UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine

The old bait-and-switcheroo.

UW's School of Veterinary Medicine campaigns for multi-million dollar expansion

By Kalie Greenberg | Posted: Fri 8:49 AM, Apr 13, 2018 | Updated: Fri 12:00 PM, Apr 13, 2018

MADISON, Wis.(WMTV)-- The School of Veterinary Medicine said it is still working to fundraise and spread awareness about its Animals Need Heroes Too campaign. Friday's canceled University of Wisconsin-Madison's Spring Football game was a fundraiser for the project.

"In the end, it's about doing things to get our story out and I think that's still happening," said Mark Markel, Dean for the School of Veterinary Medicine. [more...]

Yes, animals need heroes, but the vet school raising money for more lab space is like Joseph Mengele using the slogan "Children Need Heroes Too."



Lest you think I'm being too hyperbolic or just unfair, consider these simple facts:

The vet school says:

Our Team "The compassion and excellence you’ll find at UW Veterinary Care is fueled by our world-class team of veterinarians, technicians, pharmacists, and staff, working together to deliver the best possible care for all animals."

Visitors to that page are invited to get to know the veterinarians. The vet school dean is Mark D. Markel. It seems reasonable to assume that his feelings about and attitude toward animals sets the tone and influences the attitudes and opinions of others at the vet school.

On his vet school webpage, he lists some of his recent scientific papers. The first one on his list [right now that is, the university commonly deletes things when a critic points to them] is Bleedorn JA, Sullivan R, Lu Y, Kalscheur V, Markel MD: Percutaneous lovastatin accelerates bone healing but is associated with periosseous soft tissue inflammation in a canine tibial osteotomy model. J Orthop Res 2014 Feb;32(2):210-6. doi: 10.1002/jor.22502. Epub 2013 Oct 25. This is a passage from the paper:

MATERIALS AND METHODS Experimental Design

Eighteen spayed female adult purpose‐bred hound dogs were used in a block randomized, parallel group study design (treatment n = 12, control n = 6). Briefly, a 1 mm mid‐diaphyseal osteotomy was performed on the right tibia, and the bone was stabilized with an external fixator. Dogs received a percutaneous injection at the osteotomy site with lovastatin in vehicle (treatment), or vehicle (control) 4 days after surgery. Results were evaluated with serial radiography until bone union. Histologic evaluation of fracture healing and soft tissue inflammation surrounding the osteotomy was performed after sacrifice at 10 weeks postoperatively, except in two control dogs at 11 weeks at time of radiographic bone union. All data were collected and analyzed by personnel who were unaware of treatments. The university animal care and use committee approved all procedures.

Here's a picture from the paper showing the dogs' cut leg bones:



It is true that the the vet school has helped and probably saved the lives of many animals over the years. But it isn't at all clear to me that good works erase monstrous acts. When Mengele gave candy to some of the children he was using, did it erase or even slightly mitigate his crimes?

I knew a dog named Cap who had been used at the vet school for years as a tool for teaching students how to examine a dog. He was a basket of nerves; he was clearly suffering from intense post traumatic stress. Though he recovered somewhat, he was never a normal or happy dog.

I doubt that the terrible things being done to animals at the vet school are altogether the result of having a leader who experiments on dogs and kills them. The view that it is just and right to view animals as disposable tools permeates the institution. I mentioned above that the vet school website invites visitors to meet the vets. Let's start our tour here.

The page explains that there are four academic departments: Comparative Biosciences, Pathobiological Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Surgical Sciences. The chair of the department of Comparative Biosciences is Ted (Thaddeus) Golos. Here's data from the NIH that gives some idea of what he does all day when he isn't doing paper work:

5 R01 AI107157 04
THE MATERNAL-FETAL INTERFACE IN LISTERIA-INDUCED PREGNANCY LOSS. GOLOS, THADDEUS G. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON. 2017 NIAID. $399,347. Total project funding since 2014: $1,597,388.

1 R21 AI129308 01
NONHUMAN PRIMATE MODEL TO ASSESS FETAL ZIKA VIRUS INFECTION COMPLICATIONS. GOLOS, THADDEUS G. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2017 NIAID. $221,550.

1 R21 AI136014 01
IMMUNE RESPONSE TO ZIKA INFECTION AT THE PRIMATE MATERNAL-FETAL INTERFACE. GOLOS, THADDEUS G. et al. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2018 NIAID. $229,500.

5 R21 HD091163 02
NONHUMAN PRIMATE MODEL TO ASSESS EMBRYONIC ZIKA VIRUS INFECTION. GOLOS, THADDEUS G. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2017 NICHD. $191,250. Total project funding since 2016: $420,750.

5 R24 OD021322 03
CCR5-MUTANT MONKEY MODEL TO FACILITATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL STEM CELL-BASED THERAPIES FOR AIDS. GOLOS, THADDEUS G. et al. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2018 OD $670,737. Total project funding since 2016: $2,530,877.

Other than the Lecturers/Instructors, the other 30-ish people, from their publication lists, are all vivisectors, which makes sense since "comparative medicine" is the term of art for vivisection. One of them, James Tracy, was a supporter of hosting the Department of Homeland Security's proposed giant infectious animal disease research facility in the nearby Town of Dunn.

Moving along to Medical Sciences. The majority of the staff listed on this page seem to be genuine clinicians dealing with naturally occurring problems in animals, but not all. Nigel Cook and Dorte Dopfer's primary focus is keeping animals healthy before the are slaughtered, they co-authored a paper explaining an experiment they conducted using young cows:

Bovine digital dermatitis (DD), also known as papillomatous digital dermatitis (foot warts), has been recognized as a major cause of lameness in cattle, with important economic and welfare consequences.... A group of 4 yearling Holstein heifers free of any clinical evidence of hoof disease was recruited from a commercial dairy farm and housed in an experimental facility in 1 pen with slatted flooring. The hind feet were wrapped to mimic conditions of prolonged moisture (maceration) and reduced access to air (closure) and inoculated at the heel and dewclaw areas with a homogenate of a naturally occurring DD lesion skin biopsy or a culture broth of Treponema spp. After a period of 12 to 25 d, 4 of 6 and 1 of 4 dewclaw areas inoculated with biopsied DD lesion or a Treponema spp. culture, respectively, had gross lesions compatible with DD. [Gomez, A., Cook, N. B., Bernardoni, N. D., Rieman, J., Dusick, A. F., Hartshorn, R., ... & Döpfer, D. (2012). An experimental infection model to induce digital dermatitis infection in cattle. Journal of dairy science, 95(4), 1821-1830.]

And then, there's Ian Duncan. Thirty-five or so years ago, he identified a gene mutation in Welsh springer spaniels. The mutation goes by the moniker sps, which stands for shaking puppy syndrome. Since then, apparently, he has maintained a colony of these dogs at the university for use in his experiments. I wonder how many people taking their dogs to the vet school know that one of the vets there is breeding dogs with a debilitating brain illness? Here's a photo from one of his papers pointing out the differences between the brains of healthy dogs and his dogs. [In: Mayer, J. A., Griffiths, I. R., Goldman, J. E., Smith, C. M., Cooksey, E., Radcliff, A. B., & Duncan, I. D. (2015). Modeling the natural history of Pelizaeus–Merzbacher disease. Neurobiology of disease, 75, 115-130.]



He also uses mice and rats with mutations that cause severe disease.

Veterinarian Fernando Marqués, reported in 2017, that meloxicam , a drug used to treat tenderness, swelling, and pain, reduced stress in bull calves after castration compared to those who received no pain medication. Who would have imagined that! [Creutzinger K.C., Stookey J.M., Marfleet T.W., Campbell J.R., Janz D.M., Marqués F.J., Seddon Y.M. An investigation of hair cortisol as a measure of long-term stress in beef cattle: results from a castration study. Can. J. Anim. Sci 97:499-509 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjas-2016-0206.]

According to the vet school, veterinarian Harry Momont "...is currently investigating the use of diagnostic ultrasonography of the male genital tract as a breeding management tool."

Veterinarian Garrett Oetzel is an Associate Professor in the Food Animal Production Medicine Section. I'm sure he's filled with compassion.

Veterinarian Lennart Backstrom, Professor Emeritus of Large Animal Medicine/Swine, isn't likely to be of much help to the people being targeted in the vet school's Animals Need Heroes Too campaign. Nor is veterinarian William Bosu, a professor whose interest lies in the theriogenology of cows and horses. (Theriogenology is the branch of veterinary medicine concerned with reproduction, including the physiology and pathology of male and female reproductive systems of animals -- WP.) Nor is veterinarian Sheila McGuirk, Professor of Large Animal Internal Medicine and Food Animal Production Medicine. Nor is Kenneth Nordlund or Susan Semrad, both vets working to keep cows healthy enough to be eaten or milked for a few years.

I looked at all the details given for all the listed staff of the Medical Sciences division because it seemed the most hopeful one for finding people with a genuine concern for animals, for finding vets who see themselves as animal doctors, whose responsibility is to their patient. Those not named here, seem to be close to that ideal. They publish papers recounting clinical cases and seem uninvolved in the dark side of the vet school's activities. But those people seem to be in the small minority.

Moving on to the Department of Pathobiological Sciences, I see names of people I have mentioned in previous posts. I'll just list them here so that those with an interest can search for them in other posts. Thomas Friedrich, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, Eric Sandgren, Timothy Yoshino, Gary Splitter, and Susan West. A fine and representative bunch. None of the others appear to have anything to do with the medical care of companion animals.

The Surgical Sciences Department is also filled with people who hurt and kill animals. For instance, veterinarian Dale Bjorling's work is centered around the use of mice and occasionally rats. He was also a university spokesperson when the Alliance for Animals exposed their illegal killing of sheep in decompression experiments. Bjorling was either grossly uniformed or lied when he defended the university's illegal activity.

Veterinarian Jason Bleedorn was a coauthor with vet school dean Mark D. Markelon on the paper I mentioned above in which the dogs' leg bones were sawed through and then later killed.

Veterinarian Sabrina Brounts points to one of her recent publications: Chamberlain CS, Duenwald-Kuehl SE, Okotie G, Brounts SH, Baer GS, Vanderby R. Temporal healing in rat Achilles tendon: ultrasound correlations Ann Biomed Eng 2012.

Veterinarian Rebecca Johnson points to one of her recent publications: Nichols NL, Duncan ID, Punzo AM, Mitchell GS, Johnson RA (2012). Cervical spinal demyelination with ethidium bromide transiently impairs respiratory (phrenic) and forelimb motor behavior in rats. Neuroscience Jan 15; 229: 77-87.

Veterinarian Jonathan McAnulty is listed as the current Chair of the Department of Surgical Sciences. In a current paper [Csomos, R. A., Hardie, R. J., Schmiedt, C. W., Delaney, F. A., & McAnulty, J. F. (2017). Effect of cold storage on immediate graft function in an experimental model of renal transplantation in cats. American journal of veterinary research, 78(3), 330-339.] he reports:

To assess the effect of cold storage (CS) on immediate posttransplantation function of renal autografts in cats. ANIMALS 15 healthy 1-year-old cats. PROCEDURES Cats were assigned to 2 groups and underwent autotransplantation of the left kidney followed by nephrectomy of the right kidney.... renal transplantation in cats may serve as a desirable model for investigating the effects of renal transplantation in human patients.

From his publications, McAnulty's main work appears to be the study of wound healing. Here's a representative passage:

Design of wound model

As a wound host, we chose male mice that are homozygous for Leprdb. Such db/db mice exhibit an impaired wound-healing response , which increasing the sensitivity of wound-healing assays as well as clinical relevancy. The course of wound healing in these mice mimics that in humans with adult-onset type II diabetes mellitus.

As a wound type, we chose excisional wounds. These wounds heal from the margins, enabling the broadest assessment of the various parameters for wound healing, including re-epithelialization. We were aware, however, that the healing of mouse wounds is distinctly different from that of human wounds. In mice, contraction is the major mechanism of wound closure. In humans, re-epithelialization and granulation tissue-formation dominate. We devised a means to overcome this dichotomy. The use of splints around excisional wounds in db/db mice had been shown to allow healing by fibrovascular tissue formation and re-epithilialization, while minimizing the effects of contraction. In addition, a splinted wound model can provide two side-by-side wounds on the same mouse and facilitates the application of topical agents directly onto a wound bed. Accordingly, we used splinted wounds in db/db mice for our analyses. [Chattopadhyay, S., Guthrie, K. M., Teixeira, L., Murphy, C. J., Dubielzig, R. R., McAnulty, J. F., & Raines, R. T. (2016). Anchoring a cytoactive factor in a wound bed promotes healing. Journal of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, 10(12), 1012-1020.]

Coauthors of the paper, Kathleen M. Guthrie, Leandro Teixeira, Richard R. Dubielzig, and Richard R. Dubielzig are also veterinarians at the vet school.

Veterinarian Gillian McLellan kills cats. In a recent publication coauthored with other UW-Madison veterinarians [Teixeira, L. B., Buhr, K. A., Bowie, O., Duke, F. D., Nork, T. M., Dubielzig, R. R., & McLellan, G. J. (2014). Quantifying optic nerve axons in a cat glaucoma model by a semi-automated targeted counting method. Molecular vision, 20, 376.] The authors explain:

Subjects

We used fixed optic nerve tissues collected postmortem from cats in a research colony that had been established from a pedigree of cats with spontaneously occurring recessively inherited PCG. Samples were selected from animals ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years and representing a range of different stages in the progression of disease. Weekly intraocular pressure (IOP) data, as measured by rebound tonometry, were available for all cats in the study. All glaucomatous animals had persistently elevated IOP,... The cup-to-disc ratio cannot be reliably assessed on ophthalmoscopy in cats, but all cats in the former group exhibited abnormalities consistent with glaucoma ... Single optic nerves were selected from normal cats (n = 6) and from cats that demonstrated mild to severe PCG due to a consistent mutation in LTBP2 (n = 9). All procedures were conducted with the approval of the University of Wisconsin-Madison institutional animal care and use committee.

Veterinarian Samantha Morello's page says that she has "personal background in the show horse and race horse industry." Those are two industries which generally seem to treat animals very poorly.

Veterinarian Peter Muir is the Melita Grunow Family Professor of Companion Animal Health. But don't be fooled, Muir and vet school dean Markel are co-directors of the vet school's Comparative Orthopaedic Research Laboratory. It isn't a good place for animals. They say:

"We have vast experimental and clinical experience in an array of animal models including mice, rabbits, dogs, sheep, pigs and horses in which have evaluated cartilage, bone, ligament and tendon repair and healing."

"Chronic and acute osteoarthritis in dog models and acute osteoarthritis in sheep and pony models have been successfully created."

"Sheep stifle external immobilization has been successfully established and developed for studies of cartilage implantation," and provide a photo to suggest what this means for the animals they use:



"Osteochondral grafts and implantation have been proficiently performed in both sheep stifles and pig mandibular bone," and provide another photo:



"Achilles, patellar tendon, and shoulder rotator cuff repairs have been evaluated in both rabbit and sheep models. Fracture healing has been also determined in horse models."

The lab seems to be doing pretty well financially.

Veterinarian Lesley Smith's page says that she is a mover and a shaker. Unfortunately, she seems to be lacking in ... hum, intuition? She says on her page that she has: "Over 35 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters published. See pubmed for list." Doing so is predictably unhelpful. Maybe the page is missing a hyperlink. She has to have known that she is not the only L. Smith whose papers are indexed on PubMed. In fact, there are 9,188 papers authors by L. Smiths. There are 139 papers authored by Lesley Smiths. It turns out that she sometime publishes as L.J. Smith, but there are 602 papers authored by L. J. Smiths. But I did locate a few of her papers.

One of those is a yet to be cited report titled, Comparison of the effects of alfaxalone and propofol with acepromazine, butorphanol and/or doxapram on laryngeal motion and quality of examination in dogs. [Radkey, D. I., Hardie, R. J., & Smith, L. J. (2018). Comparison of the effects of alfaxalone and propofol with acepromazine, butorphanol and/or doxapram on laryngeal motion and quality of examination in dogs. Veterinary anaesthesia and analgesia.] The abstract notes that they used "Ten female Beagle dogs, aged 11-13 months." Given that beagles are by far the most commonly used dogs in the labs, I suspect that these were not pets.

And I found this paper: Epidural Administration of Liposome-Encapsulated Hydromorphone Provides Extended Analgesia in a Rodent Model of Stifle Arthritis.

There is, to me, something particularly stomach-tightening about intentionally hurting animals, inducing chronic pain, in order to study pain and analgesia. It seems to me that in most cases some things can be studied ethically only in the course of an effort to help someone. The one exception to this moral baseline is the use of volunteers who have the opportunity to opt out any time they choose.

Veterinarian Sara Colopy experiments on mice. Veterinarian Susannah Sample does as well. One of the papers she co-authored with others from the vet school [Sample, Susannah J., Ryan J. Collins, Aliya P. Wilson, Molly A. Racette, Mary Behan, Mark D. Markel, Vicki L. Kalscheur, Zhengling Hao, and Peter Muir. "Systemic effects of ulna loading in male rats during functional adaptation." Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 25, no. 9 (2010): 2016-2028] provides a sketch of what they did to the mice they used:



Not all of the vets listed on the department's page provide a sample of their published papers. I did not look for publications from those who didn't, so I don't know what their attitude toward animals might be. It is clear though from my brief review of the veterinarians in the four departments that comprise the School of Veterinary Medicine that the general attitude is that animals are disposable tools whose experiences, whose lives, are of little consequence or concern.

The seemingly large majority of the veterinarians associated with the vet school care about animals the way a mechanic might care about your car. They see animals as a means to an ends, or as the property of their actual client, the human who owns them.

This attitude makes a mockery, a sick joke, of the school's new fund-raising drive under the banner of Animals Need Heroes Too.

I don't think it likely that someone would take their child to a clinic if they knew that the clinic was breeding children with genetic defects for use in terminal sometimes painful experiments. Nor would they take their child to a clinic if they knew that the clinic was buying children to experiment on.

It's true that not all the vets at the vet school do these things, but it seems that most do, and those that don't remain quiet about the animals being hurt and killed in their colleagues' labs.

I suspect that were the school to get rid of all the vivisectors and hire a few more vets who really do care about animals, that there would be more than adequate space for a public clinic; and if they then ran out of room, I'd be writing here asking people to make a contribution.

Behind the headlines... suffering and spin.

Cue the public relations gibberish. The public isn't well-served by science writers who seek out and then swallow whole the nonsense foisted off by those with vested interests in the public's opinion and perception of their work. In this article from Nature, I couldn't help noticing the uncritical repetition of simple nonsense. [NEWS 22 March 2018. Alison Abbott: Reduced-calorie diet shows signs of slowing ageing in people. Most comprehensive study yet demonstrates that cutting people’s energy intake dials down their metabolism.]

The history alluded to in the article regarding the effects of caloric restriction in animals is cherry-picked, to say the least.

Not mentioned at all of course is the harsh reality behind the allusion.

Crating Dogs

A little off topic.


Micky and me. I'm the one in the hat.

A few years ago, we learned that a neighbor was locking their dog in a crate whenever they left. We told them that they could drop her off at our house instead; we gave them a key for times when we were gone. For some reason, they didn't care whether we were home or not; they were happy to just drop her off. Now, they never lock her in a crate. I suspect that she is happier looking out the window than being locked in a cage.



I've not been able to pinpoint the rise in popularity in cages for dogs, but from what I have been able to glean it might coincide with the dramatic change in the number of women in the workforce. Puppies could be house trained fairly easily if there was always someone who could catch them in the act and take them outside.



Like so many things that are sometimes thought of as signs of progress, the move from housewife to wage-earner had some negative consequences, and in this case, it may be that one of them was a massive increase in the number of dogs spending most of their waking hours locked in a cage.



A somewhat common claim on the internet is that there is nothing wrong with locking a dog up for hours on end everyday. Like this one: "It is not unreasonable to leave your dog in a crate for 9 to 10 hours at a time, which is a traditional workday."



In the myriad advertisements and images of dog crates one can see on line, it is seemingly the norm to leave them on the floor. When we are away for the day, our boy Micky is always parked on the back of a couch looking out a window. From there he can keep watch and bark at anyone walking by, at the mail carrier, and any truck that happens to stop, or heaven forbid, has letters pained on the side, and of course, he can keep a sharp eye out (when not asleep) for our car pulling into the driveway.



If he were left locked in a cage on the floor all day, I suspect he would perceive it to be a torturous experience. Over the weeks, months, and years of being caged, he might get used to it, but the idea that he would like it seems absurd and ethically blind to me.

In my reading about this phenomena, I happened upon a much more reasonable and humane option for people who for whatever reason, think their dog should not have the run of the house when they are gone. Turn a room into dog-safe space and put a gate in the doorway. Even this, if a chronic practice, seems wrong-headed to me, but it isn't as bad as putting a dog in a cage for long periods. The room would be best with a window and a place to lie down and be able to see out.

Mainly, I think that people who can't have a dog without keeping them in a crate should not be allowed to have a dog.

One final note note for the many people who think exceptions justify the general case. In rare cases, a dog recovering from surgery might be best served by being kept in a small space when no one can be with them. There might be other rare cases, maybe when in a car, that a reasonable argument could be made to justify caging a dog, but those cases are rare exceptions and have no bearing on the routine and cruel practice of daily crating that has gained in popularity over the years.

They were only Jews.

What did you do during the animal holocaust? Did you stay quiet like most Germans did?

They were only Jews. They are only monkeys.

Cultured Meat Misses the Mark

The idea of growing meat in a vat instead of on an animal is gaining traction, and a handful of new companies have been formed to pursue the dream of animal-free meat. It appears that there is almost all upside to the notion. Were everyone in the world who currently eats animals to make the switch, the benefits to the planet’s health would be immense.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about cultured meat which almost resulted in a $100 wager. He thought that cultured meat would have a huge effect across the board: ethically, environmentally, and economically. And, if a large part of the population embraces the product, it could.

But the more we talked, him the optimist, me the pessimist, the less sure he became. He said that he thought cultured meats would follow a market penetration path somewhat similar to the plant-based milks, which he thought was about 10%. He decided that with luck, we might see a 5% market penetration of cultured meat within 20 years. I suggested that if many of those buying the plant milks would be those also buying the cultured meat, then maybe the meats would not result in a significant change.

Further consideration led him to abandon the bet. I gloated to myself a bit, but further study of the issue has nudged me toward his side of the argument.

The plant-based milks seem to have been more successful than we assumed. Here are numerous bits of data and projections that make it look like the plant-based milks are kicking-ass, market-wise. Plant-based milks have enjoyed a 33% market penetration, and the projections are that this number is increasing.

But, as happy as that statistic made me, the success of the plant milks do not seem to have had a noticeable impact on the U.S. dairy industry so far:

Thinking of other animal product replacements that have come along, I am hard-pressed to point to many that have resulted in a reduction in animal use. Faux fur doesn't seem to have had much if any impact on the fur industry, and since leather is a byproduct of beef production, plastic shoes, even if everyone was wearing them, probably wouldn't have any effect on the number of animals slaughtered.

Someone else suggested that plastic had replaced the use bone for knitting needles and vegetable oil has replaced lard, but in spite of those replacements,

American consumption of red meat and poultry per capita is forecast to hit 222.2 pounds per person in 2018, up from 216.9 pounds in 2017 and 210.2 pounds in 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s the highest amount of meat consumption within the last 50 years. Production of both red meat and poultry will increase in 2018, at the same time the U.S. economy is growing and Americans have more money to spend on food, it found. [MarketWatch.com]

The one case I thought of as being an example of a widely used animal product being forced out of the market by consumer preferences was whale oil. Apparently though, that wasn't the case either.

The internal combustion engine must have resulted in a drastic reduction in the horse population, so it isn't impossible for technological advances to lead to less animal use, but then, the opposite is possible as in the case of the cotton gin leading to a dramatic increase in the number of slaves in the antebellum south.

All of this brings me to the point of this essay: namely, that new product introductions will not lead to advances in ethics and moral behavior. In order to see real improvement in how we treat the planet, in how we treat its other residents, we have to change people's minds, we have to instill a concern for others, we have to sell them on the universality of the Golden Rule.

Without a change of heart, no technological advance is likely to mean very much in a statistical sense when if comes to the animals we harm and kill, the animals whose homes we destroy, whose lives remain unnoticed and unimportant to us. But a change in popular belief would have an immediate and sweeping impact because behavior would be instantly altered.

To the degree that the animal rights movement has had an effect, that veganism has become more commonly mentioned, this has been caused by words rather than new products. Likewise for every social gain we have made. Words motivate action. Words lead to changes in the law. Words change people's beliefs. Words have always been the catalyst for social progress. We need more and better words. Louder words, and of course, lots of pictures.

[For those with an interest in the science behind the lab-grown meats, I found this article to be helpful.]

Mindful magazine and the new age hoodwink

We just received an offer in the mail to subscribe to a new age magazine called Mindful. The piece was high-end glossy and filled with images of seemingly happy people. One image, apparently the lead off to an article from a past issue, was titled, "A Kinder, Gentler World." What really caught me eye was the image above, both on the envelope and then again as the largest image in the enclosed advert.

The universe is complex. Things that seem impossible sometimes aren't. So, it isn't absolutely impossible that a university program led by a primate vivisector could teach people to be kind, but the notion is creepy and the endeavor somehow tainted. It is sort like the faith healer Benny Hinn urging people to be charitable.

It seems to be little more than a charade, a bamboozle of sorts, a gimmick that benefits the purveyor. The benefits to the buyer, though not necessarily always zero, are secondary to the interests of the seller. Even faith healers sometimes heal people; even snake oil has had its successes; the mind is complex and the placebo effect is real.

But there is something particularly distasteful about a primate vivisector telling people that he has discovered an ancient secret from the Great Masters of the Himalayas for becoming more compassionate, and that really is Richard Davidson's schtick. And then he dresses it up in science to make it appear respectable. And boy, people really lap it up.

Of course, most of his adorers have no knowledge of his long intimate relationship with Ned Kalin or the nature of their twenty-five year collaboration into the neurobiology of fearful young monkeys' brains.

It seems to me that if someone peddling a way to be more compassionate is hurting and frightening young monkeys who they have identified as having "excessively fearful dispositions," is publishing reports on the invasive surgeries on the monkeys, is comfortable isolating newborn infant monkeys in order to induce heightened anxiety and depression, that this is proof that their claim of being able to teach someone how to be more compassionate is probably nonsense and at least suspicious.

I've written thousands of words about Davidson already, so I won't go on. If you are interested in learning more here are some resources in (almost) no particular order:

"Compassion." Chapter 11 in "We All Operate in the Same Way."

June 22, 2008 Primate research at the University of Wisconsin. Host Neil Heinen moderates the discussion on this 22, 2008 episode of For the Record, WISC-TV.

June 24, 2008 Looking at Richard Davidson's Assertions

April 13, 2008 Richard Davidson's Mushy-Headedness

Tuesday, March 6, 2007 Could You Recognize Evil if It Stared You in the Face? (Will the anti-Christ come wearing a t-shirt saying I'm the anti-Christ?)

February 3, 2009 Richard Davidson's Choices Are Evidence That Thinking Good Thoughts Won’t Make You a Good Person

November 27, 2007 A minimal amount of suffering

October 24, 2007 Compassion and Kindness Redefined

May 9, 2010 The Dalai Lama is Coming Back to Madison, or "'Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy."

April 25, 2010 Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

March 20, 2009 Richard Davidson

September 3, 2010 Monsters: Lojong

And, if you want to know even more about Davidson's use of monkeys, this is a current bibliography of a his work in this area: A selected Davidson bibliography. Reports on his experimental use of monkeys:

Heightened extended amygdala metabolism following threat characterizes the early phenotypic risk to develop anxiety-related psychopathology. Shackman AJ, Fox AS, Oler JA, Shelton SE, Oakes TR, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Mol Psychiatry. 2017.

Connectivity between the central nucleus of the amygdala and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in the non-human primate: neuronal tract tracing and developmental neuroimaging studies. Oler, Jonathan A., Do PM Tromp, Andrew S. Fox, Rothem Kovner, Richard J. Davidson, Andrew L. Alexander, Daniel R. McFarlin et al. Brain Structure and Function. 2017.

Intergenerational neural mediators of early-life anxious temperament. Fox AS, Oler JA, Shackman AJ, Shelton SE, Raveendran M, McKay DR, Converse AK, Alexander A, Davidson RJ, Blangero J, Rogers J, Kalin NH. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015.

Extreme early-life anxiety is associated with an evolutionarily conserved reduction in the strength of intrinsic functional connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the central nucleus of the amygdala.mBirn RM, Shackman AJ, Oler JA, Williams LE, McFarlin DR, Rogers GM, Shelton SE, Alexander AL, Pine DS, Slattery MJ, Davidson RJ, Fox AS, Kalin NH. Mol Psychiatry. 2014.

Evolutionarily conserved prefrontal-amygdalar dysfunction in early-life anxiety. Birn RM, Shackman AJ, Oler JA, Williams LE, McFarlin DR, Rogers GM, Shelton SE, Alexander AL, Pine DS, Slattery MJ, Davidson RJ, Fox AS, Kalin NH. Mol Psychiatry. 2014.

Neuropeptide Y receptor gene expression in the primate amygdala predicts anxious temperament and brain metabolism. Roseboom PH, Nanda SA, Fox AS, Oler JA, Shackman AJ, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Biol Psychiatry. 2014.

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

CRHR1 genotypes, neural circuits and the diathesis for anxiety and depression. Rogers J, Raveendran M, Fawcett GL, Fox AS, Shelton SE, Oler JA, Cheverud J, Muzny DM, Gibbs RA, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Mol Psychiatry. 2013.

Central amygdala nucleus (Ce) gene expression linked to increased trait-like Ce metabolism and anxious temperament in young primates. Fox AS, Oler JA, Shelton SE, Nanda SA, Davidson RJ, Roseboom PH, Kalin NH. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012.

Evidence for coordinated functional activity within the extended amygdala of non-human and human primates. Oler JA, Birn RM, Patriat R, Fox AS, Shelton SE, Burghy CA, Stodola DE, Essex MJ, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Neuroimage. 2012.

Amygdalar and hippocampal substrates of anxious temperament differ in their heritability. Oler JA, Fox AS, Shelton SE, Rogers J, Dyer TD, Davidson RJ, Shelledy W, Oakes TR, Blangero J, Kalin NH. Nature. 2010.

Orbitofrontal cortex lesions alter anxiety-related activity in the primate bed nucleus of stria terminalis. Fox AS, Shelton SE, Oakes TR, Converse AK, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. J Neurosci. 2010.

Subgenual prefrontal cortex activity predicts individual differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity across different contexts. Jahn AL, Fox AS, Abercrombie HC, Shelton SE, Oakes TR, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Biol Psychiatry. 2010.

Serotonin transporter binding and genotype in the nonhuman primate brain using [C-11]DASB PET. Christian BT, Fox AS, Oler JA, Vandehey NT, Murali D, Rogers J, Oakes TR, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Neuroimage. 2009.

Serotonin transporter availability in the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis predicts anxious temperament and brain glucose metabolic activity. Oler JA, Fox AS, Shelton SE, Christian BT, Murali D, Oakes TR, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. J Neurosci. 2009.

The distribution of D2/D3 receptor binding in the adolescent rhesus monkey using small animal PET imaging. Christian BT, Vandehey NT, Fox AS, Murali D, Oakes TR, Converse AK, Nickles RJ, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Neuroimage. 2009.

Trait-like brain activity during adolescence predicts anxious temperament in primates. Fox AS, Shelton SE, Oakes TR, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. PLoS One. 2008 .

Automatic physiological waveform processing for FMRI noise correction and analysis. Kelley DJ, Oakes TR, Greischar LL, Chung MK, Ollinger JM, Alexander AL, Shelton SE, Kalin NH, Davidson RJ.PLoS ONE. 2008.

The serotonin transporter genotype is associated with intermediate brain phenotypes that depend on the context of eliciting stressor. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Fox AS, Rogers J, Oakes TR, Davidson RJ. Mol Psychiatry. 2008.

Automatic physiological waveform processing for FMRI noise correction and analysis. Kelley DJ, Oakes TR, Greischar LL, Chung MK, Ollinger JM, Alexander AL, Shelton SE, Kalin NH, Davidson RJ. PLoS One. 2008.

Role of the Primate Orbitofrontal Cortex in Mediating Anxious Temperament. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ. Biol Psychiatry. 2007.

Brain Regions Associated with the Expression and Contextual Regulation of Anxiety in Primates. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Fox AS, Oakes TR, Davidson RJ. Biol Psychiatry. 2005.

Calling for help is independently modulated by brain systems underlying goal-directed behavior and threat perception. Fox AS, Oakes TR, Shelton SE, Converse AK, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005.

The role of the central nucleus of the amygdala in mediating fear and anxiety in the primate. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ. J Neurosci. 2004.

The primate amygdala mediates acute fear but not the behavioral and physiological components of anxious temperament. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ, Kelley AE. Related Articles, J Neurosci. 2001.

Cerebrospinal fluid corticotropin-releasing hormone levels are elevated in monkeys with patterns of brain activity associated with fearful temperament. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ. Biol Psychiatry. 2000

Asymmetric frontal brain activity, cortisol, and behavior associated with fearful temperament in rhesus monkeys. Kalin NH, Larson C, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ. Behav Neurosci. 1998.

Individual differences in freezing and cortisol in infant and mother rhesus monkeys. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Rickman M, Davidson RJ. Behav Neurosci. 1998.

A new method for aversive Pavlovian conditioning of heart rate in rhesus monkeys. Kalin NH, Shelton SE, Davidson RJ, Lynn DE. Physiol Behav. 1996.

Lateralized response to diazepam predicts temperamental style in rhesus monkeys. Davidson RJ, Kalin NH, Shelton SE. Behav Neurosci. 1993.

Lateralized effects of diazepam on frontal brain electrical asymmetries in rhesus monkeys. Davidson RJ, Kalin NH, Shelton SE. Biol Psychiatry. 1992.

This Little Mutant Pig Might be Seriously Impaired

Wisconsin miniature pigs, an image used in both articles mentioned below.

To help kids battling a rare disease, scientists forge a genetic link between people and pigs [https://news.wisc.edu/nf1]
December 19, 2017 By Kelly April Tyrrell

This is a recent PR piece from UW-Madison. If you don't read it very carefully, you will come away with the belief that creating mutant pigs has in some way helped children suffering from a rare genetic disease. But a careful reader will learn that no children have been helped. The article is the same sort hype that has filled newspapers ever since the mid 1930s as a result of the wildly successful fundraising for polio, the first commercialization of medical research. (See Polio: An American Story. David M. Oshinsky. Oxford University Press. 2005.)

The author, a UW-Madison news writer (aka propagandist) is a past mouse vivisector, so it makes some sense she gets giddy about "advances" in the scientific use of animals. In this article she describes symptoms children with neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1, can experience; she makes no mention of the symptoms in the pigs.

Oddly, perhaps not, a version of the article was published in The Atlantic a week earlier: "Turning Piglets Into Personalized Avatars for Sick Kids." The author was Ed Yong, he also left out any description of the disease in the pigs.

It may be that neither author plagiarized the other. They are after all telling the same story, but the parallels are suggestive, For instance:

Ed Yong: "... Once Mason’s diagnosis was in, [Charles “Chuck” Konsitzke, Mason's father] started asking around about NF-1 research. In particular, he wanted to know where the bottlenecks are. What was the single thing he could do that would most accelerate research into his son’s condition? And the answer that he kept hearing was: Find better animals to experiment on."

Kelly April Tyrrell: "Upon Mason’s diagnosis [Charles “Chuck” Konsitzke, Mason's father] began to delve into published NF1 research. He wanted to know where it was happening, who was doing it and how he might be able to help. He sought opinions from experts, wondering how the field could be improved. Many identified the same bottleneck: the lack of a good research model."

Ed Yong: "When studying diseases, scientists often turn to laboratory animals like mice and zebrafish. They can use these so-called model organisms to work out how mutations cause diseases, and to find and test possible treatments. But the usual lab animals aren’t a good fit for NF-1. They’re too small, and they don’t react in the same way to the mutations that cause the disease in humans. For example, studies in mice suggested that a drug called lovastatin might help to address the learning and attentional problems that accompany NF-1. But when the drug was tested on actual children, in a large clinical trial, it did nothing.

"To better understand NF-1, Konsitzke learned, you need a species that’s closer in both size and biology to a person, and yet is still relatively easy to raise and study. That is, you need pigs. “Pigs closely represent humans,” says Neha Patel, who directs the UW neurofibromatosis clinic. “People with NF-1 have varied cognitive deficits, from severe learning issues to subtle problems. If you imagine studying those in a rat, you’d only get a crude picture of how that translates to humans. But pigs are intellectual animals."

Kelly April Tyrrell: "In biology, research models are animals, cells, plants, microbes and other living things that allow scientists to study biological processes and recreate diseases in order to better understand them. Good models yield information relevant to humans, but the right model can sometimes be difficult to find.

"NF1 is especially complex, affects many systems of the body and touches many areas of scientific inquiry, from cancer research to neurobiology. Chuck began to search for a better model and in 2013, when Mason was 3, he settled on pigs. Pigs are similar to humans in many ways that other common research animals, such as mice and flies, are not. That includes their size, which means drugs and devices that work on humans can also be tested on pigs. They have a robust immune system, which rodents lack. And they’re intelligent, so scientists can study changes to their cognition."

In any case, there at least seem to be some prepared talking points that both authors heard from some of the people they interviewed.

One thing that caught my eye in both articles was the bit about Charles “Chuck” Konsitzke being told that no one was making progress on treating the disease because their was not a good animal model. Ed Yong describes Konsitzke as an "administrator at the University of Wisconsin’s Biotechnology Center." Kelly April Tyrrell is less vague, she notes that he is the associate director of universit’s Biotechnology Center, "a sort of one-stop shop for scientists in need of DNA sequencing, genome editing and other services."

Konsitzke may have gotten a different answer to his questions if he had spoken with someone outside the animal research bubble. The Biotechnology Center he helps direct is deeply involved in promoting and facilitating animal use. His intimate involvement in this part of the university helps explain the talking points repeated in both articles.

A significant difference between The Atlantic and the UW-Madison articles is that the university article implies that individual children's disease will be modeled by a group of pigs with the gene defect from the child, and that the course of the disease in the pigs will inform doctors about the disease course in the children. The Atlantic article quotes the researchers saying that ethical problems might arise if they do do that, so the researchers might blind themselves to the source of the pigs' mutations, which eliminates one potential benefit claimed in the university article.

Missing from both articles was mention of the need for genetic counseling for couples intending to have children. The prudent course would be to forego breeding in cases with a likelihood of producing children with genetic illnesses. I suspect most readers will come away from the articles thinking that making pigs sick is a good thing.

And who knew that UW-Madison has a 1,500-pig research facility? I learn new things every day.

APHIS-AC, the Vivisectors' New Confessor

Oversight and enforcement of compliance with the Animal Welfare Act (Title 7 – Agriculture. Chapter 54 – Transportation, Sale, and Handling of Certain Animals Sections 2131 - 2159) is largely the responsibility of a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, named Animal Care. The usual abbreviation in the literature is APHIS-AC. AWA is shorthand for the Animal Welfare Act.

APHIS-AC has become a sort of guard dog for those who use animals, an version of what is known as regulatory capture, defined by Wikipedia as a form of corruption:

Specifically, it is a government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.

Over the years, the agency has removed evidence of AWA violations and then grudgingly restored the records only when forced to do so by threats of lawsuits or legal settlements. The records have typically been restored in a significantly degraded form.

Over the years, the agency has occasionally taken steps to impede the public’s access to the records it has been forced to provide. Today, on the agency’s web page, “AWA Inspection and Annual Reports,” one can review a limited set of records. The agency has been captured by those it is supposed to be regulating. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalwelfare/sa_awa/awa-inspection-and-annual-reports

The agency did at one time seem to honor its responsibility to the public. Now, not so much. It hasn’t always been like this. At one time the records were kept for years and easily searched. Why should purportedly public records be password protected and non-searchable? Moreover, available electronic data storage space is now essentially unlimited. And yet, APHIS-AC deletes records after only three years. Some animals in labs are used for decades; repeated violations that cause them harm are expunged. This is not much different than police destroying records of child abuse to protect the abusing parents. Records demonstrating a pattern of federal law violations are routinely destroyed.

Over the years, the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General has evaluated APHIS-AC’s enforcement of the AWA. The OIG has reported that the agency does a very poor job of monitoring and enforcing the AWA. See:

1/1995 - APHIS Animal Care Program Inspection and Enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act.
(Report No. 33600-1-Ch.)

10/20/2005 - APHIS Animal Care Program Inspection and Enforcement Activities.
(Report No: 33002-03-SF.)

05/25/2010 - Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Animal Care Program, Inspections of Problematic Dealers.
(Report No: 33002-4-SF.)

12/18/2014 - Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Oversight of Research Facilities.
(Report No. 33601-0001-41.)

06/02/2017 - APHIS: Animal Welfare Act - Marine Mammals (Cetaceans).
(Report No. 33601-0001-31.)

The NIH Office of Laboratory Welfare (OLAW) is responsible for overseeing and enforcing compliance with the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Enforcement is pro forma. OLAW almost never inspects a lab or verifies claims made by NIH-funded institutions. When the local oversight committee, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) discovers a violation of the policy, it is reported in a letter or phone call to OLAW along with a statement briefly explaining what the institution is doing to avoid a repeat violation. OLAW seems to always say, “Sounds good.” And that’s the end of it.

Not too long ago, it was discovered that OLAW was not sharing this information with APHIS-AC. A well-known watchdog organization began using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain copies of OLAW’s correspondence with the labs and then filing complaints about the violations with APHIS-AC which is legally required to investigate allegations of violations of the AWA. And, when they did, they found records of the violations which in turn required them to cite the institutions. This did not sit well with the vivisectors or APHIS-AC. The agency was unhappy at being forced to do its job.

A couple interagency agreements resulted, but still, the labs’ animal welfare violations were at risk of public exposure. Now, APHIS seems to have come up with a plan to better shield the labs; they call it: “Incentives for Identifying, Reporting, Correcting, and Preventing Noncompliance with the Animal Welfare Act.”

Those incentives? Not being cited in writing. It appears that the agency has come up with a plan to collude with the industry to make it even harder for the public to find out what is happening to the animals. A friend likened the new system to the Catholic confessional -- what’s said remains confidential and absolution is all but certain.

It seems to work like this: A lab official learns that a violation has occurred. A call is made to APHIS, just as a call will be made to OLAW. APHIS makes a record of the call without mentioning the name of the facility. The violation will not show up on an inspection report. When an annual inspection occurs, a violation will not be mentioned in the inspection report if there was no mention of a violation in the last inspection report and the lab had previously self-reported it.

Additionally, apparently, unless the inspector witnesses the violation during the actual inspection, the violation will not be recorded in the inspection report.

One thing is clear: the animal welfare records of the labs are going to show improvement, it will be much more difficult to recognize a pattern of violations, and the apparent reduction of recorded violations will make APHIS look like it is doing a better job. Yes sir, its win-win for everyone except the few people who take the time to try and find out what’s really going on in the labs and the animals.

Making Waves, or, How Dickheads are Everyone’s Fault but Women Have the Largest Role to Play in Fixing the Problem

I’ve always spoken up about unfairness and injustice, and it has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion. (I was once arrested twice in one day for having the temerity to defy the authorities. A sense of moral responsibility can be a burden.) I’ll keep doing so.

As an elementary school teacher and an animal rights activist, and coincidentally in other realms, the large majority of my relationships have been with women, both as a superior and as an employee, as a leader and as a follower, and in most cases, as a collaborator. It galls me now to be told that I ought not voice my opinion on the spate of examples coming to light of women being taken advantage of or otherwise harmed by men, because I am a man. But, I’m not a dog, a monkey, or a chicken, and I speak up for them, so I’ll keep voicing my opinions on whatever injustice, unfairness, or misleading claims I think I see, and making suggestions about how to fix the problems; I am after all, a man.

Most recently, I agreed with a man who commented on a FB post that to him it did not appear that Al Franken was actually groping Los Angeles morning TV host Leeann Tweeden. It does not look to me like he is actually touching her. He seem to be miming a grope. If he did touch her after the photo was snapped, then he did. But the photo does not seem to me to show him groping her.



I was chastised for saying this, even though I said that his behavior was inappropriate or juvenile. I was told that if Ms. Tweeden felt like she was being groped then we should just accept that she was. Who was I to question her? I was told to stop defending Franken, even though I commented only on the photo. Franken says he is sorry for having taken advantage of her.

This was the second time that I commented on a FB post related to the rash of women speaking up about their previous experiences with men’s sexual predation. In both cases, I was told that because I am a man, I can’t really know what it would be like to be one of those women, and thus, I can’t have a valid opinion on the subject. But that’s like saying that I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a monkey strapped in a chair and having someone experimenting on my eye. I think I can.

All that aside, here I am writing mostly to affix blame and offer suggestions for how to fix this ugly problem.

Gentlemen, stop being dickheads; treat everyone like you would want to be treated if you were them. If you see or hear about someone acting wrongly, abusing their power, speak up. Tell someone. If something isn’t done about it, yell louder. Make them stop. Do all you can to fix it. Intervene. Don’t be a dickhead.

Ladies, the same thing goes for you. Because you are so often the victims, the burden on you is much heavier, but you must speak up because if you don’t, you may be allowing it to happen to someone else. This isn’t fair, but much in life isn’t. Further, whether we like it or not, essentially every man who treats women or anyone else in their power unkindly, unfairly, or disrespectfully, was raised primarily by a woman. This means that men’s behavior and mores can be changed by the group from which the greatest number of victims come. Fathers, uncles, brothers, or male friends also have a responsibility to instill an ethic of fairness and compassion, but the weight of the solution to the problem again rests more squarely on women’s shoulders.

I wish life was a lot more fair than it is. I’m working on it. I am, after all, a man.



I stand with all the victims, no matter their color, creed, species, gender, sex, or any other damn thing. I will not stand mute. And, finally, if you, dear reader, don’t want to read comments you disagree with about the things you post to FB, well, tough. Want to stay in your bubble? It’s easy to un-friend someone.

"What would happen if all Americans went vegan?"

I am responding here only to the article in Science announcing the publication of "Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. I've not read the original because it is not yet available to me. Assuming that Science's reporting is accurate, it just goes to show that dominant paradigms and financial interests are overwhelming confounds in the world of normal science. "The authors declare no conflict of interest," says PNAS.

But given the author's affiliations, it seems matter-of-factly otherwise. Robin R. White is an assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, and and Mary Beth Hall is a scientist employed by the US Dairy Forage Research Center, US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service. Her office is in the Animal Science Building at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

In any case, from the Science article:

“Our logic was to start at the extreme scenario [and work backward from that],” says Robin White, the study’s lead author and an animal sciences researcher at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. She and fellow animal sciences researcher Mary Beth Hall, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, began by estimating the impact of converting all land now used by the livestock industry to cropland for human food.

What? They began by estimating the impact of converting all land now used by the livestock industry to cropland for human food. Why in the world would they have done that?

Consider this: "Some 40% of the world’s land surface is used for the purposes of keeping all 7 billion of us fed ... And the vast majority of that land — about 30% of the word’s total ice-free surface — is used not to raise grains, fruits and vegetables that are directly fed to human beings, but to support the chickens, pigs and cattle that we eventually eat." (The Triple Whopper Environmental Impact of Global Meat Production. Time. 2013.)

So, we use about 10% of the world's land surface to grow all the non-animal food we eat. So, following the authors' methods, presumably, if we don't eat meat, dairy, etc., we will need four times the amount of everything else we eat. What? They must imagine a vegan diet as something akin to a county fair all-you-can-eat-contest. Maybe they think we eat out of a big bucket. My evening meal?

They also make the wild claim that even if we eat bucketfuls of nuts, grains, fruits, and vegetables, that we will all have serious vitamin and nutrient deficiencies. You just can't be healthy on a vegan diet say these unbiased animal agriculture professionals:

Looking at the nutritional content of crops now produced, the team also found that a plant-only system wouldn’t be able to meet the U.S. population’s requirements for calcium, vitamins A and B12, and a few key fatty acids. “With carefully balanced rations, you can meet all of your nutrient requirements with a vegetarian diet,” White says. “But the types of foods that seem to do that, we don’t currently produce in sufficient quantities to make it a sustainable diet for the entire population.”

What? We don't currently produce sufficient quantities of brightly colored vegetables and dark leafy greens? Wow. And unexplainably ignorant of basic nutrition.

One of the claims that sounds on its face like it might be a real problem is the questiomn of fertilizer. The authors seem to believe that everyone is fertilizing their fields with manure. As if. Here's what Wikipedia says about the production of modern fertilizers: "Nitrogen fertilizers are made from ammonia (NH3), which is sometimes injected into the ground directly. The ammonia is produced by the Haber-Bosch process. In this energy-intensive process, natural gas (CH4) usually supplies the hydrogen, and the nitrogen (N2) is derived from the air. This ammonia is used as a feedstock for all other nitrogen fertilizers, such as anhydrous ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) and urea (CO(NH2)2)." No cows or manure involved. Discomfort with the various costs of these processes was an impetus for the organic farming movement.

But if we all embraced a vegan diet and also wanted it to be organic, that wouldn't be an issue either. By freeing up so much land, crop rotation and fallow fields over-planted with nitrogen fixing legumes would easily supply more than the space and fertile soil needed to grow a bounty of foods. And, greenhouse gas emissions would be dramatically reduced, ground water pollution and runoff from feedlots and dairies, etc. would end, people would be much healthier, we would end the farmed animal holocaust. That's win, win, win, win, win.

That's what would happen if all Americans went vegan.