Day: May 28, 2002

Better Living Through Chemistry: Bring On Melanotan and Provigil

Some people just can’t stand seeing other people happy — especially if that happiness is “unnatural.”

In Wired, for example, Wil McCarthy takes on the wonder drug Melanotan. Melanotan has chemical properties that sound like a pharmaceutical marketer’s dream come true. The drug’s major effect is to create a deep, healthy tan. And it also just happens to be an anti-inflammatory, increases sexual desire and suppresses appetite.

McCarthy derisively refers to Melanotan as “the Barbie drug.” He concludes his noting that by the end of this decade Melanotan and drugs like it will be common adding that, “this decade is a breathing period, a chance to prepare for our cultural destiny: the drug-fueled extreming an professionalization of shallowness itself.”

For McCarthy, using chemical compounds to increase the sheer joy of life is inherently shallow and a waste. To McCarthy, drugs like Melanotan are proof that “Yesterday’s drugs were about need; today’s are about desire.”

Much the same criticism was directed against Viagra when it first appeared. A drug to produce erections? Aren’t children still dying of malaria in Africa? Who needs Viagra?

Similar handwringing was on display over Provigil. Provigil has been used for years to treat narcolepsy. The drug’s maker wants the FDA to approve Provigil for more widespread use.

Provigil doesn’t increase sexual desire, but it does act as a stimulant to keep people awake — with very little side effects. Stimulants commonly used by people to stay awake tend to make people jittery or are addictive and all tend to keep a person awake for hours only to bring him or her crashing down later.

In studies Provigil keeps people awake for long periods without the jitters, addictiveness, and other problems associated with other stimulants.

The major concern about Provigil is that it may be abused, but certainly caffeine and other stimulants are already used excessively by many people.

Personally, I’d love to get my hands on either drug. Why should not used drugs not only to treat/cure disease, but also to improve our general well being? These sorts of drugs need to be safe and have potential side effects disclosed, but I would hope that once those criteria are met that we would not slip into McCarthy’s brand of biomedical Puritanism that sees the pursuit of joy and happiness as inherently shallow.

Sources:

Thin! Tan! Hotter than Hell! Wil McCarthy, Wired, June 2002.

Stay-awake pill keeps users alert. Dan Springer, Fox News, May 2, 2002.

BUAV Release Video Purporting to Show Cruelty at Cambridge University Labs

The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection this month released videotaped footage purporting to show animal cruelty at a Cambridge University laboratory. The laboratory uses primates to carry out research into diseases such as Parkinson’s.

According to BUAV the video shows “horrific” procedures which the BBC summed up thusly,

BUAV said one of its investigators had secretly filmed monkey used in experiments for Parkinson’s Disease, stroke and fundamental research into brain function.

The pictures show animals that have had their skulls opened and their brains deliberately damaged, either by sucking out sections, cutting sections, or by injecting toxins.

BUAV claimed the monkeys suffered bleeding head wounds, fits, vomiting, severe bruising, whole-body tremors and mental and physical disabilities. It said the standard of care offered to the animals in these states was woeful.

For its part, Cambridge University launched an investigation of the allegations. It released a statement saying,

The university is taking this matter extremely seriously and has launched a full-sacle investigation into the claims made. These claims have very far-reaching implications and every possible effort is being made to establish the facts surrounding them.

Much of BUAV’s allegations seem to turn on whether or not what the primates experienced “moderate” or “substantial” suffering.” Regardless, like other animal rights investigations (including previous ones by BUAV) there was a glaring oddity in the release. Namely, BUAV claimed its operative conducted an investigation that last 10 months, but it released just a heavily-edited 21-minute videotape to highlight its allegations. Odd that with all of that time undercover, BUAV could only find 21 minutes worth of material to string together for its video.

It is certainly possible that Cambridge University’s primate facility has not been performing due diligence to met UK laws about animal cruelty, but a more likely explanation is that BUAV has released a selectively edited video to give this impression. Given BUAV’s habit of suppressing the results of investigations into animal cruelty that it does not approve of, the group does not have a lot of credibility.

It will be interesting to see how Cambridge’s investigation compares to the BUAV videotape.

Source:

Cambridge monkey experiments inquiry. The BBC, May 24, 2002.

University probe into monkey lab claims. The Cambridge News (UK), May 25, 2002.

Rick Bogle: Research Facility Controversy Just Like Roman Catholic Church Scandal

The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection recently produced the usual edited undercover videos of a primate research facility in Great Britain. Cambridge University is taking the charges seriously and has started an investigation, but BUAV has a track record of crying wolf (in fact, BUAV itself once used British laws to prevent the release of a government investigation into its charges).

Primate activist Rick Bogle weighed in on an animal rights mailing list, comparing the BUAV’s charges to the recent sex scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. Bogle wrote,

I was struck by the similarities between the situation in Cambridge, the U.S. primate labs, and the Catholic church.

In all three cases, those with power over others make public claims about the respect they have for those in their power, the self-policing they engage in, and the importance of their work.

. . .

It is worth noting that both groups are faith-based institutions that seek to shield their own behavior from public scrutiny by claiming that they are able to, and in fact do, self-police and act with integrity and morality in the public interest.

Of course, what struck this author was how similar Bogle’s rantings were to the rush to cast blame on Gary Condit for the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

Cambridge is in good company, however. Just a couple weeks ago, Bogle favored this writer with the best compliment he has yet received for his work highlighting the animal rights movement when Bogle posted to an e-mail list that one day,

The Carnells will be mentioned en masses as the quislings of the vivisection industry, the traitors of compassion.

Somebody seems to have a bit of the drama queen running in his veins.

Source:

Re: primfocus: University probe into monkey lab claims. Rick Bogle, e-mail post, May 2002.

Ontario Prosecutors Appeal Cat Killer's Lenient Sentence

When an Ontario judge sentenced Jesse Champlain Power, 22, to just 90 days in jail to be served on weekends for torturing and killing a cat, animal activists were outraged. So was the prosecutor’s office which announced earlier this month that it would appeal the judge’s sentence.

The prosecutor decided not to appeal the sentence of Anthony Wennekers, 25, who was sentenced to 10 1/2 months in jail, and was released immediately based on time served.

Source:

Ontario: Crown to challenge cat-skinner’s sentence. The Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 2002.

Crown appealing cat killer sentence. Gretchen Drummie, The Toronto Sun, May 17, 2002.

Women’s Studies Course at the University of South Carolina Requires Loyalty Oath

CNSNews.Com recently reported about a women’s studies graduate seminar at the University of South Carolina that apparently requires students to adhere to the ideological views of the professor teaching the class.

The class is taught by professor Lynn Weber, who is also the director of USC’s Women’s Studies Program. In “guidelines for classroom discussion” that Weber distributes, students are told that they must,

acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other institutional forms of oppression exist.

The guidelines go on to inform students that by participating in the class they “agree to combat actively the myths and stereotypes about our own groups and other groups.”

According to CNSNews.Com, a student who objected to this ideological litmus test forwarded a copy to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education which fired off a letter to USC pointing out that the guidelines are unconstitutional. As FIRE President Alan Charles Kors wrote in a letter to USC,

Through these official ‘guidelines,’ USC demands that students embrace and remain loyal to professor Weber’s own viewpoints and beliefs. In a USC classroom, in a required course, no less, students must hold a preordained set of opinions, regardless of whether or not they agree, under the stated, explicit, and coercive threat of being graded poorly for honest intellectual dissent.

Universities tend to value academic freedom above everything else, except when uppity students get the idea that it applies to them as well.

Source:

University mandates ideological ‘loyalty oath,’ rights group alleges. Lawrence Morahan, CNSNews.Com, May 15, 2002.