Tag: HIV/AIDS

OSU's HIV Feline Research Will Continue

In June, Ohio State University researcher Michael Podell left his position after a sustained campaign directed against him by animal rights activists. Activists claimed that his research, which involved looking at FIV infection in cats who were administered methamphetamines, was cruel and unnecessary. The research, in fact, produced important findings about the progression of HIV-like illnesses as well as HIV-related dementia.

OSU didn’t effectively defend Podell from animal rights activists while he was at the university, but have decided that they will continue the research that Podell started. Podell conducted his research as part of a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

OSU President Karen Holbrook said that, “Projects such as this one facilitate the design of treatments for humans and animals alike against many deadly viral diseases.”

Protect Our Earth’s Treasures, an animal rights group that regularly protested against Podell, announced that it will renew its protests beginning Nov. 1 until the university abandons such research.

POET director Rob Russell told The Columbus Dispatch, “It’s still the same wasteful project it was before.”

Source:

HIV Study That Uses Cats Will Continue At OSU. David Lore, The Columbus Dispatch, October 30, 2002.

Feline Research Yields Clues about HIV-Associated Dementia, Progression in Drug Addicts

In human beings the HIV virus enters the brain almost immediately after a person is infected with the virus. As many as 20 percent of people who contract AIDS will eventually develop HIV-associated dementia — defined as a decline in cognitive thinking, motor dysfunction and behavioral changes.

Enter Ohio State University researcher Michael Poddell who conducts research on an animal model of HIV in cats. In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of NeuroVirology, Poddell reports that the feline immunodeficiency virus reproduces in certain types of brain cells much faster than usual if the drug methamphetamine is present.

Poddell’s research surprisingly found that brain cells called astrocytes were resistant to FIV infection. Instead the virus got into the brain cells by being carried there by infected lymphocytes (a type of blood cell). Follow-up tests will be needed to see if HIV infects human brain cells in a similar way.

Adding methamphetamine at levels similar to what a drug users would have in his or her bloodstream increased the infection rate ten-fold.

Experiments are currently underway to see if methamphetamine causes FIV to progress more quickly in cats.

Podell, of course, has been excoriated by animal rights activists for his FIV research. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called his experiments “cruel, wasteful and bizarre” and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a lawsuit in January against the National Institutes of Health claiming that the NIH withheld documents that would show that it was unnecessary to use cats for this research.

Cats are used for this research because they are the only laboratory animals other than primates that develop a neurological infections from HIV.

Sources:

Methamphetamines may assist HIV in brain. Jim Kling, United Press International, June 4, 2002.

Update on Neurology Justin McArthur, M.D., 1998.

AIDS study targeting cats infuriates animal activists. Associated Press, October 9, 2000.

Final Nail in Coffin of the AIDS/Polio Vaccine Connection

In 1992, Rolling Stone (which is not a peer reviewed journal the last time I checked) published an article claiming that the HIV epidemic was started accidentally when cells from infected chimpanzees found their way into the oral polio vaccine. The problem for this theory, of course, was that macaque monkeys, not chimpanzees, were employed in the development of the oral vaccine.

Not that this mattered much to the conspiracy theorists and others who latched on to the theory — including animal rights activists who tended to hype the connection as a warning against the dangers of xenotransplantation.

Last year a research team published results showing what was already clear — all of the mitochondria found in the oral polio vaccine was in fact from macaque monkeys. But in the process of examining the mitochondrial, DNA, researchers Jean-Pierre Vartanian and Simon Wain-Hobson also found nuclear mitochondrial sequences — numts — and in order to completely debunk the HIV/polio vaccine connection decided to ensure those were also not from chimpanzees.

And, in fact, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences will soon publish their findings that the numts in the oral polio vaccine are in fact from macaque cells, not chimpanzee, affirming what oral polio vaccine manufacturers had asserted all along, that they did not use chimpanzee cells to manufacture the oral polio vaccine.

Source:

More Evidence Refutes HIV Link to Polio Vaccine. Reuters Health, May 13, 2002.

Frankie Trull's Nice Summary of Animal Research

Frankie Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, wrote a nice op-ed about animal research that was picked up by the Orlando Sentinel. I particularly liked her summary of the important role that animal research has played in improving the lot of humankind,

Advances in genetic engineering have enabled scientists to develop excellent rodent models for research. The availability of “transgenic mice” (which have added genes) and “knock-out mice” (which have disabled genes) has revolutionized our understanding of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, memory loss, muscular dystrophy and spinal cord injuries. The so-called “nude mouse” — lacking a functioning immune system — has become an incredibly important model for understanding cancer suppression.

Thanks to animal research, many diseases that once killed millions of people every year are either treatable or have been eradicated altogether. Immunizations against polio, diphtheria, mumps, rubella and hepatitis save countless lives, and the survival rates from many major diseases are at an all-time high, thanks to the discovery of new drugs, medical devices and surgical procedures. According to the American Cancer Society, the fight against cancer has seen 24 significant biomedical advances in the past 30 years.

None of them could have occurred without animal research.

Eight of the discoveries required the use of living animals, and virtually all of those that did not use animals relied on information gained from earlier animal studies. Six of the discoveries were recognized with a Nobel Prize, among them: the bone-marrow transplantation technique; cloning of the first gene; and discovery of proto-oncogenes in normal DNA, showing that a normal cell could have latent cancer genes.

And, of course, animal rights activists lie and distort the realities of almost every one of those discoveries. The other day, for example, I ran across a site where the author was claiming that animal research played no role at all in the isolation of the AIDS virus.

If that’s true, I have to ask this: what exactly were the rabbits that Gallo used in December 1983 to produce the first HIV-specific reagent which allowed him to test for the presence of HIV? This test was crucial in allowing Gallo to follow Since they were not animals, were these vegetables or minerals?

Currently marketed tests for HIV typically use a variety of animal antibodies. I cannot wait for animal rights activists to produce an alternative taxonomy which explains how these animals are not really animals but something else — or else, confess that they know very little about medical research aside from what they copy and paste from the same tired “factsheets”.

Source:

Animal-test research has saved many human lives. Frankie L. Trull, The Orlando Sentinel, April 7, 2002.

Jean Barnes Just Makes It Up as She Goes Along

Jean Barnes posted an e-mail to AR-NEWS the other day urging animal rights activist to contact the Commerce Club in Atlanta, Georgia, to protest an upcoming appearance by Deborah Insel. Insel is a former high school teacher who is going to discuss her work at trying to increase the number of low-income high school kids who go on to college.

For Barnes and others, Insel is fair game because she is married to Emory University professor Tom Insel, who is the former director of the Yerkes Primate Center. According to Barnes’ e-mail,

It is doubtful she will reveal her husband Tom has tortured and killed animals for years at Emory.

…

Deborah, has known for years about her husbands experiments and has failed to take a public position about the cruelty involved. Rather, Deborah Insel has (publically) remained silent and allowed the cruelty to continue. Deborah Insel has financially benefitted from Tom’s salary at Emory/Yerkes as he tortures and mistreats non-human primates and other animals at Emory/Yerkes. She has participated in cruelty by omission.

Cruelty by omission? Isn’t that what Barnes specializes in when she conveniently leaves out relevant facts and resorts to outright lies to make her case?

Barnes claims, for example that,

Tom Insel, one of the many vivisectors who has performed experiments on animals, especially primates at Yerkes, has made a career of useless and cruel experiments on animals. As Insel has admitted, Yerkes spent years on AIDS research knowing the experiments were useless and our tax money squandered. Not surprisingly, Insel failed to comment on the pain and suffering of animals he needlessly tortured in his experiments. www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/august/smaglik_p7_990816.html

When Elizabeth Griffin, a Yerkes researcher died, Insel was seen on 20/20 making callous remarks. Yerkes’ employees stated Insel blamed Griffin for her own death. Emory quickly reassigned Tom to other duties.

Lets look at these claims one at a time.

Has Insel “made a career of useless and cruel experiments”? Actually, Insel’s research in both humans and non-human animals has produced an important body of work in the area he specializes in, neuroscience (Barnes implies that Insel has done AIDS research with monkeys which is simply not true). Insel was the first to show that serotonin uptake drugs were useful in treating some mental disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In animal research, he has specialized in studies of pair bonding in rodents. In 1991, Insel won the Curt Richter Prize from the International Society for Psychoneuro-endocrinology for rodent research demonstrating the importance that the oxytocin and vasopressin pathways in the brain serve in forming social attachments.

More recently, Insel and Larry Young of Emory University became the first researchers to alter the behavior of an animal through the alteration of a single gene. They created a genetically modified mouse that contained a gene from the prairie vole that suppresses vasopressin production. The mice were far more interested in female mice than are normal mice and made them more monogamous.

Did Insel say, as Barnes claims, that “Yerkes spent years on AIDS research knowing the experiments were useless and our tax money squandered.” Of course not — that claim exists only in Barnes’ imagination. In fact what Insel told The Scientist and others is that it had become apparent that chimpanzees were not a useful AIDS model, largely because it takes them so long to develop the disease. This is hardly news as most research echo Insel’s view that monkeys are a much better animal model, and much innovative AIDS research involving monkeys has been and is currently being conducted at Yerkes.

Did Emory University “quickly reassign Tom to other duties” after his appearance on ABC’s 20/20? That is a claim repeated over and over on web sites, but the reality is much different.

Insel did indeed step down as director of Yerkes on October 16, 1999. But not to be reassigned to some backwater out of the public eye because Emory was embarrassed. Instead, Insel resigned from Yerkes to take over as head of Emory’s Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. The CBN was started with a whopping $40 million grant from the National Institute of Health — one of the largest such grants ever awarded. As Insel noted in an interview, the Emory neuroscience center is probably the biggest program of its kind in the United States. If anything, Insel’s move to CBN was a promotion and returned him to concentrate on his primary interest, neuroscience.

Maybe where Barnes is from being appointed to head up the largest center in the United States dedicated to your specialty qualifies as being “quickly reassigned . . . to other duties,” but the rest of us should be so lucky.

Sources;

AIDS vaccine researchers turn from chimps to monkeys. Paul Smaglik, The Scientist, 13[16]:7, Aug. 16, 1999.

(GA) animal abuser’s wife at Commerce Club. Jean Barnes, E-mail, March 25, 2002.

Yerkes chief steps down for new post. M.A.J. McKenna, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, October 16, 1999.

Why do Voles Fall in Love? Emory Magazine, Spring 1999.

Atlanta’s Medical Mile: AIDS, Neuroscience Center Ready To Open. M.A.J. McKenna, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, October 3, 1999.

Insel leaves Yerkes post to head neuroscience center. Emory Report, October 25, 1999.

New techniques show the power of a single gene. The Dana Brain Daybook, September/October 1999.

AIDS Research in Primates Bears Fruit

In primate research Merck set out to find a vaccine that prevented HIV infection. It failed at that, but it may have produced the next best thing — a vaccine that suppresses HIV so thoroughly that those receiving it may not even be able to pass along the disease to other human beings.

Researchers were obviously disappointed when their vaccines failed to prevent HIV infection in monkeys. But after a bit of tinkering the vaccines did almost completely suppress the virus and the associated symptoms.

Very preliminary clinical testing of these vaccines have begun in human beings, and the results so far are promising. Two small groups of human volunteers were injected with different versions of the vaccines in Phase I tests designed largely to determine whether or not the vaccine is safe to move into larger trials in human beings.

The vaccine exposes the body to a protein that HIV relies upon to reproduce. In the two vaccines tested, one simply exposes the immune system to that protein, while the other exposes it to a cold virus that is wrapped around the protein. Even with the relatively low dose vaccines used to evaluate the safety of the approach, large percentages of both groups saw immune response systems much like those experienced by the monkeys who were exposed to the vaccine.

There was some concern about these sorts of vaccines earlier this year when one of eight monkeys injected with a similar virus finally succumbed to infections caused by SIV. In that a case a single mutation in the SIV virus carried by that particular monkey rendered the vaccine useless, although the seven other monkeys continue to have suppressed the disease and remain healthy.

In that case, though, the monkey that died received a relatively weak form of the vaccination, suggesting that vaccination should produce the strongest immune response possible to provide longer term suppression of the disease.

Given the clinical trial results of Merck’s vaccine, hopefully it will not be too long before the vaccine is tested on those already infected with HIV to see if it can provide the sort of disease suppression in humans that it does in monkeys. So far, the results are encouraging.

Source:

HIV vaccines show promise. The BBC, February 26, 2002.