Tag: Primates

USDA Files Complaint Against University of California at San Francisco Over Treatment of Animals

U.S. Department of Agriculture filed a complaint against the University of California at San Francisco in late August, charging the university with at least 60 violations of the Animal Welfare Act between 2001 and 2003.

In its 18 page complaint, the USDA charges ranged from failing to provide post-operative anesthesia to failing to properly clean cages. A UCSF spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle that the complaint appeared to be a compilation of citations the university had received during its biannual USDA inspections.

The UCSF filed a response to the complaint in October denying almost all of the charges made by the USDA. In a press release, the UCSF said,

The University questions the timing of the Complaint, which is a compilation of citations issued by a local USDA inspector during inspections at UCSF between May 2001 and February 2003 — nearly two, to three-and-a-half-years, ago. All of the allegations were addressed by UCSF at the time and, where appropriate, remedial measures were implemented. Corrective actions were reported back to the USDA or verified by the USDA at its subsequent inspection. The USDA has so far failed to explain why it has issued an aggregate Complaint at this time.

The University notes that the number of allegations contained in the USDA Complaint is misleading. The local inspector reported 26 citations for the May 2001-Feb. 2003 period. However, the Complaint, issued from Washington, DC, was structured in such a way that most of the citations were restated multiple times, under different categories, raising the total number of allegations to 61.

In its report on the legal action, The San Francisco Chronicle, repeated a false claim by In Defense of Animals that the USDA charged UCSF with performing a craniotomy on a primate without using anesthesia. In fact, the complaint alleges that the primates were not given post-operative analgesics. The UCSF responded to that particular complaint by claiming that post-operative analgesics were only withheld for clinical reasons.

The full complaint by the USDA can be read here (PDF).

Sources:

U.S. agency cites UCSF for abuses of animals. Julian Guthrie, San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 2004.

USDA files animal welfare charges against leading research facility. Press Release, In Defense of Animals, September 15, 2004.

China Erects Monument for Monkeys Killed in SARS Research

Agence France-Presse reported in October that China had erected a monument in honor of 38 rhesus monkeys who died as part of researcher into the SARS virus.

According to AFP the 16 ton granite monument was erected outside an animal lab at Wuhan University in the Hubei province, and carries an inscription written by SARS researcher Sun Lihua,

For lab animals that have died for the health of humans. In special memory of the 38 rhesus monkeys that devoted their lives to SARS research.

Source:

China erects monument for SARS monkeys. Agence France-Presse, October 4, 2004.

Those Dastardly Scientists Give Evolution Expert and Animal Rights Activist Award

Massey University biologist David Penny recently received New Zealand’s top science award, the Rutherford Medal. Penny is a biologist who earlier this year published a paper in Nature speculating on how and why human beings evolved such relatively large brains. Penny’s hypothesis didn’t go over very well with animal rights activists, however, since his paper places meat eating as an important reason for the relatively sudden increase in brain size.

Penny’s hypothesis is complicated, but allow me to oversimplify it a bit. One of the downsides of having a brain the size of homo sapiens is that the damn thing needs a lot of energy to maintain it and keep it going. Although today there are plenty of plant sources that can yield a high protein, vegetarian diet, most of those sources simply wouldn’t have been widely available to early homo sapiens. For example, beans are a good source of protein, but only became domesticated very recently in human history. Penny’s conclusion? As he wrote in Nature, “an increased proportion of meat in the diet of early humans was important for an increase in brain size.”

Of course to some animal rights activists, that’s heresy. For example, here’s how one activist criticized the award to Dr. Penny on the AR-News mailing list,

This is yet another example of organized science in the service of industry engaging in dastardly support of vested interests that are contrary to the ethics of sound science. Is [sic] does not take a rocket scientist to deflate this flatulent hypothesis — look at the brains and social lives of elephants, who are vegetarian, and when it comes to doing good for their own kind and for their environment, do a far better job than those arrogant primates who believe that meat eating gave them bigger and better brains: Bigger egos, and little else.

Ah, yes, those dastardly scientists giving out awards in slavish obedience to “vested interests.” The elephant counter example was at least good for a laugh. The commentator apparently didn’t see fit to mention that although elephants do have large brains, they are smaller relative to body size than is the human brain and, more importantly, elephants in the wild have to spend as much as 20 hours a day foraging for the 300-500 pounds of vegetation they require daily to sustain their body mass and brain.

The person who posted this is also apparently unaware that Penny is himself something of an animal rights activist. Penny is affiliated with the Great Ape Project which seeks to have New Zealand amend its constitution to recognize the rights of Great Apes.

But he’s probably doing that simply in the service of industry and the dastardly support of vested interests. At least, unlike the AR-News individual, Penny knows the difference between science and ideology.

Source:

Evolution expert takes highest science award. Simon Collins, The New Zealand Herald, September 25, 2004.

Australia Imposes Five Year Moratorium on Xenotransplantation

In September, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council imposed a five year moratorium on xenotransplantation, prohibiting the transplantation of organs from animals to human beings until more information is known about the potential health risks of such transplants.

National Health and Medical Research Council chairman Alan Pettigrew explained the decision saying,

There were ethical concerns, there were social concerns, but the major area (of concern) were the risks. There were risks to health, not only of the individual but to their immediate family from there to the wider population. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be undertaken. We need at least five years to gain more knowledge before this issue should be considered again.

The council also ruled that even if the moratorium is lifted at some point, that non-human primates should never be used as the source of organs for clinical trials of xenotransplantation.

The council also considered but declined to rule on the use of treatments that utilize animal cells to treat diseases in humans.

The council also considered therapies that use animal cells in human beings, but declined to make a decision saying it needed more information on the health and safety issues involved.

Source:

Animal-human transplants frozen. The Sunday Mail (Australia), September 21, 2004.

Julia Butterfly Hill Joins PETA Campaign Against Columbia University

Julia Butterfly Hill, who became famous by spending several years in a tree to protest and logging, recently joined People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ campaign against Columbia University. Hill sent a letter on behalf of PETA urging other activists to support PETA’s ongoing campaign against Columbia.

PETA did not release a copy of Hill’s letter, but did include the following quote regarding Columbia’s use of primates to better understand irregular menstrual cycles,

As a woman, I am outraged that other beings are undergoing such outrageous and inhumane torture under the guise of ‘helping women.’

For its part, PETA seems to fundamentally misunderstand the point of the research, as it says in its press release about hill,

Millions of dollars designated for womenÂ’s health issues have been commandeered by Columbia experimenter Michel Ferin and squandered on cruel, irrelevant animal experiments while women who suffer extreme stress during their menstrual cycles are left without the resources to obtain the medical care that they need.

Ferin’s research is aimed not at trying to understand stress during menstrual cycles, but rather the role that stress might play in causing irregular menstrual cycles which is a common cause of female infertility.

PETA’s Bill Maher also mischaracterized the nature of the Columbia research when he spammed Columbia University staff earlier this year.

Source:

Julia Butterfly Hill Asks Friends and Colleagues to Help Stop Columbia University’s Mutilation of Primates in Menstrual Experiments. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, September 8, 2004.

No Link Seen Between SV40 in Polio Vaccine and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

In 1960, researchers discovered Simian virus 40 (SV40). Shortly afterward it was discovered that SV40 was also present in the injectable polio vaccine (it was not present in the oral version of the vaccine). Kidney cells from rhesus monkeys were used to prepare the vaccine, and it turned out that those cells were infected with SV40. In the early 1960s, researchers ensured that the polio vaccine was produced using cells that were not infected with SV40.

People were potentially exposed to SV40 for more than a decade, however, and over the years there have been any number of hypotheses that one illness or another has been caused by SV40 exposure from the polio vaccine. The latest claim is that SV40 increased the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer. This claim was given some impetus by the discovery of SV40 in NHL tumors.

A population-based study of almost 1,400 individuals, however, suggests that there is no increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma associated with exposure to SV40. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute tested blood samples from 724 patients with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and from 622 matched control patients without non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

The samples were tested at two independent laboratories. The first laboratory reported SV40 in 7.2 percent of the NHL patients and 10.5 percent of the control group. The second laboratory reported SV40 in 9.8 percent of NHL patients and in 9.6 percent of the control group. The results indicate there is likely no increased risk of developing NHL among individuals exposed to SV40.

Researchers also looked at incidence levels of specific types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and also found no increased risk associated with SV40 exposure as well.

Source:

Monkey virus exposure did not raise lymphoma risk. Reuters Health, September 14, 2004.