/20240925192908/https://primate.wisc.edu/primate-info-net/pin-factsheets/pin-factsheet-gelada-baboon/

I went vegan in 1972 for ethical reasons, a decade or more before I heard the word. In 1997, I learned that there was a giant federally-funded place called the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center that raised monkeys and employed a legion of scientists who did hideous things to them. I learned that there were seven of these hellholes scattered around the country.

(I was so alarmed by what I learned that I protested at each of these hideous places for 10 days at a time. A year later, I did it again, but this time there was a group of other concerned people with me and we protested at other labs that also used monkeys.)

The Regional Primate Research Centers rebranded themselves as "National Primate Research Centers" but nothing changed; it was just a public relations gimmick.

After 25 years of gathering information, documenting their hideousness, protesting, and criticism, I was pretty burned out. I still am.

But, these dickheads can still push my buttons. All of these shit-holes have public relations staff. That's a nice way of saying lying asshole who makes excuses for the hideous things that are done to the animals and their BS publications that claim their experiments lead to important to medical progress.

The claim above, "Over 60 Years of Humane Animal Care" really pushed my buttons. Part III of my 2017 book, "We All Operate in the Same Way", Oversight and Regulation, documents many examples of the failure of oversight and violations of the (very weak) Animal Welfare Act. The notion that there is anything humane about these hell-holes is the epitome of complete nonsensical public releations crap.

I stumbled across this bit of BS because I was reading about geladas, a species of Old World monkey found only in the Ethiopian Highlands. I stuck it in Google and got the Wisconsin hit. The notion that primate vivisectors are a good source of information about the natural history of all primates is just a bit of public relations. They often claim to be "primatologists." They want the uniformed public to think they are like Jane Goodall or Dianne Fossey. Jeez.

Viewing this on a phone?

Be sure to scroll to the bottom and click "View Web Version."
Or, try this: http://primateresearch.blogspot.com/?m=0

The Creative Lives of Animals (New York University Press: 2023) Thumbs -up.

Carol Giglioti's The Creative Lives of Animals (New York University Press: 2023) held my interest from the first to the last page. I am of two minds about the book though. On the one hand, I think she provided ample and conclusive evidence for her proposition that other animals are creative. They invent new ways of doing things and those new ways get handed down through multiple generations. Human observers commonly perceive those invented, taught, and practiced behaviors as gene-regulated characteristics rather than the culturally embedded activities and ways of living that they actually are.

If you have an interest in why animnals do some of the things they do and how they may have come to do some of those things, I think you too will enjoy and find much to think about in The Creative Lives of Animals.

But the book also left me more depressed about our treatment of them. It seems that no matter what we learn about animals, that knowledge is only rarely sufficient to cause us to stop hurting them, let alone genuinely help them, or even just leave them alone. Throughout history, and still today, what we know about them is often used to exploit them, to take advantage of them, and is sometimes the reason that we hurt them even more.

In that sense, The Creative Lives of Animals probably won't be any more successful than any of the many other books by authors who probably hoped that the stories they told, the facts they cited, would at least nudge us in a more humane direction. Some of them have, a little, but on balance those changes have been slight. I hope The Creative Lives of Animals will have more success. It's worth a read and a recommendation to those you know who still don't give a damn.

628 Pieces of Primate Research Garbage

“We all operate in the same way,” said acting Wisconsin Primate Research Center director Joe Kemnitz in the midst of a long and embarrassing scandal over protected monkeys at the local zoo. But little did anyone realize just what a liar he was. No other primate laboratory comes even close to operating like Wisconsin.

In an industry where violations of federal law and regulation are the norm, where deceiving the public is high art, and animals are routinely neglected, tortured, and killed, it is nearly impossible for an institution to distinguish itself. But the University of Wisconsin, Madison has proven itself truly exceptional.

This time it has to do with the destruction of hundreds of videotapes.

Read more...

Some follow-up on the Basso et al article

The authors write:

"When the morning sickness drug thalidomide came to market in Europe in the 1950s regulators failed to identify that it caused serious congenital malformations in pregnant women. In the USA, FDA reviewer Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey rejected the drug’s application on the grounds of insufficient preclinical pregnant animal data and pregnant human data."

But this does not appear to be accurate. An essay about her career is available from the University of Chicago.

It is true that William S. Merrell Co. was seeking approval to market thalidomide in the U.S. and that Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey was the FDA reviewer. And, it is true that thalidomide could cause tragic birth defects. But Basso et al's claim is false:

When the morning sickness drug thalidomide came to market in Europe in the 1950s regulators failed to identify that it caused serious congenital malformations in pregnant women. In the USA, FDA reviewer Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey rejected the drug’s application on the grounds of insufficient preclinical pregnant animal data and pregnant human data.

In the articles about Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey's concerns that I have been able to locate, it wasn't the animal data that worried Oldham Kelsey; in fact, animal data was available and was (false) evidence that the drug was harmless.

See for instance 'Heroine' of FDA Keeps Bad Drug Off Market By Morton Mintz Washington Post Staff Writer. July 15, 1962. To wit:

The drug had come into widespread use in other countries. In West Germany, where it was used primarily as a sedative, huge quantities of it were sold over the counter before it was put on a prescription basis. It gave a prompt, deep, natural sleep that was not followed by a hangover. It was cheap. It failed to kill even the would-be suicides who swallowed massive doses.

And there were reports on experiments with animals. Only a few weeks ago the American licensee told of giving the drug to rats in doses of 6 to 60 times greater than the comparable human dosage. Of 1510 offspring, none was delivered with "evidence of malformation."

In a separate study, one rat did deliver a malformed offspring, but the dosage had been 120 times the usual one. Rabbits that were injected with six times the comparable human dose also were reported to have produced no malformed births.

... she said she could not help regarding thalidomide as a "peculiar drug." It troubled her that its effects on experimental animals were not the same as on humans – it did not make them sleepy.

At every turn, it seems that Basso et al get almost everything wrong. This seems to be a relatively common phenomena in many professions and walks of life. Our preconceptions and beliefs color our perception.

Vivisectors Say the Darndest Things.

FDA no longer needs to require animal tests before doing human drug trials. Science 1-23-2023.

The FDA no longer requires all drugs to be tested on animals before human trials. NPR 1-12-2023.

This change in policy is the result of years of effort by groups like PETA and CAARE.

It has shaken the vivisection industry. The notion that zillions of animals might not be bred, hurt, and killed could translate into a significant financial loss for them. Even those not directly involved in safety testing are worried that this could be the camel’s nose; it could lead to less public funding for the harmful use of animals in college and university labs across the country.

A June 23, 2023 editorial in Drug Discovery Today (Volume 28, Number 6) caught my eye because of the title: “The ethics of animal research and testing: A US perspective,” and because one of the authors’ unethical behavior is the subject of Chapter 16 “Michelle Basso” in my book “We All Operate in the Same Way.” The Use of Animals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Virginia Smith Books: 2017)

Basso had numerous problems involving her use of monkeys while she was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The numerous written concerns by senior veterinary staff led to her suspension, which led to her departure and move to the University of California, Los Angeles, notable for being the homebase of the radical anything-goes vivisectors’ club, Speaking of Research. She is currently the Director of the University of Washington, Seattle’s tax-payer-funded Washington National Primate Research Center. It may not be a coincidence that the management of the Washington National Primate Research Center’s monkey farm in Arizona deteriorated after she took the job. See: Report: NIH probing UW primate center in Arizona. Dec. 20, 2021. Seattle Times.

The Drug Discovery Today article includes this humorous claim:

Declaration of Competing Interest. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

The authors’ livelihood is dependent on hurting and killing animals.

The article starts off with an oddly ignorant assertion:

The burgeoning field of adjunct and complementary methods for animal research and testing, including computer simulations and micro-physiological systems, has given rise to a debate about the ethics of animal research and testing.

In fact, the debate has been going on since at least the late 1800s. In 1875, the National Anti-Vivisection Society was started by Frances Power Cobbe. The American Anti-Vivisection Society was founded in 1883. What the authors could have said, more accurately, is that technological advances have made it harder to defend the cruel things done to animals in the labs in the name of human health.

(A nice overview of some of those advances is available from Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research and Experimentation.

The authors’ argument that the use of animals is still needed starts with an appeal to two cases of new drugs harming users. The first was “The Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster of 1937,” which led directly to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or FFDCA, in 1938.

They paradoxically seem to believe that the science of toxicology has not progressed in the ensuing 86 years. They are clearly wrong, as the CAARE link above and a Google search for “nonanimal toxicology” both demonstrate.

The authors continue: “The 1960s brought about greater FDA oversight over preclinical animal research… Ethical considerations and new scientifically validated animal behavior insights led to the passage of the 1966 Animal Welfare Act (AWA).”

But, again, they are wrong. Do they know they are wrong? The plain facts are an embarrassment to the animal research community. The impetus behind 1966 Act was an article in the November 29, 1965 Sports Illustrated by Coles Phinizy about a dog who was stolen and sold to a laboratory and killed. (“The Lost Pets That Stray to the Labs.” Sports Illustrated, 29 Nov. 1965.) Scientists in labs across the country knew they were buying stolen and lost dogs.

In fact, the USDA reports:

August 24, 1966
Passing of the (Laboratory) Animal Welfare Act (Public Law 89-544)
Rep. Resnick's efforts lead to the passage of the (Laboratory) Animal Welfare Act, [AWA] of which the stated intention is "…to protect the owners of dogs and cats from theft of such pets, to prevent the sale or use of dogs and cats which have been stolen, and to insure that certain animals intended for use in research facilities are provided humane care and treatment…". The new law establishes licensing for dog and cat dealers and authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to regulate the transport, sale, and handling of animals pre-research or “for other purposes”. The Act covers six species: dogs, cats, nonhuman primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits.

How is it that Basso et al don’t know this? Or, maybe they do, are embarrassed by it, and are knowingly misleading their readers? Either way, ignorant or willful, this error of fact demonstrates one of the reasons it is best to question the claims of those who make their living hurting and killing animals. They continue with a citation that an uncritical or uniformed reader is likely to interpret as evidence of progress or researchers’ concerns for the animals they use:

“The 1985 AWA Amendment instituted federal requirements for enriching the lives of research monkeys and established the federal Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC). Along with the 1985 Public Health Service Act for federally funded research, it also required the establishment of an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at every institution that conducts animal research and testing in the USA to ensure the humane and responsible use of animals.”

But, in fact, the 1985 Amendment was a direct response to documentation of hideous conditions at the City of Hope in Duarte California and videos of extreme cruelty to monkeys at the University of Pennsylvania.

Basso et al write:

In the 1980s and thereafter the scientific and veterinary communities gave renewed attention to the ‘3Rs’ principles: reduction, refinement and replacement, established in 1959. Professional research societies like Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science and the AAALAC International published position statements on the importance of improving animal welfare, minimizing pain and distress and developing adjunct methods.

But the history and current activities of these organizations strongly suggests that they were intended to be (and in practice are) public relation tools for entities like colleges, universities and contract laboratories that become members. Animal welfare violations don’t result in a loss of membership.

Basso et al write: “In a June 2022 meeting of its Science Board, the FDA’s Alternative Methods working group said the agency is reviewing micro-physiological systems, cellular assays and computer models to complement and in some cases reduce animal use (my emphasis) in drug safety and efficacy research and testing.”

But, the FDA’s Alternative Methods working group actually said: “I am proud to highlight in this report some of the activities in which FDA is engaged that are moving us closer to the goal of replacing, reducing, and refining the use of animals in medical product development while continuing to advance disease modeling, toxicology, and pharmacology in support of FDA’s mission.” Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. Commissioner of Food and Drugs

And, the FDA says in its Predictive Toxicology Roadmap: “Breakthroughs in many areas of science are generating new tools and methods that are being incorporated into the science of toxicology. … Also critical is the potential of these advances for replacing, reducing, and/or refining animal testing.” It seems that replacing the use of animals remains one of their goals. This seems to be what is worrying vivisectors.

Basso et al also appeal to the National Academies’ 2022 workshop series "Nonhuman Primate Model Systems: State of the Science and Future Needs"’ https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/nonhuman-primate-model-systems-state-of-the-science-and-future-needs

The fact that a group of primate vivisectors and others with a vested interest in the continuation of animal use concluded that we will just have to keep using monkeys doesn’t seem too surprising. I don’t see how it bolsters the authors’ claim that the use of animals is genuinely needed. Whether or not it is, of course, says nothing about whether it is moral.

Evidence to support their claims is hard to find, this might be why they cite a webpage produced by students, who, it seems, aren’t too up to date either. For instance, the author says, “Chimpanzees, which share 99% of their DNA with humans respectively, also serve as reliable models for researching diseases due to their similar genetic makeup. Studying them enables scientists to explore how the disease affects the body and the kind of immune response that is triggered, which then makes it possible for scientists to develop potential therapies.” [Cites 2 articles from 2014.]

Maybe the students haven't heard that chimpanzees are no longer used in medical research anywhere in the world. Basso et al must know this, and yet they try to bolster their asserions with an appeal to these out-of-date or poorly researched claims.

Basso et al are ethically blind, money can do that to a person. They write:

When it comes to research leading to understanding and treating neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases, nonhuman primates are essential because they are the only animal species with a prefrontal cortex similar to humans. Their central nervous system is more complex than other mammals and they experience similar cognitive and sensory symptoms of disease.

To paraphrase: They suffer like we do.

An early essay

REVIEW ESSAY Animal Experimentation and Human Rights Rick Bogle Ellen Frankel Paul and Jeffrey Paul, editors, Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research (The Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation and Transaction Publishers), 2002. Paperback. 224 pp.

Let’s disenfranchise men.

This is a work in progress.

“For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited—seemingly on the brink of nuclear war—and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba.” JFK Library. Web-retrieved 3/23/2023.

I was 9 years old. We were living in Houston. My parents stockpiled food and water; we had a plan for huddling in the hallway and putting our mattresses against the walls to protect us in case they came tumbling down. A futile hopeless plan, but it made the tension very real. At school, we had recurring drills; we got under our desks and covered our eyes and the back of our necks and prayed for the all-clear bell; prayed that it really was just a drill.

My father had told me in a very serious talk, that if I thought it was the real thing, that I should ignore the teacher and run home as fast as I could. All largely because of Allen Dulles, John F. Kennedy, and a few other men.

It feels to me that we are closer to nuclear war than we ever have been. The situation in Ukrane seems like it could easily go nuclear. Almost every day, it seems, North Korea announces some an additional nuclear capability. Iran is enriching uranium.

There’s a common factor lurking there; it is stamped into just about every war, violent crime, and cruelty throughout history. The crimes, wars, and cruelty are overwhelmingly carried out by men. Men are the problem. Let’s disenfranchise them.

I’ll wager that a world governed by women would be a better place for just about everyone. No matter the activity, if it involves harming others, men dominate.

80% of the US armed forces are men. 90% of inmates in federal prisons are men. The U.S. Dept. of Justice reports that only 14% of violent offenders are women.

According the Alaska Dispatch News, only 21% of hunting licenses are purchased by women. Hunting is very popular in Alaska.

Data is spotty, but one source reports that 40% of animal scientists are women.

Even in the kitchen, only 25% of chefs are women, but 79% of vegans are women. More female chefs could lead to kinder kitchens.

The Women’s Professional Rodeo Association has 3,000 members throughout the United States & Canada; the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has “nearly 7,000 members.”

More women in every field would mean less harm and a better life for everyone.

Let’s disenfranchise men.

Invent Ways to Hurt Animals and Become a Millionaire.

One of the news feeds I subscribe to sends me scientific papers written by researchers experimenting on monkeys. A recent one was titled "A Rhesus Monkey Model of Non-suicidal Self-Injury." It was written by Melinda Novak and Jerrold S. Meyer. Meyer: "Much of our recent work has involved the use of a rat model to determine the mechanisms of cocaine action on the developing brain and the neurochemical and behavioral consequences of chronic prenatal cocaine exposure...". What a dick.

It caught my eye, not only for the title, but also because Melinda Novak was one of Harry Harlow's last PhD students, and I am somewhat familiar with one of their co-authored publications. Many of her papers are indexed here, here, and here.

Her career has largely been a study of the damaging impacts to monkeys from being kept alone in a cage and being hurt and frightened throughout their lives. None of her work seems to have benefited the monkeys in the labs, let alone any abused human children. It is estimated that self-injurious behavior "in the form of self-biting is observed in approximately 5–15% of individually housed rhesus monkeys."

She has brought in the big bucks. Her NIH-funded project SELF INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR AND PRIMATE WELL BEING (Project Number1R24RR011122-01) received $7,863,045 in taxpayer dollars from 1996 to 2006.

Data is hard to find, but the 2016 paper, Survey of 2014 Behavioral Management Programs for Laboratory Primates in the United States, reported that of 59,636 primates in the 27 facilities they surveyed, 83% were socially housed. So, 17% weren't. That means that more than 10,000 monkeys in U.S. labs are probably being kept in conditions widely acknowledged to cause multiple psychiatric maladies.

Novak is now claiming that further study of these mentally ill monkeys might lead to some benefit to adolescents and young adults manifestiong non-suicidal self-injury. But the study of monkeys raised in environmentally deprived conditions has never led to a benefit to human children or adults. Her claim that even more study is called for is particularly odious.

I'm particularly disgusted by her claim because of her history with Harry Harlow. They, probably her -- some research suggests that university professors commonly attach their names to their graduate student's research papers -- invented a device intended to terrify young monkeys. It is likely that they were already disabled as a result of their isolation.

[Unless otherwise noted, the passages quoted below are from "Isolation", Chapter 5 of "We All Operate in the Same Way." The Use of Animals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Rick Bogle. Virginia Smith Books: 2017. See too: Harlow, Harry F.; Novak, Melinda A. (1973). Psychopathological Perspectives.

Harlow and Novak reported on the use of a novel device they designed and characterized as "diabolical" and intended to "produce turmoil and terror." The apparatus had two main parts, a small cage positioned above a larger unit. The larger lower unit was divided into two parts. The small cage could be lowered between them so that the monkey inside the cage was more or less surrounded by them. Harlow said it was like an elevator. The idea was to put frightening objects in the two bottom parts and then lower the monkey so that he or she was confronted on both sides by the objects. They write:

... and after a 1-minute delay [the monkey] was lowered into the fear apparatus to face the assault of arm-flapping, light-flashing, buzzing, or shrieking monsters -- one on each side of him. They say that the device was "extremely successful in producing terror in monkeys," and report that several of the monkeys clung to the top of the cage for as long as 15 minutes. They reported that monkeys balled up in the bottom of the cage. Others, they say "many," screamed the entire time they were in the apparatus, "... or until they became hoarse from the violence of their vocalization." They reported that all the monkeys developed intense phobias.

... in the case of Novak frightening monkeys in an effort to induce any sort of interesting behavioral aberration, she wanted to use monkeys similar to each other and who had had similar life experiences. So she first used four six-month-old monkeys who were all semi-isolates -- monkeys raised alone in a bare wire cage in a room with other individual monkeys in other bare wire cages -- and put them into the device, called by Harlow and Novak the "terror trap," for 15 minutes every day, for six weeks.

Now, 50 years later, she is still claiming that the study of profoundly emotionally damaged young monkeys will shed light on mental illness in humans. But why not? These claims, the willingness of scientific journals to publish these claims, the willingness of federal funding agencies and university's to support such cruelty, do, at the end of the day, pour more money into her bank account.

Again with Nussbaum

Her book, Justice For Animals, (Simon & Schuster, 2022) continues to irk me. It would not get a high mark if it were being graded. Consider this passage (p 180-181 passim):

More recently, Aysha Akhtar brings a growing body of scientific literature to bear on this question, arguing that we know for sure by now that a lot of animal-based research is unreliable and in that way imposes large costs on humans, through misguided treatments and the abandonment of others that might have proven superior.... In the same special issue [from 14 September 2015] ... Andrew Rowan concludes that the predictive value of animal testng is on average only 50 to 60 percent, but that in rodent studies it falls to below 50 percent, less accurate than a coin toss.

If this new line of argument is correct, research using animals does not pose a tragic dilemma, because nothing is gained from it. [my emphasis] But it seems unlikely that such a sweeping conclusion is correct.

Jeepers. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe this is just a case of extremely poor editing. But the absence of scholarship displayed in the characterization of Akhtar's [important] documentation of the failures of animal models as a "new line of argument" exposes Nussbaum as simply an unread neophyte.

For instance, Henry Salt, in his 1894 Animals' Rights [Macmillan & C.] quotes Lawson Tait, "one of the most eminent surgeons of our time": "The conclusions of vivisection are absolutely worthless."

Antivivisection groups and independent scholars have challenged the purported science underpinning the use of animal models of human illness and drug response for well over a century; how could she, a lauded scholar, not know this? See too: https://web.archive.org/web/20070203114620/http://www.curedisease.com/resources.html