Dye Used In Blue M&Ms Can Lessen Spinal Injury

SydShamino writes "Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that the dye used in blue M&Ms and other foods can, when given intravenously to a lab rat shortly after a spinal injury, minimize secondary damage caused by the body when it kills off nearby healthy cells. The dye is called BBG or Brilliant Blue G. Given that 85% of spinal injury patients are currently untreated (and some doctors don't trust the treatment given to the other 15%), a relatively safe treatment like this could help preserve some function for thousands of patients. The best part is that in lab rats the subjects given the treatment turn blue." The researchers are "pulling together an application to be lodged with the FDA to stage the first clinical trials of BBG on human patients."

Comments

Sound Methods?

[eldavojohn]

"... so every year we have a bring-your-child-to-work day where we inject some M&M dye into the lab rats and let the kids play with them. And Gunderson's kid has this nasty tendency to just baseball them into the wall and, well, we noticed the blue colored mice were recovering much better from the wall impact injuries ..."

Seriously though is there like a lab out there giving rats spinal injuries and jacking them full of chemicals? Cause if there is, I've got my resume handy!

Re:Sound Methods?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The funny thing is, if you want to poison a rat for scientific reasons, or (as in this case) break a rat's spine for scientific reasons, there are all sorts of rules to be followed, standards to be upheld, forms to be filed, etc.

If you just have rats in your house/warehouse/store/(or heck, even your lab, as long as they aren't lab rats) you can put out backbreaking traps, glue traps that cause slow death by dehydration, warfarin baits, whatever you want and nobody will say a thing. No standards, just the maintanence guy hittin' em with a shovel if they are twitching too much for the garbage.

Same thing in other areas: You don't need to deal with an IRB to raise feedlot pigs. And, for human testing, you (ostensibly at any rate) need informed consent, and various safeguards, IRB oversight, etc. If you need to spray your nerve toxin/probable human carcinogen on your crops, you just hire some undocumented mexican for $3.50 an hour, and throw him away if he breaks...

I'm not arguing that science needs less scrutiny(unethical conduct is always bad, and "trust us, its for the greater good" doesn't have an especially noble history; but I do think that science draws flack well out of proportion to its relative ethical risk, for reasons I don't fully understand. Numerous fields of human endeavor kill, maim, or cripple far more animals and humans, to far less benefit, than science, and somehow get away with less scrutiny and opposition. Why is science the target?

Re:Sound Methods?

[interkin3tic]

Why? Are rats less deserving of our sympathies than "intelligent" humans?

Yes.

Wouldn't it be /more/ humane to test on those creatures that can give informed consent?

No.

Re:Sound Methods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of those procedures are less about caring for the rats and more about proper bookkeeping, budgeting, specimen tracking, etc. It's procedural controls to keep it science instead of just injecting rats with food coloring.

As to why science is the target: probably because it's so procedural, and done for reasons many people can't understand properly or deem to be wasteful. A dozen rabbits getting maimed in a wheat thresher is just an unfortunate side effect of your vegan diet; a dozen rabbits getting experimented on for a reason you don't understand is torture and unethical, even if it may alleviate pain and suffering for untold numbers of fellow humans.
=Smidge=

Blue Rat Group

[HTH NE1]

The best part is that in lab rats the subjects given the treatment turn blue.

Do they also start taking part in voiceless percussion stage performances?

Re:Mobsters, the new clinical trialists.

[VxMorpheusxV]

That is the nature of research with animals. There is regulation (here in the U.S) that attempts to minimize pain when possible and guidelines that must be followed to acquire animals for research, but there has been substantial progress made through animal research. If you've got a viable alternative I'm sure it would be considered. Take a look at the wiki page for more info.

Re:Blue Eyes? Blue Vision?

[Anonymous Coward]

The spice must flow!?

So conflicted

[symbolset]

Are these humans lawyers, music industry executives, or Microsoft programmers? Context is key.