Dogs in Science
Science, 26 Feb 2010 vol. 327 1076-1077
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5969/107
(I'm not sure this link is open to nonsubscribers)
You might find this disturbing, thought-provoking, and moving, as I certainly did (my work includes animal research with mice). It's about how dogs and cats are supplied for animal research, and how the regulation of this has changed and continues to change. It includes some of the horror stories and heart-wrenching photos (like the pet who made it all the way to a university research center before some thoughtful person ran a scanner over it and found the chip). About 90,000 cats & dogs are used in U.S. research labs each year.
Some of the things this left me with:
- What a sad situation it is for an animal in this world, if you're alone with no one to care for you.
- What a lot has been accomplished, despite ongoing abuses, by people working for animal welfare, for no other reason than because they give a damn. Things used to be a whole lot worse.
- What a contribution these thousands of unwitting, unwilling animals have inadvertently made. Just think -- everybody you know who's had any kind of surgical procedure or biomedical device, you can bet it was worked out and perfected on nameless animals.
Scientists are probably all used to privately rolling our eyes at all the seemingly endless regulations and the hoops we have to jump through to work with animals, even mice, and maybe we all privately snicker sometimes at groups like PETA, but I'll bet most will acknowledge that it's good to have watchdogs.
I'm gonna fix that weak spot in the fence....
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5969/107
(I'm not sure this link is open to nonsubscribers)
You might find this disturbing, thought-provoking, and moving, as I certainly did (my work includes animal research with mice). It's about how dogs and cats are supplied for animal research, and how the regulation of this has changed and continues to change. It includes some of the horror stories and heart-wrenching photos (like the pet who made it all the way to a university research center before some thoughtful person ran a scanner over it and found the chip). About 90,000 cats & dogs are used in U.S. research labs each year.
Some of the things this left me with:
- What a sad situation it is for an animal in this world, if you're alone with no one to care for you.
- What a lot has been accomplished, despite ongoing abuses, by people working for animal welfare, for no other reason than because they give a damn. Things used to be a whole lot worse.
- What a contribution these thousands of unwitting, unwilling animals have inadvertently made. Just think -- everybody you know who's had any kind of surgical procedure or biomedical device, you can bet it was worked out and perfected on nameless animals.
Scientists are probably all used to privately rolling our eyes at all the seemingly endless regulations and the hoops we have to jump through to work with animals, even mice, and maybe we all privately snicker sometimes at groups like PETA, but I'll bet most will acknowledge that it's good to have watchdogs.
I'm gonna fix that weak spot in the fence....
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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I really didn't want to see this but I forced myself to click on the link and was glad when it says "requires member subscription"...I know about this but I also feel so bad about it!
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Permalink Reply by Ashley and Copper on
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It had a free summary and it makes me sad, also.
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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I can't get in either, but one of our friends does some sort of research with beagles, and that's all he's allowed to say. I guess even his wife doesn't know much. They keep it quiet because they otherwise attract animal rights groups. I have mixed feelings about the whole concept, but I'll bet when push comes to shove, almost none of us would forego the health luxuries we have as a direct result of animal research. I know the beagles our friend works with have legally mandated exercise and social interaction periods.
I must admit that my feelings have shifted since I now have a chronic health condition with its very own population of genetically modified mice. Since the cause of the (non-fatal) condition is not know (it's auto-immune related), I read with excitement any new developments coming from these mice.
With dogs and cats, I just wish our shelter system was better equipped to try to locate owners before adopting dogs out or sending them off somewhere. Sad story locally with a woman posting in the lost and found to please return her dog; apparently she was hospitalized and the dog ended up in a shelter, and was adopted, and the new owner won't give it back.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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You know... it's not easy on the other end of the scalpel either, University of Tennessee is one of the 8 university in the country that still uses live animals. I remember my fellow students balling their eyes out in the lab, for some of us, it's one of the requirement to pass a class, I know most other university have moved on to simulated human models, i have not tried them so i can't comment on how good it is, but I have to say when I picked up that scalpel, I took extra precaution and respect because I know it was once a living thing. I feel extra bad for the animal attendants, they had the worst job in my opinion, feeding the animals and know that they may not see them again :(
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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I wonder what it's like for shelter workers... they have to send off so many unloved animals, with no one to meet them at the bridge. They must really cherish their success stories.
And in the "3rd world"? Packs of feral dogs roaming wild? Or, for that matter, in the wild?
But hey, we owe these lab animals bigtime. They often acknowledge lowly lab techs like me in publication citations; we oughta be citing Fido, too.
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Permalink Reply by Sunni A. on
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Some anti groups do not understand there aren't any equal alternatives to animals right now. Consumers demand to know so much about their drugs and procedures, side effects, effects on pregnant women, long-term use reports, etc., and also hold their medical care professionals to so much responsibility. There needs to be trials, and trials, and trials before administering to the public in order to avoid injury and lawsuit. People also seem to imagine all biomedical scientists to be twisted lab-dwellers who enjoy torture, an attitude that only surfaced in the past century, not surprisingly correlating w/ the movement from rural life, and the rise of household pets like ours, beloved and spoiled pets w/ nametags who sleep in our beds and eat gourmet dog food...
People tend to forget also that animal test subjects are used for veterinary care, procedures, and drugs as well! A lot of work is solely for animal benefit too.
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I agree with much of what you say, and animal rights' groups would get further, faster if they focused on abuses and some of the fringe experimentation (I once read a mainstream study that took baby monkeys from their moms and gave them the choice between a soft, cuddly non milk-providing fake "mom" toy and a wire "mom" toy that provided food; the study found the babies would cling for hours to the soft "mom" and shunned the wire "mom" unless they were practically starving. And I kept thinking "this furthers our understanding of life how, exactly???? Poor baby monkeys.)
Going back to my genetically engineered mice suffering from auto-immune disease: they have determined that the mice raised in a germ-free environment don't develop auto-immune disease. Now they need to determine if exposure to certain specific pathogens triggers onset, or if it is more of a "priming the pump" effect where an immune system not exposed to anything doesn't work, and just being exposed to any germs is enough.
That sort of science is impossible to replicate outside a lab. It would not be ethical to raise humans that way, and since age of onset of this particular disease is anywhere between late teens and 30's, and there is no way to screen out genetically which people might get the disease, there would be no practical way to do it even if the ethics thing could somehow be overcome.
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Yeah, I remember reading about those monkey things -- back in the 50s -- some of that was pretty sadistic, and could never ever happen nowadays.
We have a transgenic mouse colony too a neurologic disease not unlike DM -- lucky for me, I don't have to kill anybody anymore, I just get to play with the mice and determine that yes, the entire project is a dismal failure and all of our Frankenmice remain stubbornly healthy. So far, we have drilled a dry well.
You think of all these mice in cages on one end, and all the crippled, dying people on the other...
The deal with dogs in the article is, apparently the "Class B" (small, private) animal dealers are being phased-out because of lax oversight and abuses, but supposedly these animals are to come from the euthanasia pipeline at kill shelters. Allegedly these "random source" animals provide genetic diversity and some larger dogs required for things like heart and lung transplant experimental surgery. Seems crazy that now "Class A" institutional facilities will be breeding dogs just for experimentation while kill-shelter dogs are being euthanized, but that will be the upshot.
I gotta go hug my dog now...
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Permalink Reply by Avyon on
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Think I'm going to get my dogs chipped... and make sure our new townhouse has a good fence...
Not sure how I really feel about this - wish I could read the article. It's good and many people would die without the accomplishments but at the same time.. its sad. Its like a 50/50 thingy.
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And I keep thinking that my pampered pooches eat better than an awful lot of human children in this world...
Seems like you can't get through an hour in this life without moral compromises...
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