From: mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey)
Subject: Animals in research
Followup-To: rec.food.veg
Organization: Dept. Foods & Nutrition, Univ. of GA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:19:29 GMT

In: <1ha49gINN2j2@cbl.umd.edu>, tara@starburst.umd.edu (Tara McDermott)
writes:

>Animal research has contributed greatly to both aspects because that
>is all that has been used, at least it is the major majority of study.

Certainly, animal studies have won a majority of Nobel Prizes in physiology
or medicine.  Let us not discount the advances made with other methods.

>If not much research has been done on humans, why of course it will
>not have had as great an impact, because it just has not been used to
>the extent that animal research has been used.

Dont get me wrong.  Many medical studies have been done without animals. 
These studies simply haven't been considered important by the Nobel
committee as often as animal studies.

>In no way does this
>then refute my beliefs (and beliefs of those in the scientific
>community) that animal testing is not AS good as human testing (be it
>in vitro, computer simulation, human volunteer, or cadaver research).

Please don't confuse animal testing with animal research.  It is not a
question of which paradigm is "as good."  All paradigms that you cite are
valuable.

Please give me an example of a person in the "scientific community" of
medical research who supports the idea that "animal testing is not AS good
as human testing."

Dr. Alan Goldberg, who directs the center at Johns Hopkins for the
development of alternatives for animal testing, feels that animal testing
and research are currently necessary:  "An integrated approach of clinical,
whole animal and _in vitro_ studies is currently the best approach to
advance science, develop new products and drugs, and treat, cure and
prevent disease."

>>The animal "rights" movement regards animal research as unethical
>>exploitation, so numerous tactics are engaged to discredit its contribution
>>to human and animal health.  These deceptions are most effective on younger
>>people who have scarcely heard of once-common diseases such as smallpox,
>>rickets, tuberculosis, pellagra, polio, beriberi, diphtheria and rabies.
>
>In my next post, it was mentioned that some of these diseases could
>have better been served by using humans instead of animals.  Did you
>dismiss this, or did you not see this?

Huh?  Did I not already see your *next post*?

>Instead of taking an otherwise
>healthy animal, inducing a disease and then studying it in hope for a
>cure, the same could have been done on a human that already HAD the
>disease.

You simply do not understand the historical development of medicine.  

Although Girolamo Fracastoro first proposed that "Contagion is an infection
that passes from one thing to another" in 1546, the "Germ Theory" of
disease remained unproven for centuries.  As late as 1876, leading surgeons
such as Theirsch presented a sound case for those opposed to the theory: 
"It is still undecided whether putrefaction follows from bacteria or
whether bacteria simply appear where there is putrefaction."  If not for
the pioneering animal work of Jenner, Koch and Pasteur, confirmation of the
 "Germ Theory" of disease would have been delayed, and the importance of
sanitation in the prevention of disease would not have been fully
appreciated (Lechevalier, H. A. and Solotorovsky, M.  Three Centuries of
Microbiology.  Dover Publications, New York, 1974).

>[...]

>I'm sure at that time that there were plenty of disease ridden humans
>that sported lesions that Koch could have used, instead of inducing
>them in animals.

You are missing the point.  Isolating a microbe in a diseased animal,
culturing the microbe, then inducing the same disease in a *healthy animal*
by inoculating it with the isolated microbe were essential steps in proving
the "germ theory" of disease.

Indeed, Koch could have sampled lesions from humans.  Would you prefer that
he subsequently inoculate a healthy human with the isolated microbe to
fulfill his postulates?  Would you consider proof that microbes cause
disease to be unimportant?

>As for his research on then inoculating a healthy
>animal with a disease, for what purpose was it done?

See above.

>Current
>sanitation being what it was at the time, I'm more than sure that
>people realized that these diseases were contagious already.

I would be interested to know more about the development of sanitation
practice before the late 1870's. 

>Further research on this particular issue seems rather wasteful.

Sigh.  See above on the understanding of the "germ theory" of disease.

>[...]
>When was ths Golden Age of Nutrition?  Was that during the 1950's or
>earlier?

Actually, it was more like 1911-1950.

>Much of our past knowledge of nutrition, coming from studies
>done on laboratory rats, and other such creatures has now been proven
>wrong.

Absolutely untrue.  The discoveries of vitamin and mineral requirements are
prominent counterexamples from yesterday.  The investigations of the
effects of nutrients on gene expression, and studies of ingestive behavior
are contemporary counterexamples.

>For example, the studies confirming that rats needed all the
>protein in an egg to remain the healthiest.  It was then postulated
>that humans needed a complete protein, the kind only found in egg
>yolks and meat.

Be more specific here.  To what work are you referring?  I need a reference
from the primary literature in nutrition.

If you are referring to theories about protein complementation, you are not
referring to mainstream nutrition.  Should false theories about Phlogiston
lead us to mistrust all theories about chemistry?

>... In fact, this information is dangerous to human health.

How so?

>Eggs are very very high in cholesterol,...

So what?  What does this have to do with animal research?

>too much protein leads to many diseases which the
>American people are suffering from--cancer, osteoporosis, heart
>disease.

I've heard this claim before, but I have not yet seen peer-reviewed
nutrition references to support it.  Do you have any?

>The fact is, humans are different, despite the great
>similarity to many animals, and have a different nutritional need than
>animals.

Yes, humans and animals require different *amounts* of nutrients.  Yet,
nutrient deficiency symptoms in humans have analogues in animals that
proved valuable in establishing basic concepts.

>Using research done on animals when it comes to nutrition is
>not very efficient and can pose a risk to human health.  It already
>has. 

You are wrong here.  Animals have proven beneficial to nutrition research
in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.  Research with
humans will be important also.

>I think my main point of disgression with your point of view is that
>because animal research has been done in the past, and because some of
>it has been successful, you believe that it is currently the best
>method of insuring the health of the human species.

I don't know about "best method, " but it surely is an important one.  
I've also admitted the importance of research using humans.

>I don't know how
>I would feel on the matter if we had this discussion 150 years ago,
>but now, I feel that with current technology the way it is, we no
>longer NEED to do animal research.

To what "current technology" do you refer?

The suggestion that we have discovered all that we need to know using
animals is ridiculous.  We have only begun to scratch the surface in  areas
such as neuroscience.  New diseases, such as AIDS, will continue to emerge.
 We will need a concerted approach, using animal and non-animal paradigms,
to solve the medical problems of the future.

>Not only that, but with the
>information we already hold, we should act on that.  We know how to
>prevent cancers--at least 85% of them (this is a rough figure),
>through modifying our eating habits, and getting people to stop
>smoking.  The other diseases of affluence such as heart disease are
>easily preventable as well.  We already know how to, but nothing is
>being done about it.

I am all for prevention, but I disagree that nothing is being done in this
area.  Many people are taking matters into their own hands.  I have not
seen anyone dispute the power of prevention.  The fallacy of your absolute
position on animal research is that some diseases are not preventable. 
Disease prevention is not truly a reason to eliminate animal research
unless you believe that your fellow humans should suffer and die for their
failure to take preventive measures.

Would you allow a fellow human to die of heart disease rather than use pigs
or dogs to develop new treatments to save them?

>This seems criminal to me.  Why not reform the
>information that is being taught to school children, so that they grow
>up eating the right foods, instead of the wrong foods?

I believe that the quality of nutrition information is much improved
compared to my school days.  I never had Saturday morning cartoons to
advise me on healthy eating.  Of course, your ilk will complain because
this info does not toe the veggie party line.

Again, this has little to do with animal research.  Your arguments against
animal research are not compelling. 

>I already know
>the answer to this, by the way... the meat and dairy industries are so
>powerful that this won't happen for many years to come at least.

I am really disgusted with this "blame it on the meat and dairy board" 
mentality that so pervades this newsgroup.  Are you folks not also
concerned about how the PCRM, with its "new four food groups" is targeting
schoolchildren?  Of course you aren't -- you are vegetarians

>But
>my point is, we know how to stop most people from getting cancer, and
>stop people from having heart attacks, and stroke, and what have you.
>Instead of making animals go through this process as well in a search
>for a cure, why not just cure the humans?

"What have you" and "most" covers a lot.  This is a naive position. 
Solving basic problems in biomedical research often requires invasive
studies.  IMO, we simply cannot do these on humans.  I have seen animal
activists argue for the use of prisoners in these invasive studies.  Do you
support this approach?

>It would save untold
>millions of dollars spent on animal research, it would make health
>care more than affordable, people would live longer, be healthier and
>happier, surgery would not be a common occurance, and it would be much
>less of a burden on our natural resources (by having a plant based
>diet instead of a meat based one).  No, I'm wrong.  By prevention, we
>would be saving many billions of dollars better spent on other things.
>Our society would flourish.

This is total crap.  For every one hundred dollars Americans spend on
health care, they spend forty cents on biomedical (animal and non-animal)
research (FASEB J. 6:2492; April, 1992).  Your suggestion that we could
solve our society's health problems with the pittance spent on animal
research is a riot.

>Tara McDermott               
>tara@starburst.umd.edu       
>I eat tofu, and I vote.
 ^^^^^^^^^^

Better take it easy on that stuff.  It is rather high in fat.

--
mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin G. Hulsey)
Neuroscience, NRA-ILA, SSIB, NAASO, IASO
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg