From: black@che.serum.kodak.com (Robert Black (x37236))
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: animals in research
Date: 12 Nov 92 21:55:28 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company

In article <1992Nov9.223505.10510@athena.cs.uga.edu> hulsey@athena.cs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey) writes:
>Robert Black writes:
>
>>In article <ceqe02Zm29YI01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> 
>tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Ted Robinson) writes:
>>>In article <1992Nov2.152851.20701@athena.cs.uga.edu>, 
>>>hulsey@athena.cs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey) writes:
>>>> Despite a couple of challenges, no one has disputed my claim that 
>there 
>>>> is no (non-extinct) species that would sacrifice its own members to 
>save 
>>>> members of another species.
>>
>>Maybe the scope or sophistication of the question has not been fully
>>appreciated, but how does your hypothesis deal with actual recent 
>events
>>like these occurring near my home:
>>
>>     1. Woman and children escape burning house.  Woman then dies of 
>smoke 
>>        inhalation, after running back in to save pets.
>>
>>     2. Pit bull attacks young girl while horrified family looks on.
>>        Family German shepherd intervenes between pit bull and girl,
>>        thereby slowing the attack long enough for help to be summoned.
>>        Shepherd dies but the girl's life is saved thanks to the extra
>>        time provided by the shepherd for help to arrive.
>>
>
>Its not my hypothesis; its a fact.  I was referring to *species*, and 
>you cite the acts of *individuals* as counterexamples.  Because the 
>unusual acts of interspecies "altruism" you cite were fatal to the 
>individuals involved, they reinforce my position that such acts are 
>nonadaptive for their respective species.
>
>You provided two examples of how such traits are ultimately selected out 
>in successful species, unless you would also care to refute the 
>principles of Darwin.

Were you assuming that these traits were hereditary?

Did you miss the "and children" phrase following "Woman" in the first 
example?  The woman's children already existed at the time of her death,
so, even if hereditary, these traits haven't been selected against
yet in her case.  And what's to say that her children would not also
reproduce before sacrificing themselves in a similar manner?

But none of this is especially relevant to me.  You asked for examples
of a species sacrificing its own members to save members of another
species.  In my "Maybe" clause above, I indicated that I may not have
understood what you were getting at, because the question seemed too
easy to answer - though I've never expended a great deal of effort on it
now or in the past. 

If you were looking for an entire species that sacrifices all its
members, then your question was a trivial one, because the chances for
survival of that species would be nil unless the sacrifices took place
primarily in the years past the prime reproducing years for the
sacrificial species.  If you were looking for individual examples of
non-speciesist behavior, then I presented a couple cases for your
consideration. 

[...]

>>>I never implied that my description was a comprehensive description of 
>>>the events leading up to the discovery of Insulin.  I did not intend 
>to 
>>>overlook Collip's contribution, as he worked alongside the others.  I 
>>>feel that he and Best should have shared the 1923 Nobel.  Banting and 
>>>Mcleod agreed, for they shared their prizes with Best and Collip.  The 
>>>fact, by your admission, that Collip used *Ox* pancreas to develop his 
>>>extract *further emphasizes* the crucial role that animals played in 
>>>this research.  Therefore, you have not successfully disputed my 
>claim.  
>>
>>Your claim above states:
>>
>>        "The indisputable fact is that if insulin had not been 
>discovered 
>>         using animals (human or otherwise) in 1923, more than one 
>million 
>>         people would have died up until now, and millions more would 
>die 
>>         in the future.
>>
>>Since you have parenthetically included (the escape hatch of) humans,
>>you're right in that I haven't disputed the first part of your claim. 
>>Nor do I wish to, since the discovery of insulin could have been made
>>using either human or nonhuman pancreas.  But if you had not included
>>humans, then I would dispute it, since it's clear that nonhuman animal
>>research was not necessary for the discovery of insulin. 
>
>By "human or otherwise" in the above claim, I was referring to the dog 
>experiments only.  I still question whether insulin could have been 
>isolated from human pancreas, and you have provided no rational 
>scenario.

See below.

>>[...]
>>Also it's not entirely clear what your meaning was in the phrase "using
>>animals." If you meant to include the removal of pancreas from already
>>dead oxen, then this does not make the case for lab experiments with
>>animals.
>
>Sure it does.  Quite a few "lab experiments" have relied on materials 
>obtained at the slaughterhouse.  If memory serves, Guillemin's Nobel 
>(1977) is another example.  The more recent isolation by Tatemoto of 
>Neuropeptide Y from 7 kg of porcine brain is another that immediately 
>comes to mind.  There are many others.

I don't consider the extraction or removal of materials from an already
dead animal to be animal research.  If you do, then that accounts for
part of our disagreement. 

You seem to want to include under the animal research umbrella the USE
of by-products from dead animals.  Fine.  Great.  I don't object to this
practice any more than I would object if you used by-products from human
carcasses.  Animals and people die every day and there is an abundance
of material available.  The debate is over what is done to living humans
and animals.  This is what I mean, and I assumed others meant, by the
term "animal research."  Referring to the use of slaughterhouse
by-products as animal research just seems to obscure the real issues. 

>I am not simply making a case for the use of animals in the laboratory.  
>You are trying desparately to deny the crucial role of animal by-
>products in medical research, because it is inconsistent with your 
>utopian agenda.

Sorry to disappoint you here by pointing out the absence of any
desperation on my part.  When someone makes such a statement, I usually
assume that he is projecting his own desperation onto others.  If you're
doing this, please lighten up, okay? The fate of the universe doesn't
ride on this discussion.  Neither does the rise or fall of the animal
rights movement.  We're just two individuals presenting divergent views
of a historical event.

Secondly, I haven't denied the role of animal by-products in medical
research.  Please explain why you think I have.  However I have disputed
the claim that live animals used in medical research were necessary for
the discovery of insulin.  If you choose to disagree with me, it would
be helpful to be accurate about what I'm saying. 

>>The dogs of Banting and Best, as well as those of their predecessors, 
>did
>>not have to die in order to save diabetics.  The popular citation of 
>the
>>Banting and Best work as evidence of the value of animal research is a
>>flawed claim.
>
>The claim is not flawed until you disprove it.

I have indicated an alternate path that could have reasonably been
followed even back then, 70 years ago. 

>>And if one of the most famous and often-referenced pillars
>>in the animal research edifice is so easily toppled, then what are we 
>>to make of other more obscure examples and claims?
>
>First, this unscholarly revisionist scenario doesn't prove anything.  
>The "edifice" stands, and has vastly more pillars than you can imagine.
>
>Second, is this not akin to arguing that if one animal activist is a 
>terrorist, then so must be the others?

No, it's not.  Remember it's the defenders of animal research who have
repeatedly pointed to the discovery of insulin to validate their claims. 
My question (not statement) above was basically: why would those
defenders so often select such a weak (and old) example to bolster their
case if there are better and more recent examples?

>>The second part of your claim (that millions would have died) is
>>speculation.  It is certainly not a *fact*, let alone indisputable.  We
>>don't know what route an alternate historical path would have taken. 
>>But if insulin had never been discovered, it does seems likely that
>>fewer diabetics would have survived to produce some of the succeeding
>>generations.  Whether the casualties would still have numbered in the
>>millions, given this selection process, is arguable.  But you're always
>>on shaky ground when you observe that: (1) X happened, then Y happened;
>>(2) therefore if X had not happened, then Y would not have happened.
>
>I'm not making such an argument.  

I believe that you did make such an argument.  You wrote:

   "The indisputable fact is that if insulin had not been discovered 
    using animals (human or otherwise) in 1923, more than one million 
    people would have died up until now, and millions more would die 
    in the future".

I interpret this to mean: Solely because insulin was discovered using
animals, millions of diabetics have lived.  You're causally relating two
events: (1) insulin was discovered using animals with (2) millions of
diabetics lived.

Let X = insulin was discovered using animals.
Let Y = millions of diabetics have lived.

You're saying that X happened, then Y happened.  Therefore if X did not
happen, then Y would not have happened.  

This is faulty logic and someone more schooled in Logic than I am could
probably name the Latin term for the specific fallacy. 

>I agree that if more people died of 
>diabetes for lack of a treatment, then there would be fewer to die in 
>successive generations.  Even if we account for this, many humans would 
>die in past, present and future to save a few dogs.
>
>If you are arguing that if diabetes were not made treatable, it would be 
>subsequently selected out of the population, you are again wrong.  

I didn't argue that.  I said, in response to your claim about "millions",
that the numbers would be reduced.

>The 
>problem with your argument is that there were millions of years for this 
>to happen before 1922, and yet these "bad" genes survived.
>
>>mh>Of course, the final proof that these extracts were effective in 
>>>treating *human* diabetes came after human trials.
>>
>>It was not the *FINAL* proof.  It was *THE* proof.
>
>I will not waste time arguing semantics.

This is not semantics.  Your statement that it was the *final* proof
suggested to me that there were *earlier* proofs.  If that was your
implication, then I wanted to go on record as disputing it.

>You and others have failed to provide a reasonable scenario wherein 
>Collip could have extracted insulin from pancreas (human or otherwise) 
>without the prior knowledge obtained with dogs. 

Reasonable scenario:

  1. Autopsies show a link between damaged pancreas and diabetes mellitus.
  2. Scientists formulate a testable hypothesis that there exists a
     substance in the pancreas which controls the level of sugar in the blood.
  3. Researchers acquire pancreas (from humans or other already dead
     animals).
  4. Biochemists (like Collip) isolate and purify various extracts from
     these pancreata.
  5. Clinical researchers try various extracts on humans until finding
     one that works.

This is essentially what happened, except that you would interject between
3 and 4 this step:

  3b. Researchers try various extracts on depancreatized dogs.

But Banting's dog results were sufficiently unclear that McLeod resisted
even authorizing use of the Banting/Best extract on humans until pressure
from Banting caused McLeod to relent.  Then the Banting/Best extract was
tested on Leonard Thompson, a 14 year old boy.  Even though Thompson
was very sick, the injections were not seen as useful enough to
continue.  In Collip's words, the extract was "absolutely useless for
continued administration to the human subject."

This is not to ignore the dedication or efforts of Banting.  I could
readily identify with him after reading about how he stumbled onto a
pertinent article in a clinical journal and then spent a sleepless night
thinking about how he would like "to get out of debt and away from worry"
(see Reines, quoting: Bantin, E. "The Story of Insulin." Unpublished
manuscript, Banting Papers, University of Toronto).  

But I'm questioning the historical accuracy of the claim that his dog
experiments were the critical event without which insulin would have
gone undiscovered for any length of time, thus causing "millions" (your
word) of humans to die.  By saying this, I think you've underestimated
(some would say insulted) the intelligence and ingenuity of generations
of scientists

>>mh>Until the recent introduction of recombinant human insulin, the only 
>>>source for Insulin to treat diabetics was that obtained from animals 
>at 
>>>the slaughterhouse.  I seriously doubt your suggestion that insulin 
>>>could be effectively isolated obtained from human cadavers.  It 
>degrades 
>>>fairly rapidly postmortem, and the amount of available material would 
>be 
>>>too limited.
>>
>>It wasn't my suggestion but it does further reinforce the case that
>>nonhuman animals were not needed to discover and purify insulin.  And
>>the fact that pancreatic extracts were readily available from
>>slaughterhouses does not support the case for animal research. 
>
>Why not?  Medical research using animal sometimes takes place in the 
>lab.  Sometimes it takes place at the research farm.  Sometimes 
>materials are gathered in the abattoir, and returned to the lab.  Why 
>would the *location* of animals used for medical research matter?

If an animal dies or is killed for a non-research purpose (i.e.  food,
self-defense, accident, roadkill etc.) and you procure some materials
and use these materials in your lab, then I don't regard it as an animal
experiment because you're not doing something to, on, or with live
animals at that stage.  You're not directly engaged in the types of
activities where the ethics of our treatment of sentient creatures is
relevant.  If my definition is too restricted here, then maybe we need
another term to clarify this distinction. 

>>[...]
>>Not really.  Animals were not needed in the development of a treatment
>>for diabetes.  This is not in doubt.  The critical steps were: (1) the
>>discovery of a link between the pancreas and diabetes which derived 
>from
>>human autopsies;
>
>Again, the clinical observations provided only an associative link.  
>Animals were required to demonstrate that extracts of pancreas could be 
>used to keep depancreatized animals alive indefinitely, and thus save 
>lives rather than simply prolong death.

The clinical observations provided sufficient information to form a
testable hypothesis which could be checked out and, in fact, were
checked out on humans.  Banting's extract, as I said above, was 
discontinued after being tried on a human.

>>(2) Collip's technique for extracting insulin from
>>pancreas which did not require animals; and
>
>Wrong.  By your own admission, he used animal pancreata, and not human 
>pancreata.  You have failed to demonstrate how anyone could have 
>obtained sufficient quantities of fresh human pancreata to perform such 
>an extraction.

I've said that Collip USED animal pancreata.  I didn't say that he had
to.  I see no reason why his needs couldn't have been met by organ
donations from humans.  He was, after all, working in Toronto - even
then a decent sized city with a number of hospitals.  What sufficient
quantities are you claiming would not be available?

But this is still just a side issue, because even if sufficient human
pancreata were unavailable, the fact is that no animals had to die
specifically for his work. 

Why do I keep getting the impression that some researchers (and certain
other people too) seem so eager to propose killing as a solution
whenever human/animal interface problems and conflicts arise?  

>
>>(3) the testing of various
>>pancreatic extracts on humans.  The weak counter-claim which could be
>>made is that insulin as a slaughterhouse by-product from animals was
>>needed to provide the quantities required, after the discovery was 
>made,
>>to treat the numbers of diabetics.  Whether or not this is true, it 
>does
>>not make the case for animal research.
>
>It depends on what you call animal research.  Few would accept your 
>stringent requirement that "research" must be conducted in a "lab."

I didn't say that research had to conducted in a "lab."  I'm saying
that the taking of material, which Collip needed, at the slaughterhouse
was not research.  Killing animals for food at a slaughterhouse and then
marketing some of the by-products is not research.

>>[...]
>>The dog experiments, which were entirely inspired by clinical
>>observations, mainly served to convince skeptics that insulin existed. 
>>By using dogs, these experiments "proved" for humans what was already
>>known (from human studies) to those held captive by Koch's postulates,
>>which had taught that clinical observations had to be "proved" by
>>experiments on animals. 
>
>This is the second most ridiculous paragraph I have ever read.  The 
>clinical observations convinced no one that "insulin existed."  The 
>clinical observations suggested an association between diabetes and the 
>pancreas, but gave *no* indication that an extract of pancreas could 
>save lives. 

Let me guess: the first most ridiculous paragraph was the one where
you claimed there was a "cure" for diabetes?

Okay, I'll admit to a somewhat gratuitous slap at Koch's postulates, which
allows you to change the subject to Koch below.  But an unfortunate
consequence of Koch's ideas is that there arose among some researchers an
excessive skepticism about clinical data to the point where, here in the
latter 20th century, we could observe researchers denying, in the face
of clinical evidence, that thalidomide was causing birth defects in
humans because these birth defects had not been reproducible in animals. 
It was as though an animal model were better than a real human in
teaching us about humans! 

>The Toronto dog experiments demonstrated for the first time (after many 
>unsuccessful tries by others) that symptoms of diabetes could be 
>reversed by administration of a pancreatic extract, and that a 
>depancreatized dog could be kept alive *indefinitely* using pancreatic 
>extracts.  Prior to that, there was *NO* indication that an unidentified 
>life-saving substance was contained in extracts of pancreas.  

This paragraph sums up the heart of your case.  Yet these results were
not seen by McLeod as promising enough to prod him into immediate human
trials; it took determined pressure from Banting before McLeod relented
and allowed Banting's extract to be tried on a human. 

>You are also way off-base with respect to Koch.  Where do you guys get 
>this stuff? Certainly not from a peer-reviewed journal! Koch's 
>postulates did not teach that clinical observations _per se_ had to be 
>"proven" using animals.  His work, using guinea pigs, unequivocally 
>demonstrated for the first time that microbes cause disease.  

Koch's third postulate taught that the proof of establishing a disease's
cause involved reproducing the disease in a lab animal.  Although the
postulates were addressing disease-causing microbes, the principle
was established of confirming clinical results using animals.

[... deleted stuff about Koch, which belongs in another thread ...]

[...] 
>>Yes, we can only conjecture, but a strong case can be made that Ted and 
>>ted are correct.  See Brandon Reines' short account, THE TRUTH BEHIND 
>>THE DISCOVERY OF INSULIN, or, better, a key source of his, THE DISCOVERY 
>>OF INSULIN by Michael Bliss (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 
>>1982).  Bliss is a historian writing about the discovery of insulin.  
>>He is not an AR person.  
>
>Do these references suggest, as you do, that insulin could have been 
>discovered without the use of animals? 

The first one suggests that.  The second one was intended to be a
general updated history and does not address the issue head on.  But
Bliss, quoted by Reines, wrote: "A not uncommon layman's view of the
discovery holds that without the Toronto work the world might still be
without insulin.  This is unlikely.  The internal secretion of the
pancreas had been "discovered" theoretically back in 1889; its practical
isolation and therapeutic use was only a matter of time, determination,
ingenuity, technical skill, and resources...." The only experiments that
impressed Bliss were those by Von Mering and Minkowski (1889) and the
same information produced by their experiments was available from human
autopsies. 

>A conference held in Israel celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 
>discovery of Insulin (Israeli Journal of Medical Science 8(3):467-494; 
>1972).  Anyone who reads this account will discover that there is 
>controversy regarding the Nobel committee's decision to award the Nobel 
>to Banting & McLeod rather that Banting, Best, Collip and MacLeod.  
>There is, however, no controversy among leading diabetes researchers as 
>to the essential role of animals in past, present and future research 
>concerning diabetes.  
>
>>If these 55 examples are as shakey as the claim for insulin, then they 
>>will not make a case for animal research.  Unfortunately, they're less 
>>famous and therefore probably less well studied and documented by a 
>>trained and competent historian.  
>
>The authors of the references I gave in my last post are trained and 
>competent historians.  If you would care to look at these or the primary 
>literature, you might see whose claim is shaky.  

Thanks for the references.  I'll try to get a hold of them, but I don't
have easy access to a good library right now.

>>Also the fact that animals are used in a valuable and well-publicized 
>>experiment in no way demonstrates or proves the nonexistence of other 
>>paths to the same knowledge.  
>
>Yes, there are an infinite number of paths to knowledge, but the ones 
>that really count are the ones that are timely.  I, for one, am not 
>willing to sit around and wait for someone to solve today's medical 
>challenges without using non-human animals.  

If you're that impatient, experiments on incompetent humans are likely
to get you even faster results. 

-- 
>mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu                          Society for Neuroscience 
>Martin G.  Hulsey                                 National Rifle Association 
>Dept. Foods & Nutrition          Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior 
>University of Ga.        North American Association for the Study of Obesity

---
Robert Black 
black@serum.kodak.com  - The ONLY email address that MIGHT work.
These views are not necessarily the views of my employers.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals