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 | | From: | pearl | | Subject: | Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:12:22 -0000 |
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 | Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
Special to World Science
1-22-5
The most harmless-seeming lab experiments spark panic in the creatures
going through them, according to a new report. But supporters of animal
medical research, who say the work saves lives, questioned the findings.
The report, based on a review of past scientific studies, claims that mice,
rabbits, rats, beagles, geese, and other animals all show measurable levels
of stress in response to routine laboratory procedures.
These procedures, including blood draws and use of stomach tubes, are
"terrifying" for animals, according to a press release announcing the findings.
The statement was issued by the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group.
Jonathan Balcombe, a research consultant for the group, authored the
report finding that physiological stress levels go up among animals
undergoing experiments.
Even simple contact with laboratory workers is scary for animals, said
Balcombe. "There is no such thing as a humane animal experiment," he
said in the statement. "Fear or panic ensues when the animal is touched
or stuck with a needle."
Balcombe isn't new to the longstanding debate over whether it is right
to use animals in scientific research. He has argued against the use of
vivisection, the act of operating on live animals. "Vivisection labs cause
animals pain, misery and death, and should be actively opposed,"
though not by violence, as some say, he wrote in an April 29, 2004
letter to the Times of London.
But the new findings, according to the committee, are the first time
such misery has been shown to befall animals during procedures that
have until now been seen as relatively benign.
Balcombe's full findings are published in the Autumn 2004 issue of
the research journal Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal
Science. The findings are based on an extensive review of the
scientific literature by Balcombe, an ethologist, or scientist who
studies animal behavior.
A mouse who is picked up and briefly held experiences several
physiological reactions, according to the group: As stress-response
hormones flood the bloodstream, the mouse exhibits a racing pulse
and a spike in blood pressure. These symptoms can persist for up
to an hour after each event. Immune response is also affected.
"In rats and mice, the growth of tumors is strongly influenced by
how much the animals are handled," the group's statement said.
Supporters of medical research that uses animals said they don't
have much faith in Balcombe's study. "I would be very skeptical
of anything that comes out of" Balcombe's group, since it is also
already on record as being anti-vivisection, said Barbara Davies,
communications director for RDS, a British organization of scientists
who support medical research.
Barbara Rich, a spokeswoman for Americans for Medical Progress,
an Alexandria, Virginia-based group, echoed that. "It may be that
they came to the conclusion before they did the study," she warned.
Balcombe's group is closely allied with the radical animal-rights
group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, she added.
On the other hand, Rich acknowledged, the journal that published
the paper is reputable. She said more scientists will have to assess it,
especially as it seems to contain some strange conclusions. "One
person said to me, 'if handling animals causes tumors, what does
this say about our pets?'"
Balcombe dismissed that objection. "The difference between my
pet rats and a rat in a laboratory is my pet rats don't ever get stuck
with needles, have blood drawn or get force-fed a drug," he said.
Lab animals learn to expect bad things, and their fear of handling
stems from that, he added; this isn't the case with pets.
The journal's editors also expressed reservations about the paper.
In an editorial in the same issue of the journal, they wrote that the
paper is an "opinion piece. The literature discussed... is selective in
scope and does not include a rigorous review of current methods
and studies concerned with detecting or observing effects of stress
in laboratory animals. We caution that it is not correct to conclude
that stress is equivalent to distress or fear."
Balcombe objected to the portrayal of his study as selective. He
said his review of scientific literature included all past papers that
he could find meeting certain clear criteria. None that met these
conditions was excluded, he asserted: any study was included if
it examined animals' stress responses to handling and routine
experimental procedures.
Balcombe also called the editorial itself highly unusual for a
research journal -- evidence of how controversial the subject of
animal research is. "One would have to look far and wide among
journals to find an editorial disparaging of the research" published
in the same journal, he observed.
Moreover, Balcombe wrote that while it can be argued that stress
and fear are different, evidence shows that in this case, stress does
correspond to fear. One clue is the fact that animals try to avoid
most of these laboratory procedures, he explained.
The paper focused on three routine procedures: handling, blood
collection and force-feeding. Independent of the invasive
experiments themselves, these daily routines can cause an animal
to experience elevated bloodstream concentrations of substances
known to indicate stress: corticosterone, prolactin, glucose, and
epinephrine, Balcombe wrote. Impaired immune response has also
been recorded in animals after anxiety-producing contact with lab
personnel, according to the study.
Balcombe argued that scared animals don't produce sound scientific
findings because their fear leads to distorted experimental results.
"Research on tumor development, immune function, endocrine
[hormonal] and cardiovascular disorders, neoplasms [tumors],
developmental defects, and psychological phenomena are
particularly vulnerable to data being contaminated by animals'
stress effects," said Balcombe.
http://members.aol.com/mlucen/041229_animalexpts.htm
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| | From: | dh_ld at nomail.com | | Subject: | Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 20:38:09 GMT |
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| On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:12:22 -0000, "pearl" wrote:
>Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
>Special to World Science
>1-22-5
>
>The most harmless-seeming lab experiments spark panic in the creatures
>going through them, according to a new report. But supporters of animal
>medical research, who say the work saves lives,
I'm sure it does.
[...]
>A mouse who is picked up and briefly held experiences several
>physiological reactions, according to the group: As stress-response
>hormones flood the bloodstream, the mouse exhibits a racing pulse
>and a spike in blood pressure.
When I used to have some rats and mice, we would discuss how
it must feel to be picked up by a human. The experience would be
much more intense than riding a ferris wheel, and there would probably
be no sense of security or confidence in not being dropped. If there's
an "ARA" involved, no doubt there is dishonesty of some type involved
here, but also there's not much doubt that animals are afraid of being
picked up and stuck with needles or force fed. Do they use mouse
size needles? Or do they use something that would scare the hell out
of any human?
_________________________________________________________
If scientists could replace animal research and testing
with methods which did not need to use animals then
they would.
There are several reasons for this:
* Scientists do not like or want to use animals in research.
Like the vast majority of people they do not want to see animals
suffer unnecessarily. In fact less than 10% of biomedical research
uses animals. Unfortunately for much of the work involved in
biomedical research there are as yet no working alternative
techniques that would allow us to stop using animals.
* Biomedical research is producing thousands of new compounds,
which may have potential as new drugs. It is much more efficient to
screen these compounds using rapid non-animal techniques to test
their effectiveness and toxicity.
* The very high standards of animal welfare and care required of
British research establishments are a contributory factor in making
animal research very expensive. If scientists can develop alternatives
to using animals it will allow them to divert their limited research funds
to other areas of research.
[...]
http://www.bret.org.uk/noan.htm
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
[...]
From the bald eagle to the red wolf, biomedical research has
helped bring many species back from the brink of extinction.
Conservation and captive breeding programs, often using
fertilization techniques developed for humans, have made it
possible for these animals to be reintroduced into the wild, and
today their numbers are growing. Biologists and wildlife
veterinarians rely on the latest research in reproduction, nutrition,
toxicology and medicine to build a better future for our wild
animals.
In vitro fertilization, sperm banks and artificial insemination were
all developed to help human couples, but today they also are
regularly used to ensure the survival of endangered species.
[...]
http://fbresearch.org/helpingwildlife.html
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
WITHOUT ANIMAL RESEARCH:
Polio would kill or cripple thousands of unvaccinated children and
adults this year.
Most of the nation's one million insulin-dependent diabetics wouldn't
be insulin dependent -- they would be dead.
60 million Americans would risk death from heart attack, stroke or
kidney failure from lack of medication to control their high blood
pressure.
Doctors would have no chemotherapy to save the 70% of children who
now survive acute lymphocytic leukemia.
More than one million Americans would lose vision in at least one eye
this year because cataract surgery would be impossible.
Hundreds of thousands of people disabled by strokes or by head or
spinal cord injuries would not benefit from rehabilitation techniques.
The more than 100,000 people with arthritis who each year receive hip
replacements would walk only with great pain and difficulty or be
confined to wheelchairs.
7,500 newborns who contract jaundice each year would develop cerebral
palsy, now preventable through phototherapy.
There would be no kidney dialysis to extend the lives of thousands of
patients with end-stage renal disease.
Surgery of any type would be a painful, rare procedure without the
development of modern anesthesia allowing artificially induced
unconsciousness or local or general insensitivity to pain.
Instead of being eradicated, smallpox would continue unchecked and many
others would join the two million people already killed by the disease.
Millions of dogs, cats, and other pets and farm animals would have died
from anthrax, distemper, canine parvovirus, feline leukemia, rabies and
more than 200 other diseases now preventable thanks to animal research.
http://www.ampef.org/research.htm
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
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| | From: | Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com | | Subject: | Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals | | Date: | 23 Jan 2005 21:06:22 -0800 |
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| >>On the other hand, Rich acknowledged, the journal that published
the paper is reputable. She said more scientists will have to assess
it,
especially as it seems to contain some strange conclusions. "One
person said to me, 'if handling animals causes tumors, what does
this say about our pets?'"
Balcombe dismissed that objection. he said.
Lab animals learn to expect bad things, and their fear of handling
stems from that, he added; this isn't the case with pets.<<
COMMENT:
We're hearing a certain amount of fuzzy thinking and B.S. from both
sides here. There's truth here, but it's somewhere in the middle. As a
physician and biomedical researcher who's published scientific work
using both rodent and dog models, let me put my two cents in.
First of all, Balcombe's objection is disingenuous because he's talking
about rodents, which may be the only lab animals he thinks about. "The
difference between my
pet rats and a rat in a laboratory is my pet rats don't ever get stuck
with needles, have blood drawn or get force-fed a drug," Yeah, that may
be true, but what about Balcombe's pet cats and dogs? How does he get
his cats tested for FeLV and FIV if they don't get poked with needles
to draw blood? How do his animals get vaccinated? Does he not neuter or
spay his pets? How does that go?
The truth is that any pet animal which has had many invasive procedures
at a vet will exhibit the very same stress responses as we're talking
about, as soon as it gets a whiff of the office smell on the 3rd or 4th
or 10th visit. If you own a pet, you've seen that. All the issues
brought up with animal research also occur in veterinary practice, and
in human practice too, particularly in pediatric oncology and
anesthesia. There are ways to deal with all of them.
One of the ways is simple desensitization, or exposure therapy. To do
this, you simply do a lot of handling of the animals in situations
where they're not hurt. At my institution the dogs (which are all bred
in-house) are only semi-socialized, but they're exposed to humans every
day when they're sent to the exercise yard, and even more intimately
when they are brought into the clinical space for monthly health exams
and checkups. All this makes them quite handle-able.
The second way you can deal with anxiety in animals is pre-medicate it
away. All dogs at my institution get acepromazine before being taken
out of their housing for invasive procedures, and after that, more
tranquilizers in scaled fashion (ketamine/valium, or even if necessary
propofol/gas full anesthesia) when they need it. And also pre and post
procedure narcotics for pain. The result of all of this is that these
animals are no more anxious after many minor invasive procedures than
they are before the first one. Apparently, they have no memory, as your
pets do of the vet's office. As illustration, we work with 60 lb
animals with all their teeth, but never use muzzles, nor ever need to.
Rodents are at risk to be mistreated. One of the difficulties is their
size-- they are so easy to control by hand using neck/back scruff
techniques, that often they can be handled without fear of bite, even
without medication. Researchers therefore often omit the medication.
This is probably not a good thing, and from the humanitarian point of
view there's just as much justification for premedicating rats and mice
for major invasive procedures (ie those that are more invasive than the
premedication shot), as there is for cats or dogs. A similar thing
happens with husbandry and routine human contact. Rats and mice don't
need to be exercised in separate facilities, so they usually aren't.
That leaves them to be left alone entirely. Nor are they often handled
by hand except when being invaded. This also is a mistake. As anybody
who has owned a pet rat or mouse can tell you, rodents also can be
semi-socialized with a little bit of handling and human contact.
The rodent stress problem is partly just bad luck for rodents due to
their small size, easy care, relative lack of "cuteness," easy
controllability, and cheapness. Some of the blame for the mistreatment
of rodents rests on researchers, who can be lazy, and may well not have
the empathic connection for rodents that they naturally do for more
common companion animals like dogs and cats. But the rest of the story
is that some of the blame for the mistreatment of rodents rests on PETA
and the animal rights activists, who have managed to get federal law to
place non rodent mammal research under a set of very onerous and
expensive USDA restrictions which are far worse than apply to the food
industry, or to pet owners. With the result that most non-rodent
research has disappeared, because it's been priced out of the market
due to the artificial PETA-generated expenses. In turn, loss of large
animal experience with its necessity for premedication and
desensitization-handing that it brings as a habit, has given us more
generations of researchers who simply don't have those habits. When
these researchers get hold of rodents, they tend to mistreat them
because they don't know any other way.
Putting it in other words, research which runs on only rodent
experience is bound to run into problems if inadequate prevention of
suffering and stress. Large animals teach stress management by
experience and direct observation. Panicked and stressed dogs put their
tails between their legs, urinate, and make piteous facial expressions.
Cats in similar situations yowl and hiss. Pigs may squeal almost
ultrasonically, and at astonishing intensity. Cats, dogs, and pigs all
can produce vicious bites. Rabbits may simply collapse and die. All
these things provoke automatic responses in researchers to see that
stress and fear are reduced. But the researcher who, unlike the
veterinarian, has no set of reflexes for dealing with a wide spectrum
of animal handling, and who thinks of rodents as wild squirmy animals
which are naturally panicked anyway, is less likely to do anything
about it. In fact, a certain amount of "rodent-bigotry" is one reason
why rodent-research has so far successfully resisted being put under
USDA control (of course there are also other reasons involving
logistics).
The large scale research move to "rodents-only" has not only been bad
for rodents, but bad for science. One of the problems is that stress
in mishandled rodents may indeed result in scattered and poor data,
particularly in research which involves the immune system (the hormone
corticosterone, generated in large amounts in rodents during stress, is
immunosuppressive in a similar way to cortisol in humans). This can be
avoided with proper handling (as some of my own research in mice
demonstrates). But a far worse problem is that the loss of non-rodent
animal models in science has meant the loss of a large number of models
which are far more appropriate to human problems than anything possible
in rodents. To pick two examples: there is a growing amount of blood
lipid and diet "research" in rats, even though rats are extremely
resistant to atherosclerosis. This research is more and more replacing
the older research in a more appropriate rabbit model, largely because
rabbits are now under USDA inspection control, and as a result have
become very expensive to house and use in research (far more expensive
than housing rabbits bred for food!). In a field I'm familiar with,
liquid ventilation research, a great deal of time and money has been
wasted using rats, which model humans very poorly due to far faster
metabolisms and CO2 productions, and tiny lungs which behave very
differently from those of man. By contrast, the larger breed
corsairial canine, which is a far better model for human lung research,
has nearly been banished from the field. (But try doing a stethoscope
exam on a *rat* with chemical asthma.)
I don't have much hope for the future. We need animals for research,
but the "animal advocates," who have long argued that animals are poor
models for humans, have succeeded in getting ridiculously expensive
laws passed which have destroyed many animal research models, and thus
made their own arguments partially self-fulfilling. (I wonder if that
wasn't their real purpose). True enough, large animals are now better
protected from mistreatment by researchers than in the past---- but the
huge overkill and hypocrisy in these laws (which, as again as noted,
apply to research animal housing, for example, but not food-animal
housing) has made large animal research rare. Therefore, what social
good did it do to protect large animals in research, if that made the
research too expensive to do at all? The point was supposedly actually
to do some research, not just outlaw it by the back door. The win-win
situation that makes for good politics didn't happen in this field. As
a result, trust has disappeared and science has now drawn the line at
extending similar laws to rodent husbandry and handling. And now the
huge irony: because of the intrinsic vulnerability of rodents to abuse
by researchers, probably rodents need the oversight of at least
veterinary pain and stress management more than any other research
species, and they always have. And yet, as of now, due to the animal
research wars, rodents are probably farther away from getting it than
they ever have been. Go figure.
SBH
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