Cattle feed lot practices concern me greatly because of the number of feed lots in my general area (southern NM/west TX). Fortunately since I live at high altitude, I'm probably not sharing the same aquifers that they're contaminating.
If they are contaminating local aquifers, the EPA should be all over them with lawsuits and revoking various operating licenses. I'm not sure what the state guidelines are, but the federal ones are pretty harsh on agriculture when they are identified as a source of significant pollution.
Your case is very unique. The doses you take would be considered excessive if I were to take them, but in your case it is appropriate because otherwise there is a good chance you'd get incredibly sick or possibly die. Primary immunodeficiency is said to occur in 103/1 million people. Any change in the prescribing of antibiotics would be focused on the other +900k people that can often recover on their own without antibiotics in less time than the full prescription is supposed to be taken for.
Methicillin still kills lots of bugs. It cannot be used against certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus , but it still works against a lot of other bugs, including the majority of Staphylococcus aureus strains. Therefore the drug is still useful, but only in fewer cases. Those who's lives are saved by Methicillin because the staph infection they have is not MRSA would probably disagree with you that MRSA has rendered Methicillin "Useless".
There have always been antibiotics that are ineffective against certain infections. That's because the protein or pathway that is interrupted by an antibiotic may not be present in all bacterial species. If the antibiotic affects the formation of the cell wall, it will be ineffective against bacteria that don't have a cell wall, or use different proteins to make it. That doesn't make the antibiotic "Useless" just a poor choice when fighting that particular bacterium. That is part of the reason we've spent so much time and energy on developing novel antibiotics. No single antibiotic kills all bacteria, so we target specific infections with specific antibiotics. Even so-call broad-spectrum antibiotics were never believed to affect all bacteria
In the absense of antibiotics, selection pressure to remove the resistance will vary greatly by the resistance mechanism.
It appears as though the pressure to remove a resistance gene from the genome, or select in favor of bacteria lacking the gene is negligible. Here is a good example of why.
Normal water is full of all sorts of man-made junk. You can find MBTE, birth control drugs, cocaine, and antibiotics. It's everywhere.
Then there exposure is still the baseline to which everything else is compared. If the resistance gene prevalence is being maintained by the levels of unavoidable antibiotic exposure, then it still shows that EU style ban is pointless.
If we cannot prevent them from any exposure, and the minimum level of exposure still maintains resistance gene abundance at similar levels to when antibiotics were being routinely administered, then what exactly is the ban achieving?
More often than not these resistance genes are switched off and stay off.
I've seen no evidence of this. I know that this was the generally accepted theory when I was an undergrad, and was the basis for the EU ban. The current observations suggest that this is the case and observations trump theory any day. Here is an example as to why these genes don't go a way
one more useless antibiotic if its used carelessly
I know of no antibiotic that has been rendered "Useless" by increased resistance gene abundance. the first and probably most abused antibiotic, penicillin is still routinely used despite resistance being reported almost immediately after it was discovered. Their reliability may be decreased against specific strains, but just like resistance will always develop, there will always be susceptible strains if penicillin is any indicator.
You're implying that people wouldn't get the antibiotics. I certainly don't mean that, unless somebody refuses to go into biohazard containment.
Do you have any idea how much biohazard containment costs?? This would price antibiotics out of the range of just about everyone. I stand by my assertion, this would be moronic and lead to increased fatalities.
also you either missed or didn't understand the last line "baring any serious developments in the mean time." Doctors would obviously have the authority to decide that this case was an exception and deserved antibiotics immediately. It's just that they shouldn't be prescribing them like candy. I can go to the doctor right now and get antibiotics without any attempt being made to verify that my infection is even bacterial in nature (antibiotics are useless against viral infections). How about making verification that they'd be useful a requirement (again leaving the option to make an exception based on the specifics of the situation).
The antibiotic doses used in livestock for growth-promotion/prophylaxis, as opposed to actual disease combat (which is exempted from the ban) is orders of magnitude smaller per animal. The net result of the EU ban has been a increase in total tonnage of antibiotics used by the industry each year. This is because there is a dramatic increase in the need to fight full blown infections that are life threatening to the animals. The antibiotics used for prophylaxis and those used to fight infection are different, with the later being MORE SIMILAR to those used in human medicine.
Look at it this way, the infection fighting doses of antibiotic X are similar on a weight basis (mg drug/kg body weight) between pigs and humans. Dosing humans will apply the exact same selective pressure on microbial population in both species, but in pigs any resistance that develops still needs to make the jump to a human, survive human foregut digestion, and either out-compete the resident microbiota in the human (who are better adapted) or transfer those genes to one of the microbiota that are already resident before it dies. For the resistance that develops inside a human on its own, all it needs to is stay where it is and it's achieved the same result with out needing to survive gastric digestion, or a hostile intestinal environment for which is it is less well suited.
As for the collection of FUD in you last paragraph.
1. You cannot "maximize animal weight" without maximizing animal health. Any nutrients used to fight infections will by definition be denied to the growing muscle tissue. There is a limit to how much nutrition an animal can absorb and use, and the gut and it's associated immune tissues get first use of anything absorbed (protein, energy, minerals, water, etc.)
2. Crowding and stress will decrease animal growth performance, thus increasing days to market, total feed costs, facilities required, and decreasing or eliminating any profit. Therefore producers do what they can to minimize crowding and stress for financially sound reasons. Pigs are not humans. They like to pile on top of each other as long as it's not too hot. It is not unusual to see most of the pigs in a pen lying down next to each other in a row and 75% of the floorspace unoccupied because of their desire for physical contact with their peers.
3. Free range animals are more expensive, in part due to the increased costs of production arising from the extra square footage per animal, that is true. But there is also the issue that these animals grow slower. They grow slower because they are exposed to MORE stress than their conventionally raised peers. They are exposed to temperature stresses that their peers don't face. That means they have to spend energy either conserving/generating, or dissipating heat.
4. As anyone who's ever gotten a cold in the winter can attest, these types of temperature fluctuations can increase the chances of getting an infection which even more stressful. Therefore these animals are actually less healthy than their peers. it's arguable that they are Happier. However, it is also arguable that being healthier would also make them happier, but the science has yet to come back on that yet and unlike many I'm waiting for the science.
5. You are free to believe that making animals more likely to get experience heat and cold stress and thus get sick is more humane than shielding them from the elements and preventing illness. Since the science isn't back yet on that issue, you are free to your opinion, I just don't buy it.
6. You do realize that much of the difference in price is not going to the farmer, but to paying someone to keep up with the higher documentation requirement, and the increased input costs including feed. The reasoning goes like this: a) increased stresses lead to decrease weight gain/d. b) decreased performance means more time required to reach market weight, as slaughter houses have minimum weight requirements so tha
antibiotics are derived in large part from microbial species. That means that even when you are not consuming antibiotics, small quantities of natural antibiotics are probably being produced in your intestine by one of the resident populations to defend against being squeezed out by a different microbial population.
Antibiotic resistance genes are not the evolutionary dead weight that you seem to believe they are. There is a swine herd in the US that hasn't had any exposure to antibiotics for over 50 years. They've been maintained as a source of control animals for studies into this area. The abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in the microbiota of that herd have not changed appreciably in the generations that have elapsed since they were last exposed to antibiotics. If antibiotics ceased to exist TODAY, those genes would still exists centuries from now and the evidence suggests that their abundance wouldn't change appreciably during that time. The current theory to explain this observation that contradicts our expectations is that these genes have beneficial properties outside of their antibiotic resistance.
Many of these genes are not even activated unless they are needed, kind of like heat-shock proteins. Others are believed to simply be slightly altered versions of genes already present for synthesizing which ever protein the antibiotic was targeting. In these cases the new gene (resistant) simply replaces the older gene (susceptible) thus resulting in a one-for-one replacement of a single required gene. That gene is unlikely to ever be lost because it's absence would be fatal, and unless it is more biologically expensive to produce it will not confer any sort of disadvantage by its presence.
I mentioned the transmission of antibiotic resistance genes between livestock species and their animals. This one of the possible vectors. However, I also indicated that lateral transmission between humans is far more likely than transmission between livestock species and humans. The bacterial strains that can thrive in the intestines of pigs for example are very different from those that thrive in the intestines of humans. Human bacterial populations are primarily lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. These are the cultures that can be boosted by eating yogurt as the active cultures in yogurt act as a probiotic. However, feeding yogurt or any probiotic to pigs results in only temporary increases in the bacteria of interest. After stopping probiotic feeding, the bacterial flora return to normal in pigs.
Once resistance appears in humans, having a bit of antibiotic in the food supply provides the selection advantage needed to make the resistant strain common.
Did you bother reading what I wrote in its entirety? I said that antibiotics in livestock decrease the time it takes for the resistance genes to appear and get into the human population. It's the widespread abuse of antibiotics in HUMANS that maintain the selective pressure on HUMAN colonizing microbiota to retain the resistance genes. In fact, it turns out that resistance genes are not the dead weight they were thought to be in the absence of selective pressures. The theory behind the ban was that removal of selective pressure would make MRSA-like bugs less competitive against the Antibiotic-succeptible bugs. However, that has not proven to be the case. Empirical data shows that resistance gene prevalence has not changed in populations that have been denied antibiotics for over 50 years (a test herd here in the US from way before the EU ban). They even have resistance genes for antibiotics that didn't exist before the ban began. That's either because the resistance genes already existed (very likely) or they were transferred from the HUMAN handlers to the pigs.
Banning antibiotics for anything other than a full biohazard situation is moronic at best. Antibiotics save lives every year in cases that are far less serious than that, and I for one don't want those deaths on my conscience. However, that doesn't mean that we can't improve things by making it a general rule that otherwise healthy individuals have to wait at least a week before they will be given antibiotics for their infection, baring any serious developments in the mean time.
As someone pointed out below, antibiotics are derived largely from other microbial species. These compounds have existed for thousands of years, and it is very likely that the resistance genes have existed for a similar length of time. Resistance to penicillin was reported within 25 years of the drug being discovered. The level of penicillin resistance eventually rose to its current plateau and hasn't really changed much. The drug is still effective in most cases and I don't see that banning its use as anything other than psychological masturbation. It'll make some of us feel better, but no meaningful benefit will come from it.
While your understanding is partially correct, you conclusion (which is common) is fundamentally flawed.
Modeling shows that use of antibiotics in livestock at worst will decrease the amount of time it takes for a resistance gene to appear by 2 to 5 years (they will appear anyway, it's just a matter of time). Whether the appearance is either as a result of a novel mutation or of selective pressure in favor of a previously existing gene is immaterial (although the later is more likely). Once the gene appears and enters the human population (transfer to the human population is slow are rare, because the species that can set up permanent or semi-permanent populations within the intestines of human and swine are surprisingly different) the rate of transfer between humans is no different than if the gene originated in humans. It's not the existence of MRSA that is the problem per se, but the occurrence of MRSA in immune compromised populations like the elderly, who spend a lot of time in hospitals where MRSA is almost ubiquitous. MRSA poses little risk to a healthy adult.
It is the excessive use of antibiotics by human medical professionals that have turned hospitals into islands of MRSA. And it is the usual lack of generally good hygiene that results in MRSA spread between individuals outside of the hospital. The best suggestions I've seen for guidelines are to ban the use of New classes of antibiotics in animals until we start finding bacterial strains that are resistant in humans. By that point the horse will already be out of the barn and use in animals will cause no further risk to humans. However, the last draft I saw of the regulations proposed by the FDA was to let antibiotics be used in animals UNTIL the appearance of resistant bacteria, and then a complete ban (around 2004). I don't know if the FDA's guidelines have been revised, but I do know that there are several Democratic Representatives that keep trying to slip an EU style ban into unrelated bills as a rider.
Eliminating the use of antibiotics in livestock for which resistance genes are already common is pointless. The genes are already in the human population and a ban does nothing to stop their existence or spread. All you do in that case is increase the production costs of animal agriculture by increasing weaning mortality, days-to-market, feed costs, management costs, etc. This has been shown to be true in the EU. No reductions have been see in resistance gene prevalence in livestock, their handlers, or the general population as a result of the ban, and despite 2-3 years with similar performance to that pre-ban, all of the production criteria I mentioned have experienced a decrease since then. A lot of money is being spent trying to find alternative to antibiotics, but nothing has come close to matching it and that money could be better spent on finding new antibiotics or in some other area of research.
Please do explain to me what you mean by "anti-vaccine lobbies." A lobby or lobbyist is a representative of a monied interest. What monied interest out there profits from NOT selling something? Because the anti-vaccine idea is all about not purchasing vaccines. Please tell me who these lobbyists are.
I'm not the OP, but I can probably answer that question for you. There are several "Anti-vaccine" groups that have a lot of money and could be considered "Lobbyists".
1. The well meaning, but ultimately wrong, "Vaccines cause Autism" group. I don't know that they actually have a formal lobbying group, but they are numerous, vocal, and have several politicians at least paying lip service to them.
2. The "Anti-modern Medicine" folk. They are a sub set of the "Anti-modern Science" population that don't trust what they don't understand and have made an emotional (thus irrefutable) decision to go back to old style medicine. That old medicines either didn't work, or worked becuase of chemical compounds that are the basis of many "Modern" drugs is a fact lost on them based on the origin of their decision (Emotion vs. Reason).
There is a lot of overlap between the groups, and collectively there is a lot of money involved. Many of those that vocally espouse either view point are not actually believers, but cynical con-men who are selling all of their dupes vials of distilled water and passing it off as a better "Safer" alternative.
I'm not saying I disagree that the case for Swine-Flu was overblown. I go the vaccine, but only because I have a 4month old at home, who's immune system isn't developed enough to handle any flu (I got the seasonal flu vaccine as well). However, before this year I'd never gotten a flu vaccine, and I've seen some pretty convincing explanations on why we shouldn't bother giving it to the elderly, the group that everyone says needs it most (Hint: rates of flu fatalities in the elderly have not changed since before the existance of the flu vaccine).
More on what the OP said. Vaccines and antibiotics are different. Vaccines exercise the immune system while minimizing the risk of severe problems, whereas antibiotics fight infection on behalf of the immune system potentially reducing the immune systems effectiveness on repeat challenge in the future. I've been of the opinion that antibiotics are abused by human medicine, and the cause of MSRA like "Super-Bugs" and not any of the usual scape goats. However, I have to admit that I'm involved in animal agriculture and understand why and when antibiotics are fed to animals, one of the popular whipping boys in the EU and increasingly in the US.
[Soapbox]That direct administration of antibiotics in a reckless manner to humans cuts out several degrees of separation between potential antibiotic resistance gene appearance, and the human population seems to be lost on anyone involved in policy. That the complete ban of antibiotic use in animal agriculture in the EU almost a decade ago hasn't resulted in any changes in the prevalence of antibiotic resistance gene prevalance or rate of spread in either the livestock or human populations is very telling, but being ignored for the most part by the legislator both in the EU (who'd have to admit they were wrong in order to reverse there knee-jerk decision) and to a lesser extent the US (who are simply ignoring the science so that they can jump on the bandwaggon being driven by the EU). Hopefully they'll see this as further confirmation that HUMAN use of antibiotics like candy is the primary problem and legislate accordingly, but I doubt it.[/soapbox]
I didn't miss your point, I just didn't see it as being all that strong of one. I did address why we don't use the disabled, although I did go a little wide afield in my response. I was not trying to attack you per se, but I've seen that argument raised more times than I can count, and you don't need moral reasons to refute it. I admit I may have projected some of my frustration with the annoying frequency with which that particular pseudo argument is used onto you.
We are indeed a very diverse species, but any research that did not take that into account would be terrible research to begin with, and (perhaps due to my own ignorance) I struggle to believe that there are fewer differences between a rat and the average human than there are between two humans.
No one believes that data from mice or rats is directly applicable to humans. However, you are far more likely to detect subtle effects if the differences between the individuals in your sample group are minimal. Lower vertebrates such as mice and rats are more uniform in genotype and phenotype and are used in the early stages of scientific discovery for this reason. Once an effect has been reliably observed, characterized, and understood, then we can proceed to other, more human like animal models. Ultimately though, all new treatments and procedures need to be evaluated in humans before final approval, so we do experiment with humans. We just don't do discovery type work with humans.
Even discarding the moral problems, the genetic and phenotypic diversity would cause us to find a higher proportion of false positives and false negatives, thus wasting time, energy, resources, etc. There is also the issue of generation interval. You can run dozens of studies in a short period of time using mice and rats due to their accelerated (by comparison to humans) life cycle. Or, you can run multigenerational longitudinal studies in several months instead of over 60 to 100 years. Another advantage is the litter size. You can get 6 to 12 pups per litter (depending on the line), which allows for rapid population expansion when you discover or create a new genotype of interest. All of these are advantages over working with humans that ignore both the genetic and moral arguments.
we share a world with some incredibly cruel and/or self-centred individuals, but regardless I feel that the pain that would have been experienced is more than what the monkeys ought to be exposed to.
Those working with animals are, in my 10+ years of experience, rarely within that category. Those exceptions either got out of animal work on their own or were forced out by others. I'm an avid animal lover. I wanted to get my DVM originally and that's what got me into the industry I'm in. I grew up in the suburbs with zero exposure to animal agriculture before my junior year of college. Like many, I picked my profession because I like animals and love working with them.
There is a common perception that people who work in agriculture or animal research don't care about the animals they work with, but that is not even remotely the case in my experience. We avoid getting too attached to the animals that will be harvested for meat, or euthanized as part of a study, but we still develop attachments to them all the same.
a handful of primates have been prevented from being exposed to anthrax. That is a benefit of this outcome for those individual. However, the study will be conducted somewhere. The NIH believes that the study is worth conducting, or else they wouldn't have funded it. They'll get their money back from OSU (and probably think 2x about funding them in the future), and then fund the research somewhere else. The same number of primates will be used, and the only difference is which ones.
I'd like to know what you think about the potential human-primate lives that could be saved by the anthrax vaccine if it proves effective? Even if you believe that a Chimp, Monkey and a Human all have equal moral value, at what point do the number of Human lives saved outweigh the lives of the research chimps?? It's a difficult question to answer, and unfortunately "None" is not an acceptable answer. Not because I choose not to accept it, but because there is no way that certain types of research can be done without using an animal model. Without that research, valuable life saving treatments will not be discovered, and dangerous treatments can't be excluded until the human toll is unacceptable.
A prime example of a drug that when straight to humans without animal testing is DES. It was prescribed as a treatment for morning sickness and ended up causing all sorts of problems with the reproductive tracts of the female children who's mothers took the drug. The CDC has a website explaining the problems of a lot of women that stem from inadequate testing of a medication. My mother is a DES Daughter, and my sister has a lot of reproductive problems as a second generation daughter of DES. The CDC page has a series of links for 3rd generation DES daughters as well. How many more will be afflicted before the effect wears itself out is unclear.
Maybe it's because my family is directly affected, but i believe that a couple hundred mice back in the 1940's would have been a small price to pay to prevent the problems that literally thousands of women are now experiencing.
I'm all for the discovering the cognitive abilities of the animals we use, and for determining how these cognitive differences effect their perception and interpretation of the world around them. I spent a year working in a primate behavior lab as an undergraduate and was fascinated by the studies I participated in.
However, if we are deciding to move away from the simple division of Humans vs. All Other Animals, I'd prefer if we waited for the science to come back before deciding where each specie falls on the continuum. That is my major gripe with the animal rights and welfare activists. There is evidence that many of their proposed changes would have no net positive, or that some would end up being counter productive. Some examples are:
1. The transition from low-voltage electrical stunning (Electrocution) to controlled atmospheric stunning (CO2 asphyxiation) in slaughter houses. McDonalds recently completed the largest comparative study to date, and found no benefit the switch, but the activists are pushing for it anyway. (That they didn't even bother scientifically evaluating the 2 different procedures before picking one is unfortunately common)
2. The push to eliminate the use of individual sow crates in favor of group housing ignores the stresses experienced by subordinate sows in those situations. There are hybrid housing styles that can mitigate those problems, but that research is only being done now. In the mean time, producers are having to guess and hope for the best, with the subordinate sows having to deal with the consequences of us not getting it right on the first try.
3. Replacement of farrowing crates, which minimize piglet mortality, in favor of letting the sows build nests in open floor pens. Who's suffering is worse, the sow in the crate for a month, or the piglets that get crushed when the sow lays or rolls on top of them? I have my opinion, but it's only that. We don't yet have a commonly accepted, quantifiable definition for individual suffering of pigs, never mind a rubric for comparing individual suffering against the suffering of multiple individuals.
Ultimately, the work necessary to decide this situation is not being done until after the activists have chosen a side. That makes any meaningful progress difficult at best. If you actually talk with an animal scientist or farmer, you'll find an almost universal respect for the animals they work with and an interest in maintaining high levels of animal welfare (at least I have in my 10 years as an animal scientist).
It's a polemic argument, but it still has some merit. Humans kill humans all the time in war, death row, murder, starvation, etc. What makes animals deserving of better treatment than humans?
I realize that most people try to minimize the amount of human death they cause or experience, but it does happen. In the absence of human existence, all of the animal species we use would exist in much smaller numbers and would, IMO, experience far more suffering in their lives than we cause. Extreme heat or cold, inadequate access to food, predation, rain, drought, disease, social hostility, etc. are all things that wild animals have to deal with, and which are controlled to the extent possible by those caring for research, production, or companion animals.
Animal Agriculture and Research provide as close to optimal care as possible for their animals unless, as in the Anthrax study, the impairment of welfare is required as part of the study. In such cases, a small forest worth of paperwork is required documenting that every piece of evidence currently available demonstrates that this study is necessary. Cell culture work, electron microscopy, small animal trials, histology, etc. are all conducted before moving into primate research.
In order to get approval and funding for the Anthrax study, the researchers need to convince 2 Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (OSU's and NIH's) that the research was justified, and that the suffering of the animals would be minimized. The requirement to euthanize the animals is probably a requirement of one or the other of those committees. Purdue's IACUC committee allows animals to be returned to their general populations as long as they don't pose a disease threat to their companions. That may be why these animals are to be euthanized, to protect the primates not being used for the study (including humans) from accidental infection.
OSU's president overstepped the bounds of appropriate response because he decided, unilaterally that HE (and Mrs. Pickens) knew better than all the individuals involved the the designing and regulatory approval of the study. IACUC's are required by federal law to possess individuals from the community that are not trained animal researchers. That these members of the community decided that the benefits of the research would outweigh the negatives, and that everything necessary would be done to minimize animal suffering is implied by the studies original approval and funding. I place much more faith in the IACUC committee than in a single individual who likely has no animal research experience, and was not involved in the deliberations preceding the studies funding.
What if the shoe was on the other foot. What if an IACUC decided that a study was not providing adequate care to the animals, but he decided to over-rule them to appease a large industry donor with a vested interest in the outcome of the research? If you believe that he as the authority and knowledge necessary to over-rule the committee's in one way, do you also believe that he has the same authority and knowledge necessary to over-rule them in the other direction?
I do care if non-human animals suffer. However, the goal is not to eliminate all suffering (I don't know about you, but I've experienced a lot of suffering in my 30 years of life and I'd prefer the isolated suffering to nonexistance), but to minimize it such that the animal experiences a net positive for having lived.
In order to do that we need to know what the animal considers suffering. There is plenty of evidence that things that would cause suffering in humans would not cause suffering in animals. Our preferences for environmental conditions are based on our biology and culture, which are very different in many respects from that of the animals we use. I'm all for determining how to maximize animal welfare and then setting in place guidelines to maintain that high plane of welfare. However, we need to make sure that the guidelines are based on the animals welfare needs and not on our anthropomorphic view of what we believe that we would need if we were in the animals conditions.
A good example is the debate surrounding the confinement of sows during gestation. The animal rights groups are pushing to ban their use in every state. They believe that the animals deserve the right to move around and interact with each other. However, they aren't waiting for the science to determine what the optimal replacement system is. Sows are greedy and aggressive. Dominant sows (usually older and thus bigger) will bully the younger sows and end up hogging the feeders and waterers. They'll also harass subordinate sows simply because they can. The subordinate sows can end up experiencing persistent fear of being harassed, pain from confrontations, and reduced access to feed and water. There are pen design situations that can mitigate these problems, and that research is ongoing here at Purdue. However, the legislation is not waiting for the science and the activists are getting people to potentially decrease the welfare of sows using the emotional argument "would you like to spend all day inside the voting booth?" That animals frequently find confinement comforting similarly to swaddled newborns is completely ignored.
As an animal scientist and researcher, I have to disagree with you and Singer there.
Animal Liberation was written and published in the late 70's (before I was born). The worlds of animal agriculture and research have changed dramatically in the time that has elapsed since it's first publication. Studies are not repeated "over and over" nor do they "make no sense", and I don't know that they ever were. If you don't believe that those working with animals in research actually care about animals, just think of the financial issues. Research costs money! Why would I spend my limited R&D budget on running needless tests when I could be spending the money on testing a novel hypothesis or developing a new technology? It's a prime example of FUD, and I'm surprised how many/.ers believe it unquestioningly.
They're repeated over and over, and often make no sense. People either don't look for published papers, or they simply do it for the grants, so that they can continue being researchers.
This also makes no sense.
1. If I needlessly repeat a study that is already present in the literature, I won't be able to get it published. The reviewers will reject my manuscript due to a lack of novelty. I've almost had that happen before because I didn't clearly highlight the novel portion of my research.
2. Similarly, if I fail to discuss relevant research already present in the literature, I face having my manuscript rejected.
3. Granting agencies require extensive justification and literature review before they are willing to consider funding your research proposal. Furthermore, they circulate proposals to committees of individuals familiar with the literature on your topic who will judge whether your research is important, if your design actually answers the questions you are trying to answer, and your own qualifications for conducting and interpreting the potential results. If I've got a list of useless citations in low value journals simply repeating research already conducted by others, and my proposal is for more of the same, then I am unlikely to get funding.
4. If I fail to publish enough research in respectable journal (which have more stringent rules for novelty and completeness of literature review) I'll lose my job. So in essence, the situation you are describing is more likely to get me fired than get me tenure or future funding.
I've conducted dozens of animal studies myself during my graduate career, and spend several years working in animal agriculture before that. I know that we do everything we can to minimize the fear and pain of our animals, and it is my experience that this is fairly universal. I don't buy the "Any suffering is too much" argument, simply because of the sheer quantity of suffering I've experienced in my life. I believe that the animals I've used have experienced a net positive in their existence. They've experienced optimal environmental conditions (Temperature, Air flow, Lighting, etc.), no shortage of feed or water, excellent veterinary care when necessary, and minimal pain when euthanasia is necessary. Unless you want to refer to a book as fair minded as Singers and written based on observations within the last 5 years, you are not going to be able to contribute much relevant information to any debate on the topic.
It isn't even the most important, simply the first that comes to mind. I agree that cognitive ability is a poor metric for which to base this kind of differentiation on exclusively. You'll get no argument from me. It used that line more as a segue into my point with regards to the vagaries involved in defining "Morality". Not as an attempt to set the entire range of parameters that should go into determinations of moral value. That's why the sentence begins with "For one thing..." and later I admit that "I don't pretend to have an answer that will address the concerns of all.".
You are correct that my opinion, like most peoples opinions on most topics, is based on a stereotype. However, I am an animal scientist and have a lot of personally convincing anecdotal evidence that the stereotype is largely accurate. I've been involved in more discussions on the topic with fellow ANSCI students and professionals, as well as interested family members, friends, and strangers than I can count. I'm currently finishing my PhD at Purdue University, which is home to one of the largest animal welfare research groups in North America. I don't pretend to be directly involved in their research, but I've seen easily 30 to 40 presentations over the last 8 years given by their graduate students and professors on the topic of animal welfare. I know far more about the science and policy issues regarding animal rights/welfare than most in my field, never mind your average rebellious animal rights activist or Joe the Plumber.
However, I'm not going to debate morality with you. Mostly because it can't be debated. It is far more of an emotional decision than an intellectual one for most people and arguing with emotion is the closest we'll ever get to developing a perpetual motion device. You and I could go around and around forever without changing the others mind.
I will say that the focus on pain and suffering is probably not the most beneficial to the animals themselves. FEAR is much more stressful to animals than pain is. There are a lot of studies demonstrating this (although I admit I don't have any of the citations handy). Life is full of pain to varying degrees. Livestock species would be faced with a lot more fear and pain under "Natural" conditions than they do under commercial agricultural or research conditions unless specific stressors are required for research trials for which they are being used. Animal Care and Use Committees are required to approve all animal research at any institution receiving a single dollar of federal funding (so, all of them). These committees are designed to contain several members of the local community that have not direct education or training with regards to animal research as a sort of check on the "well we've always done it this way" mentality that used to be prevalent. We all complain about the bureaucratic hassles that go along with IACUC approval, but most will freely admit that we're better for their involvement.
However, in the case at hand. An administrator with questionable qualifications decided that they, individually, knew better than all of those directly involved in the design, and approval process. You may approve because he decided to do what you feel to have been the right decision, but what if it had happened the other way. What if he'd decided that a trial that the IACUC board at the University or NIH had turned down was to proceed anyway? I'd much rather trust in the process that we have developed and the people that are familiar with the details, than an administrator trying to appease a rich bitch with too much time and money, and not enough respect for the qualifications of those involved.
They do when you consider that she describes animal perception in terms of her own autism.
She believes that mildly autistic humans and normal animals perceive the world similarly. If you believe that autistic children view, reason and respond to stimuli (be it visual, auditory, emotional, etc.) in the same way that "normal" people do, then you've never actually met an autistic child.
I also didn't make my point clearly. I was referring specifically to her objections to the use of vague and indefinite terminology when setting animal welfare guidelines. I've heard her spend 20min. making the simple point that you need empirical and quantifiable units of measure for defining animal welfare guidelines. That is not always necessary when setting human welfare guidelines, because most people have similar definition of what represents thinks like "Excessive vocalization" in humans, but not in cattle at a slaughterhouse.
It may no be clear from my previous post, but I'm all for defending the highest levels of animal welfare in research and animal production. That does not mean that I believe that my cat deserves the same rights and privileges as my 4 month old daughter. There is a genuine case to be made that animals deserve more consideration than they get, but it has been my experience that the animals being focused on are not the ones that need the attention. Slaughterhouses needed to make changes, and Dr. Grandin did a lot of the leg work to make those changes quantifiably effective. The rest of the animal production system OTOH has only a few areas that deserve further scrutiny IMO. I think more attention should be paid to the welfare harms being perpetrated by well meaning, but uninformed activists.
The Animal Rights movement has a long history of going to far in their Zeal. There was an activist (I believe that it was in the 90's but can't find the news article) that got a job working in a primate research center moping the floors at night. They then incorrectly forced some of the primates into a piece of research equipment so that they could stage a picture. They ended up doing far more harm in order to fake their evidence than the researchers were doing (and were convicted of animal welfare abuses them self). Currently, there is a push to switch from low-voltage electrical stunning to controlled atmospheric stunning (gassing with CO2). I've seen no evidence that suffocating animals over 20-30 seconds causes less stress than electrocution in 3 seconds, and neither has McDonalds. Or their is the proposed ban on leaving horses outside in the winter that my adivsor from UMass ended up having to testify against because keeping horses couped up in a barn during the winter actually increases their risks of upper respiratory infections.
There is a lot we don't know about how much of our own perceptions and "Norms" can be translated directly to animals. Most people who do research with animals, or produce livestock species will readily admit that. However, the activists appear to view their ignorance and lack of actual data as a badge of honor, instead of a disadvantage. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I'd rather take the time to make sure I get on the right road. I hope I'm not the only one.
Because, despite the propaganda you hear to the contrary, a rat != a pig != a dog != A boy. There are important and meaningful differences between each one of those four mammals that makes them unique from each other.
For one thing, only the boy has any chance of understanding such a philosophically complex concept as "Morality". It is an entirely human construct required for civilization to work. That is it entirely subjective and does not possess a single fixed universal rule appears to escape most people becuase so many of the more popular definitions of what is "Moral" are similar. That is becuase, as a result of cultural evolution, selective pressure on societies favor those that define morality to include concepts such as Don't murder, Don't steal, Don't lie, etc.
The moral value of non-human animals is currently being redefined. I'm of the opinion that raising the moral value of animals is based on misplaced belief that without such value, their suffering is guaranteed and a tendancy for humans to anthropomorphise their pets and extend that compassion to other animals. I work with research and production animals. I frequently think of the behaviors I see in terms of human behavior and human emotional responses even though I know that they are wrong. The motivation and perception of a pig is incredibly different from that of a human, even a child at a similar level of intellectual development. The perfect person to readup on to learn about how fundamentally damaging the "anthropomorphic" view is to our understanding of animals is Temple Grandin.
As to your original snarky remark:
why not experiment on the mentally ill, or children born with severe learning disabilities
A. We do if we are trying to learn about the specific conditions that those individuals represent. You learn about Autism by working with autistic children.
B. More in line with what you probably intended to get a response to, Humans of any kind make horrible research subjects. The diversity within human groups, even within specific ethnic groups, is orders of magnitude greater than that between 2 strains of rats. That is why much of our biomedical and nutritional research is piloted in animals and only replicated in humans if it seems like the research is going somewhere.
I realize that you were probably hoping to get into a flame war with someone over your emotional decision to consider the quality of life for a child and a rat to be equivalent, but you won't get one from me. You can make that argument, I just don't buy it.
That you've used such an obvious and flawed comparison leads me to believe that you probably haven't had an original thought on the topic in your life. You're probably just parroting arguments you've seen others use. Saying so may make me look like a Troll, but it needs to be said. This is an issue that most people argue based on an emotional decision to accept a given viewpoint regardless of what any science may have to say on the matter. The vast majority of those posting have probably never spent more than a half an hour actually reasoning out their position.
I don't pretend to have an answer that will address the concerns of all. However, I can state with a high degree of certainty that those monkey's that were going to be used for the Anthrax study were subjected to far less fear and pain in their life than most humans. I've worked with primates (in a behavior lab) and the regulations for working with and caring for them put the laws governing the rearing of human children to shame.
Much of the modern Animal Rights movement is based on a book by Peter Singer. IIRC, there is a line in there in which he indicates that the use of animals for agricultural or research purposes is acceptable as long as their use for that purpose ends up being a net positive for the individuals involved. However, that point seems to be ignored by many who claim to desire animal rights, but have not bothered to do t
They are trying to weasel around the injuction by doing what you describe NOW, but originally they were selling PC's with OSX pre-installed. That means that Pystar was doing the illegal modification and re-distribution. The RebelEFI product they came out with recently is an attempt to shift the burden of legal responsibility to their customers.
The legal status of RebelEFI was not decided explicitly by the courts injunction, but the Judge indicated that he doubted it would be exempt from the degree, and that Pystar proceeded with its sale at its own peril. That is because selling tools to circumvent DRM is as illegal as doing the circumvention yourself. That the RebelEFI is reported by some to be ripped off work from the Hackintosh community just makes Pystar that much more reprehensible IMO. Many can get behind the idea of "Screw the Man", but they appear to be trying to "Screw the Masses" as well.
Ok, you have apparently decided to take some of my comments out of context. I was trying to point out the weakness of an argument that violating the rights of some without telling them is worse than violating the rights of all as long as their is prior disclosure (although not consent).
I don't disagree that there are problems with Gitmo, and that there are probably those wrongly incarcerated. However, the incarceration of enemy combatants, hostile enemy personnel, or what every euphemistic language you prefer for collectively describing people that want to kill Americans, but are not official members of a national military, is necessary.
My double use of the word "Military" was to differentiate the situation from the seizure of civilian personnel during military action (ie the innocent victims), the seizure of military personnel during civilian action (police arresting soldiers at home), and the seizure of civilian personnel by civil action (police arresting normal citizens). Your snide remark is correct though, the inmates were actively engaged in attempts to kill American military personnel and I would define that as "Bad".
The constitution also guarantees it's citizens the right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", but we still have Death Row, Prisons, and the IRS. These inalienable rights can be lost based on our actions, so I fail to see why that would be different for non-citizens. My comments were more along the line of the governments responsibilities with regards to protecting civil rights. Their are first responsible for their own citizens, and then for the citizens of other nations. If citizens of other nations are attempting to violate the rights of US citizens, then it is completely appropriate for the US government to infringe upon the rights of those individuals to defend the rights of its own citizens. (that goes for any government for that matter, not just the US)
NOTE: I at no time intended to defend the use of torture, although after looking back at what I wrote, I can see how you might have gotten that impression.
Wow, apparently I need a nap. Take every instance of the word "Laptop" and replace it with the word "Battery" except for the first one. (I can't believe I made that mistake 2 times in a row)
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Cattle feed lot practices concern me greatly because of the number of feed lots in my general area (southern NM/west TX). Fortunately since I live at high altitude, I'm probably not sharing the same aquifers that they're contaminating.
If they are contaminating local aquifers, the EPA should be all over them with lawsuits and revoking various operating licenses. I'm not sure what the state guidelines are, but the federal ones are pretty harsh on agriculture when they are identified as a source of significant pollution.
Your case is very unique. The doses you take would be considered excessive if I were to take them, but in your case it is appropriate because otherwise there is a good chance you'd get incredibly sick or possibly die. Primary immunodeficiency is said to occur in 103/1 million people. Any change in the prescribing of antibiotics would be focused on the other +900k people that can often recover on their own without antibiotics in less time than the full prescription is supposed to be taken for.
Methicillin still kills lots of bugs. It cannot be used against certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus , but it still works against a lot of other bugs, including the majority of Staphylococcus aureus strains. Therefore the drug is still useful, but only in fewer cases. Those who's lives are saved by Methicillin because the staph infection they have is not MRSA would probably disagree with you that MRSA has rendered Methicillin "Useless".
There have always been antibiotics that are ineffective against certain infections. That's because the protein or pathway that is interrupted by an antibiotic may not be present in all bacterial species. If the antibiotic affects the formation of the cell wall, it will be ineffective against bacteria that don't have a cell wall, or use different proteins to make it. That doesn't make the antibiotic "Useless" just a poor choice when fighting that particular bacterium. That is part of the reason we've spent so much time and energy on developing novel antibiotics. No single antibiotic kills all bacteria, so we target specific infections with specific antibiotics. Even so-call broad-spectrum antibiotics were never believed to affect all bacteria
In the absense of antibiotics, selection pressure to remove the resistance will vary greatly by the resistance mechanism.
It appears as though the pressure to remove a resistance gene from the genome, or select in favor of bacteria lacking the gene is negligible. Here is a good example of why.
Normal water is full of all sorts of man-made junk. You can find MBTE, birth control drugs, cocaine, and antibiotics. It's everywhere.
Then there exposure is still the baseline to which everything else is compared. If the resistance gene prevalence is being maintained by the levels of unavoidable antibiotic exposure, then it still shows that EU style ban is pointless.
If we cannot prevent them from any exposure, and the minimum level of exposure still maintains resistance gene abundance at similar levels to when antibiotics were being routinely administered, then what exactly is the ban achieving?
More often than not these resistance genes are switched off and stay off.
I've seen no evidence of this. I know that this was the generally accepted theory when I was an undergrad, and was the basis for the EU ban. The current observations suggest that this is the case and observations trump theory any day. Here is an example as to why these genes don't go a way
one more useless antibiotic if its used carelessly
I know of no antibiotic that has been rendered "Useless" by increased resistance gene abundance. the first and probably most abused antibiotic, penicillin is still routinely used despite resistance being reported almost immediately after it was discovered. Their reliability may be decreased against specific strains, but just like resistance will always develop, there will always be susceptible strains if penicillin is any indicator.
You're implying that people wouldn't get the antibiotics. I certainly don't mean that, unless somebody refuses to go into biohazard containment.
Do you have any idea how much biohazard containment costs?? This would price antibiotics out of the range of just about everyone. I stand by my assertion, this would be moronic and lead to increased fatalities.
also you either missed or didn't understand the last line "baring any serious developments in the mean time." Doctors would obviously have the authority to decide that this case was an exception and deserved antibiotics immediately. It's just that they shouldn't be prescribing them like candy. I can go to the doctor right now and get antibiotics without any attempt being made to verify that my infection is even bacterial in nature (antibiotics are useless against viral infections). How about making verification that they'd be useful a requirement (again leaving the option to make an exception based on the specifics of the situation).
The antibiotic doses used in livestock for growth-promotion/prophylaxis, as opposed to actual disease combat (which is exempted from the ban) is orders of magnitude smaller per animal. The net result of the EU ban has been a increase in total tonnage of antibiotics used by the industry each year. This is because there is a dramatic increase in the need to fight full blown infections that are life threatening to the animals. The antibiotics used for prophylaxis and those used to fight infection are different, with the later being MORE SIMILAR to those used in human medicine.
Look at it this way, the infection fighting doses of antibiotic X are similar on a weight basis (mg drug/kg body weight) between pigs and humans. Dosing humans will apply the exact same selective pressure on microbial population in both species, but in pigs any resistance that develops still needs to make the jump to a human, survive human foregut digestion, and either out-compete the resident microbiota in the human (who are better adapted) or transfer those genes to one of the microbiota that are already resident before it dies. For the resistance that develops inside a human on its own, all it needs to is stay where it is and it's achieved the same result with out needing to survive gastric digestion, or a hostile intestinal environment for which is it is less well suited.
As for the collection of FUD in you last paragraph.
1. You cannot "maximize animal weight" without maximizing animal health. Any nutrients used to fight infections will by definition be denied to the growing muscle tissue. There is a limit to how much nutrition an animal can absorb and use, and the gut and it's associated immune tissues get first use of anything absorbed (protein, energy, minerals, water, etc.)
2. Crowding and stress will decrease animal growth performance, thus increasing days to market, total feed costs, facilities required, and decreasing or eliminating any profit. Therefore producers do what they can to minimize crowding and stress for financially sound reasons. Pigs are not humans. They like to pile on top of each other as long as it's not too hot. It is not unusual to see most of the pigs in a pen lying down next to each other in a row and 75% of the floorspace unoccupied because of their desire for physical contact with their peers.
3. Free range animals are more expensive, in part due to the increased costs of production arising from the extra square footage per animal, that is true. But there is also the issue that these animals grow slower. They grow slower because they are exposed to MORE stress than their conventionally raised peers. They are exposed to temperature stresses that their peers don't face. That means they have to spend energy either conserving/generating, or dissipating heat.
4. As anyone who's ever gotten a cold in the winter can attest, these types of temperature fluctuations can increase the chances of getting an infection which even more stressful. Therefore these animals are actually less healthy than their peers. it's arguable that they are Happier. However, it is also arguable that being healthier would also make them happier, but the science has yet to come back on that yet and unlike many I'm waiting for the science.
5. You are free to believe that making animals more likely to get experience heat and cold stress and thus get sick is more humane than shielding them from the elements and preventing illness. Since the science isn't back yet on that issue, you are free to your opinion, I just don't buy it.
6. You do realize that much of the difference in price is not going to the farmer, but to paying someone to keep up with the higher documentation requirement, and the increased input costs including feed. The reasoning goes like this: a) increased stresses lead to decrease weight gain/d. b) decreased performance means more time required to reach market weight, as slaughter houses have minimum weight requirements so tha
Do you have any data to back up that claim, or are you simply stating an opinion based on your faith in the scientific knowledge of the EU regulators?
antibiotics are derived in large part from microbial species. That means that even when you are not consuming antibiotics, small quantities of natural antibiotics are probably being produced in your intestine by one of the resident populations to defend against being squeezed out by a different microbial population.
Antibiotic resistance genes are not the evolutionary dead weight that you seem to believe they are. There is a swine herd in the US that hasn't had any exposure to antibiotics for over 50 years. They've been maintained as a source of control animals for studies into this area. The abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in the microbiota of that herd have not changed appreciably in the generations that have elapsed since they were last exposed to antibiotics. If antibiotics ceased to exist TODAY, those genes would still exists centuries from now and the evidence suggests that their abundance wouldn't change appreciably during that time. The current theory to explain this observation that contradicts our expectations is that these genes have beneficial properties outside of their antibiotic resistance.
Many of these genes are not even activated unless they are needed, kind of like heat-shock proteins. Others are believed to simply be slightly altered versions of genes already present for synthesizing which ever protein the antibiotic was targeting. In these cases the new gene (resistant) simply replaces the older gene (susceptible) thus resulting in a one-for-one replacement of a single required gene. That gene is unlikely to ever be lost because it's absence would be fatal, and unless it is more biologically expensive to produce it will not confer any sort of disadvantage by its presence.
I mentioned the transmission of antibiotic resistance genes between livestock species and their animals. This one of the possible vectors. However, I also indicated that lateral transmission between humans is far more likely than transmission between livestock species and humans. The bacterial strains that can thrive in the intestines of pigs for example are very different from those that thrive in the intestines of humans. Human bacterial populations are primarily lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. These are the cultures that can be boosted by eating yogurt as the active cultures in yogurt act as a probiotic. However, feeding yogurt or any probiotic to pigs results in only temporary increases in the bacteria of interest. After stopping probiotic feeding, the bacterial flora return to normal in pigs.
Once resistance appears in humans, having a bit of antibiotic in the food supply provides the selection advantage needed to make the resistant strain common.
Did you bother reading what I wrote in its entirety? I said that antibiotics in livestock decrease the time it takes for the resistance genes to appear and get into the human population. It's the widespread abuse of antibiotics in HUMANS that maintain the selective pressure on HUMAN colonizing microbiota to retain the resistance genes. In fact, it turns out that resistance genes are not the dead weight they were thought to be in the absence of selective pressures. The theory behind the ban was that removal of selective pressure would make MRSA-like bugs less competitive against the Antibiotic-succeptible bugs. However, that has not proven to be the case. Empirical data shows that resistance gene prevalence has not changed in populations that have been denied antibiotics for over 50 years (a test herd here in the US from way before the EU ban). They even have resistance genes for antibiotics that didn't exist before the ban began. That's either because the resistance genes already existed (very likely) or they were transferred from the HUMAN handlers to the pigs.
Banning antibiotics for anything other than a full biohazard situation is moronic at best. Antibiotics save lives every year in cases that are far less serious than that, and I for one don't want those deaths on my conscience. However, that doesn't mean that we can't improve things by making it a general rule that otherwise healthy individuals have to wait at least a week before they will be given antibiotics for their infection, baring any serious developments in the mean time.
As someone pointed out below, antibiotics are derived largely from other microbial species. These compounds have existed for thousands of years, and it is very likely that the resistance genes have existed for a similar length of time. Resistance to penicillin was reported within 25 years of the drug being discovered. The level of penicillin resistance eventually rose to its current plateau and hasn't really changed much. The drug is still effective in most cases and I don't see that banning its use as anything other than psychological masturbation. It'll make some of us feel better, but no meaningful benefit will come from it.
While your understanding is partially correct, you conclusion (which is common) is fundamentally flawed.
Modeling shows that use of antibiotics in livestock at worst will decrease the amount of time it takes for a resistance gene to appear by 2 to 5 years (they will appear anyway, it's just a matter of time). Whether the appearance is either as a result of a novel mutation or of selective pressure in favor of a previously existing gene is immaterial (although the later is more likely). Once the gene appears and enters the human population (transfer to the human population is slow are rare, because the species that can set up permanent or semi-permanent populations within the intestines of human and swine are surprisingly different) the rate of transfer between humans is no different than if the gene originated in humans. It's not the existence of MRSA that is the problem per se, but the occurrence of MRSA in immune compromised populations like the elderly, who spend a lot of time in hospitals where MRSA is almost ubiquitous. MRSA poses little risk to a healthy adult.
It is the excessive use of antibiotics by human medical professionals that have turned hospitals into islands of MRSA. And it is the usual lack of generally good hygiene that results in MRSA spread between individuals outside of the hospital. The best suggestions I've seen for guidelines are to ban the use of New classes of antibiotics in animals until we start finding bacterial strains that are resistant in humans. By that point the horse will already be out of the barn and use in animals will cause no further risk to humans. However, the last draft I saw of the regulations proposed by the FDA was to let antibiotics be used in animals UNTIL the appearance of resistant bacteria, and then a complete ban (around 2004). I don't know if the FDA's guidelines have been revised, but I do know that there are several Democratic Representatives that keep trying to slip an EU style ban into unrelated bills as a rider.
Eliminating the use of antibiotics in livestock for which resistance genes are already common is pointless. The genes are already in the human population and a ban does nothing to stop their existence or spread. All you do in that case is increase the production costs of animal agriculture by increasing weaning mortality, days-to-market, feed costs, management costs, etc. This has been shown to be true in the EU. No reductions have been see in resistance gene prevalence in livestock, their handlers, or the general population as a result of the ban, and despite 2-3 years with similar performance to that pre-ban, all of the production criteria I mentioned have experienced a decrease since then. A lot of money is being spent trying to find alternative to antibiotics, but nothing has come close to matching it and that money could be better spent on finding new antibiotics or in some other area of research.
Please do explain to me what you mean by "anti-vaccine lobbies." A lobby or lobbyist is a representative of a monied interest. What monied interest out there profits from NOT selling something? Because the anti-vaccine idea is all about not purchasing vaccines. Please tell me who these lobbyists are.
I'm not the OP, but I can probably answer that question for you. There are several "Anti-vaccine" groups that have a lot of money and could be considered "Lobbyists".
1. The well meaning, but ultimately wrong, "Vaccines cause Autism" group. I don't know that they actually have a formal lobbying group, but they are numerous, vocal, and have several politicians at least paying lip service to them.
2. The "Anti-modern Medicine" folk. They are a sub set of the "Anti-modern Science" population that don't trust what they don't understand and have made an emotional (thus irrefutable) decision to go back to old style medicine. That old medicines either didn't work, or worked becuase of chemical compounds that are the basis of many "Modern" drugs is a fact lost on them based on the origin of their decision (Emotion vs. Reason).
There is a lot of overlap between the groups, and collectively there is a lot of money involved. Many of those that vocally espouse either view point are not actually believers, but cynical con-men who are selling all of their dupes vials of distilled water and passing it off as a better "Safer" alternative.
I'm not saying I disagree that the case for Swine-Flu was overblown. I go the vaccine, but only because I have a 4month old at home, who's immune system isn't developed enough to handle any flu (I got the seasonal flu vaccine as well). However, before this year I'd never gotten a flu vaccine, and I've seen some pretty convincing explanations on why we shouldn't bother giving it to the elderly, the group that everyone says needs it most (Hint: rates of flu fatalities in the elderly have not changed since before the existance of the flu vaccine).
More on what the OP said. Vaccines and antibiotics are different. Vaccines exercise the immune system while minimizing the risk of severe problems, whereas antibiotics fight infection on behalf of the immune system potentially reducing the immune systems effectiveness on repeat challenge in the future. I've been of the opinion that antibiotics are abused by human medicine, and the cause of MSRA like "Super-Bugs" and not any of the usual scape goats. However, I have to admit that I'm involved in animal agriculture and understand why and when antibiotics are fed to animals, one of the popular whipping boys in the EU and increasingly in the US.
[Soapbox]That direct administration of antibiotics in a reckless manner to humans cuts out several degrees of separation between potential antibiotic resistance gene appearance, and the human population seems to be lost on anyone involved in policy. That the complete ban of antibiotic use in animal agriculture in the EU almost a decade ago hasn't resulted in any changes in the prevalence of antibiotic resistance gene prevalance or rate of spread in either the livestock or human populations is very telling, but being ignored for the most part by the legislator both in the EU (who'd have to admit they were wrong in order to reverse there knee-jerk decision) and to a lesser extent the US (who are simply ignoring the science so that they can jump on the bandwaggon being driven by the EU). Hopefully they'll see this as further confirmation that HUMAN use of antibiotics like candy is the primary problem and legislate accordingly, but I doubt it.[/soapbox]
We are indeed a very diverse species, but any research that did not take that into account would be terrible research to begin with, and (perhaps due to my own ignorance) I struggle to believe that there are fewer differences between a rat and the average human than there are between two humans.
No one believes that data from mice or rats is directly applicable to humans. However, you are far more likely to detect subtle effects if the differences between the individuals in your sample group are minimal. Lower vertebrates such as mice and rats are more uniform in genotype and phenotype and are used in the early stages of scientific discovery for this reason. Once an effect has been reliably observed, characterized, and understood, then we can proceed to other, more human like animal models. Ultimately though, all new treatments and procedures need to be evaluated in humans before final approval, so we do experiment with humans. We just don't do discovery type work with humans.
Even discarding the moral problems, the genetic and phenotypic diversity would cause us to find a higher proportion of false positives and false negatives, thus wasting time, energy, resources, etc. There is also the issue of generation interval. You can run dozens of studies in a short period of time using mice and rats due to their accelerated (by comparison to humans) life cycle. Or, you can run multigenerational longitudinal studies in several months instead of over 60 to 100 years. Another advantage is the litter size. You can get 6 to 12 pups per litter (depending on the line), which allows for rapid population expansion when you discover or create a new genotype of interest. All of these are advantages over working with humans that ignore both the genetic and moral arguments.
we share a world with some incredibly cruel and/or self-centred individuals, but regardless I feel that the pain that would have been experienced is more than what the monkeys ought to be exposed to.
Those working with animals are, in my 10+ years of experience, rarely within that category. Those exceptions either got out of animal work on their own or were forced out by others. I'm an avid animal lover. I wanted to get my DVM originally and that's what got me into the industry I'm in. I grew up in the suburbs with zero exposure to animal agriculture before my junior year of college. Like many, I picked my profession because I like animals and love working with them.
There is a common perception that people who work in agriculture or animal research don't care about the animals they work with, but that is not even remotely the case in my experience. We avoid getting too attached to the animals that will be harvested for meat, or euthanized as part of a study, but we still develop attachments to them all the same.
I know I shouldn't feed the Toll's but
a handful of primates have been prevented from being exposed to anthrax. That is a benefit of this outcome for those individual. However, the study will be conducted somewhere. The NIH believes that the study is worth conducting, or else they wouldn't have funded it. They'll get their money back from OSU (and probably think 2x about funding them in the future), and then fund the research somewhere else. The same number of primates will be used, and the only difference is which ones.
I'd like to know what you think about the potential human-primate lives that could be saved by the anthrax vaccine if it proves effective? Even if you believe that a Chimp, Monkey and a Human all have equal moral value, at what point do the number of Human lives saved outweigh the lives of the research chimps?? It's a difficult question to answer, and unfortunately "None" is not an acceptable answer. Not because I choose not to accept it, but because there is no way that certain types of research can be done without using an animal model. Without that research, valuable life saving treatments will not be discovered, and dangerous treatments can't be excluded until the human toll is unacceptable.
A prime example of a drug that when straight to humans without animal testing is DES. It was prescribed as a treatment for morning sickness and ended up causing all sorts of problems with the reproductive tracts of the female children who's mothers took the drug. The CDC has a website explaining the problems of a lot of women that stem from inadequate testing of a medication. My mother is a DES Daughter, and my sister has a lot of reproductive problems as a second generation daughter of DES. The CDC page has a series of links for 3rd generation DES daughters as well. How many more will be afflicted before the effect wears itself out is unclear.
Maybe it's because my family is directly affected, but i believe that a couple hundred mice back in the 1940's would have been a small price to pay to prevent the problems that literally thousands of women are now experiencing.
I'm all for the discovering the cognitive abilities of the animals we use, and for determining how these cognitive differences effect their perception and interpretation of the world around them. I spent a year working in a primate behavior lab as an undergraduate and was fascinated by the studies I participated in.
However, if we are deciding to move away from the simple division of Humans vs. All Other Animals, I'd prefer if we waited for the science to come back before deciding where each specie falls on the continuum. That is my major gripe with the animal rights and welfare activists. There is evidence that many of their proposed changes would have no net positive, or that some would end up being counter productive. Some examples are:
1. The transition from low-voltage electrical stunning (Electrocution) to controlled atmospheric stunning (CO2 asphyxiation) in slaughter houses. McDonalds recently completed the largest comparative study to date, and found no benefit the switch, but the activists are pushing for it anyway. (That they didn't even bother scientifically evaluating the 2 different procedures before picking one is unfortunately common)
2. The push to eliminate the use of individual sow crates in favor of group housing ignores the stresses experienced by subordinate sows in those situations. There are hybrid housing styles that can mitigate those problems, but that research is only being done now. In the mean time, producers are having to guess and hope for the best, with the subordinate sows having to deal with the consequences of us not getting it right on the first try.
3. Replacement of farrowing crates, which minimize piglet mortality, in favor of letting the sows build nests in open floor pens. Who's suffering is worse, the sow in the crate for a month, or the piglets that get crushed when the sow lays or rolls on top of them? I have my opinion, but it's only that. We don't yet have a commonly accepted, quantifiable definition for individual suffering of pigs, never mind a rubric for comparing individual suffering against the suffering of multiple individuals.
Ultimately, the work necessary to decide this situation is not being done until after the activists have chosen a side. That makes any meaningful progress difficult at best. If you actually talk with an animal scientist or farmer, you'll find an almost universal respect for the animals they work with and an interest in maintaining high levels of animal welfare (at least I have in my 10 years as an animal scientist).
Yeah, my grammar sucks. Many of the revisions I receive from reviewers are to fix grammatical errors.
It's a polemic argument, but it still has some merit. Humans kill humans all the time in war, death row, murder, starvation, etc. What makes animals deserving of better treatment than humans?
I realize that most people try to minimize the amount of human death they cause or experience, but it does happen. In the absence of human existence, all of the animal species we use would exist in much smaller numbers and would, IMO, experience far more suffering in their lives than we cause. Extreme heat or cold, inadequate access to food, predation, rain, drought, disease, social hostility, etc. are all things that wild animals have to deal with, and which are controlled to the extent possible by those caring for research, production, or companion animals.
Animal Agriculture and Research provide as close to optimal care as possible for their animals unless, as in the Anthrax study, the impairment of welfare is required as part of the study. In such cases, a small forest worth of paperwork is required documenting that every piece of evidence currently available demonstrates that this study is necessary. Cell culture work, electron microscopy, small animal trials, histology, etc. are all conducted before moving into primate research.
In order to get approval and funding for the Anthrax study, the researchers need to convince 2 Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (OSU's and NIH's) that the research was justified, and that the suffering of the animals would be minimized. The requirement to euthanize the animals is probably a requirement of one or the other of those committees. Purdue's IACUC committee allows animals to be returned to their general populations as long as they don't pose a disease threat to their companions. That may be why these animals are to be euthanized, to protect the primates not being used for the study (including humans) from accidental infection.
OSU's president overstepped the bounds of appropriate response because he decided, unilaterally that HE (and Mrs. Pickens) knew better than all the individuals involved the the designing and regulatory approval of the study. IACUC's are required by federal law to possess individuals from the community that are not trained animal researchers. That these members of the community decided that the benefits of the research would outweigh the negatives, and that everything necessary would be done to minimize animal suffering is implied by the studies original approval and funding. I place much more faith in the IACUC committee than in a single individual who likely has no animal research experience, and was not involved in the deliberations preceding the studies funding.
What if the shoe was on the other foot. What if an IACUC decided that a study was not providing adequate care to the animals, but he decided to over-rule them to appease a large industry donor with a vested interest in the outcome of the research? If you believe that he as the authority and knowledge necessary to over-rule the committee's in one way, do you also believe that he has the same authority and knowledge necessary to over-rule them in the other direction?
I do care if non-human animals suffer. However, the goal is not to eliminate all suffering (I don't know about you, but I've experienced a lot of suffering in my 30 years of life and I'd prefer the isolated suffering to nonexistance), but to minimize it such that the animal experiences a net positive for having lived.
In order to do that we need to know what the animal considers suffering. There is plenty of evidence that things that would cause suffering in humans would not cause suffering in animals. Our preferences for environmental conditions are based on our biology and culture, which are very different in many respects from that of the animals we use. I'm all for determining how to maximize animal welfare and then setting in place guidelines to maintain that high plane of welfare. However, we need to make sure that the guidelines are based on the animals welfare needs and not on our anthropomorphic view of what we believe that we would need if we were in the animals conditions.
A good example is the debate surrounding the confinement of sows during gestation. The animal rights groups are pushing to ban their use in every state. They believe that the animals deserve the right to move around and interact with each other. However, they aren't waiting for the science to determine what the optimal replacement system is. Sows are greedy and aggressive. Dominant sows (usually older and thus bigger) will bully the younger sows and end up hogging the feeders and waterers. They'll also harass subordinate sows simply because they can. The subordinate sows can end up experiencing persistent fear of being harassed, pain from confrontations, and reduced access to feed and water. There are pen design situations that can mitigate these problems, and that research is ongoing here at Purdue. However, the legislation is not waiting for the science and the activists are getting people to potentially decrease the welfare of sows using the emotional argument "would you like to spend all day inside the voting booth?" That animals frequently find confinement comforting similarly to swaddled newborns is completely ignored.
Animal Liberation was written and published in the late 70's (before I was born). The worlds of animal agriculture and research have changed dramatically in the time that has elapsed since it's first publication. Studies are not repeated "over and over" nor do they "make no sense", and I don't know that they ever were. If you don't believe that those working with animals in research actually care about animals, just think of the financial issues. Research costs money! Why would I spend my limited R&D budget on running needless tests when I could be spending the money on testing a novel hypothesis or developing a new technology? It's a prime example of FUD, and I'm surprised how many
They're repeated over and over, and often make no sense. People either don't look for published papers, or they simply do it for the grants, so that they can continue being researchers.
This also makes no sense.
1. If I needlessly repeat a study that is already present in the literature, I won't be able to get it published. The reviewers will reject my manuscript due to a lack of novelty. I've almost had that happen before because I didn't clearly highlight the novel portion of my research.
2. Similarly, if I fail to discuss relevant research already present in the literature, I face having my manuscript rejected.
3. Granting agencies require extensive justification and literature review before they are willing to consider funding your research proposal. Furthermore, they circulate proposals to committees of individuals familiar with the literature on your topic who will judge whether your research is important, if your design actually answers the questions you are trying to answer, and your own qualifications for conducting and interpreting the potential results. If I've got a list of useless citations in low value journals simply repeating research already conducted by others, and my proposal is for more of the same, then I am unlikely to get funding.
4. If I fail to publish enough research in respectable journal (which have more stringent rules for novelty and completeness of literature review) I'll lose my job. So in essence, the situation you are describing is more likely to get me fired than get me tenure or future funding.
I've conducted dozens of animal studies myself during my graduate career, and spend several years working in animal agriculture before that. I know that we do everything we can to minimize the fear and pain of our animals, and it is my experience that this is fairly universal. I don't buy the "Any suffering is too much" argument, simply because of the sheer quantity of suffering I've experienced in my life. I believe that the animals I've used have experienced a net positive in their existence. They've experienced optimal environmental conditions (Temperature, Air flow, Lighting, etc.), no shortage of feed or water, excellent veterinary care when necessary, and minimal pain when euthanasia is necessary. Unless you want to refer to a book as fair minded as Singers and written based on observations within the last 5 years, you are not going to be able to contribute much relevant information to any debate on the topic.
It isn't even the most important, simply the first that comes to mind. I agree that cognitive ability is a poor metric for which to base this kind of differentiation on exclusively. You'll get no argument from me. It used that line more as a segue into my point with regards to the vagaries involved in defining "Morality". Not as an attempt to set the entire range of parameters that should go into determinations of moral value. That's why the sentence begins with "For one thing..." and later I admit that "I don't pretend to have an answer that will address the concerns of all.".
You are correct that my opinion, like most peoples opinions on most topics, is based on a stereotype. However, I am an animal scientist and have a lot of personally convincing anecdotal evidence that the stereotype is largely accurate. I've been involved in more discussions on the topic with fellow ANSCI students and professionals, as well as interested family members, friends, and strangers than I can count. I'm currently finishing my PhD at Purdue University, which is home to one of the largest animal welfare research groups in North America. I don't pretend to be directly involved in their research, but I've seen easily 30 to 40 presentations over the last 8 years given by their graduate students and professors on the topic of animal welfare. I know far more about the science and policy issues regarding animal rights/welfare than most in my field, never mind your average rebellious animal rights activist or Joe the Plumber.
However, I'm not going to debate morality with you. Mostly because it can't be debated. It is far more of an emotional decision than an intellectual one for most people and arguing with emotion is the closest we'll ever get to developing a perpetual motion device. You and I could go around and around forever without changing the others mind.
I will say that the focus on pain and suffering is probably not the most beneficial to the animals themselves. FEAR is much more stressful to animals than pain is. There are a lot of studies demonstrating this (although I admit I don't have any of the citations handy). Life is full of pain to varying degrees. Livestock species would be faced with a lot more fear and pain under "Natural" conditions than they do under commercial agricultural or research conditions unless specific stressors are required for research trials for which they are being used. Animal Care and Use Committees are required to approve all animal research at any institution receiving a single dollar of federal funding (so, all of them). These committees are designed to contain several members of the local community that have not direct education or training with regards to animal research as a sort of check on the "well we've always done it this way" mentality that used to be prevalent. We all complain about the bureaucratic hassles that go along with IACUC approval, but most will freely admit that we're better for their involvement.
However, in the case at hand. An administrator with questionable qualifications decided that they, individually, knew better than all of those directly involved in the design, and approval process. You may approve because he decided to do what you feel to have been the right decision, but what if it had happened the other way. What if he'd decided that a trial that the IACUC board at the University or NIH had turned down was to proceed anyway? I'd much rather trust in the process that we have developed and the people that are familiar with the details, than an administrator trying to appease a rich bitch with too much time and money, and not enough respect for the qualifications of those involved.
They do when you consider that she describes animal perception in terms of her own autism.
She believes that mildly autistic humans and normal animals perceive the world similarly. If you believe that autistic children view, reason and respond to stimuli (be it visual, auditory, emotional, etc.) in the same way that "normal" people do, then you've never actually met an autistic child.
I also didn't make my point clearly. I was referring specifically to her objections to the use of vague and indefinite terminology when setting animal welfare guidelines. I've heard her spend 20min. making the simple point that you need empirical and quantifiable units of measure for defining animal welfare guidelines. That is not always necessary when setting human welfare guidelines, because most people have similar definition of what represents thinks like "Excessive vocalization" in humans, but not in cattle at a slaughterhouse.
It may no be clear from my previous post, but I'm all for defending the highest levels of animal welfare in research and animal production. That does not mean that I believe that my cat deserves the same rights and privileges as my 4 month old daughter. There is a genuine case to be made that animals deserve more consideration than they get, but it has been my experience that the animals being focused on are not the ones that need the attention. Slaughterhouses needed to make changes, and Dr. Grandin did a lot of the leg work to make those changes quantifiably effective. The rest of the animal production system OTOH has only a few areas that deserve further scrutiny IMO. I think more attention should be paid to the welfare harms being perpetrated by well meaning, but uninformed activists.
The Animal Rights movement has a long history of going to far in their Zeal. There was an activist (I believe that it was in the 90's but can't find the news article) that got a job working in a primate research center moping the floors at night. They then incorrectly forced some of the primates into a piece of research equipment so that they could stage a picture. They ended up doing far more harm in order to fake their evidence than the researchers were doing (and were convicted of animal welfare abuses them self). Currently, there is a push to switch from low-voltage electrical stunning to controlled atmospheric stunning (gassing with CO2). I've seen no evidence that suffocating animals over 20-30 seconds causes less stress than electrocution in 3 seconds, and neither has McDonalds. Or their is the proposed ban on leaving horses outside in the winter that my adivsor from UMass ended up having to testify against because keeping horses couped up in a barn during the winter actually increases their risks of upper respiratory infections.
There is a lot we don't know about how much of our own perceptions and "Norms" can be translated directly to animals. Most people who do research with animals, or produce livestock species will readily admit that. However, the activists appear to view their ignorance and lack of actual data as a badge of honor, instead of a disadvantage. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I'd rather take the time to make sure I get on the right road. I hope I'm not the only one.
For one thing, only the boy has any chance of understanding such a philosophically complex concept as "Morality". It is an entirely human construct required for civilization to work. That is it entirely subjective and does not possess a single fixed universal rule appears to escape most people becuase so many of the more popular definitions of what is "Moral" are similar. That is becuase, as a result of cultural evolution, selective pressure on societies favor those that define morality to include concepts such as Don't murder, Don't steal, Don't lie, etc.
The moral value of non-human animals is currently being redefined. I'm of the opinion that raising the moral value of animals is based on misplaced belief that without such value, their suffering is guaranteed and a tendancy for humans to anthropomorphise their pets and extend that compassion to other animals. I work with research and production animals. I frequently think of the behaviors I see in terms of human behavior and human emotional responses even though I know that they are wrong. The motivation and perception of a pig is incredibly different from that of a human, even a child at a similar level of intellectual development. The perfect person to readup on to learn about how fundamentally damaging the "anthropomorphic" view is to our understanding of animals is Temple Grandin.
As to your original snarky remark:
why not experiment on the mentally ill, or children born with severe learning disabilities
A. We do if we are trying to learn about the specific conditions that those individuals represent. You learn about Autism by working with autistic children.
B. More in line with what you probably intended to get a response to, Humans of any kind make horrible research subjects. The diversity within human groups, even within specific ethnic groups, is orders of magnitude greater than that between 2 strains of rats. That is why much of our biomedical and nutritional research is piloted in animals and only replicated in humans if it seems like the research is going somewhere.
I realize that you were probably hoping to get into a flame war with someone over your emotional decision to consider the quality of life for a child and a rat to be equivalent, but you won't get one from me. You can make that argument, I just don't buy it.
That you've used such an obvious and flawed comparison leads me to believe that you probably haven't had an original thought on the topic in your life. You're probably just parroting arguments you've seen others use. Saying so may make me look like a Troll, but it needs to be said. This is an issue that most people argue based on an emotional decision to accept a given viewpoint regardless of what any science may have to say on the matter. The vast majority of those posting have probably never spent more than a half an hour actually reasoning out their position.
I don't pretend to have an answer that will address the concerns of all. However, I can state with a high degree of certainty that those monkey's that were going to be used for the Anthrax study were subjected to far less fear and pain in their life than most humans. I've worked with primates (in a behavior lab) and the regulations for working with and caring for them put the laws governing the rearing of human children to shame.
Much of the modern Animal Rights movement is based on a book by Peter Singer. IIRC, there is a line in there in which he indicates that the use of animals for agricultural or research purposes is acceptable as long as their use for that purpose ends up being a net positive for the individuals involved. However, that point seems to be ignored by many who claim to desire animal rights, but have not bothered to do t
No, you are wrong.
They are trying to weasel around the injuction by doing what you describe NOW, but originally they were selling PC's with OSX pre-installed. That means that Pystar was doing the illegal modification and re-distribution. The RebelEFI product they came out with recently is an attempt to shift the burden of legal responsibility to their customers.
The legal status of RebelEFI was not decided explicitly by the courts injunction, but the Judge indicated that he doubted it would be exempt from the degree, and that Pystar proceeded with its sale at its own peril. That is because selling tools to circumvent DRM is as illegal as doing the circumvention yourself. That the RebelEFI is reported by some to be ripped off work from the Hackintosh community just makes Pystar that much more reprehensible IMO. Many can get behind the idea of "Screw the Man", but they appear to be trying to "Screw the Masses" as well.
Ok, you have apparently decided to take some of my comments out of context. I was trying to point out the weakness of an argument that violating the rights of some without telling them is worse than violating the rights of all as long as their is prior disclosure (although not consent).
I don't disagree that there are problems with Gitmo, and that there are probably those wrongly incarcerated. However, the incarceration of enemy combatants, hostile enemy personnel, or what every euphemistic language you prefer for collectively describing people that want to kill Americans, but are not official members of a national military, is necessary.
My double use of the word "Military" was to differentiate the situation from the seizure of civilian personnel during military action (ie the innocent victims), the seizure of military personnel during civilian action (police arresting soldiers at home), and the seizure of civilian personnel by civil action (police arresting normal citizens). Your snide remark is correct though, the inmates were actively engaged in attempts to kill American military personnel and I would define that as "Bad".
The constitution also guarantees it's citizens the right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", but we still have Death Row, Prisons, and the IRS. These inalienable rights can be lost based on our actions, so I fail to see why that would be different for non-citizens. My comments were more along the line of the governments responsibilities with regards to protecting civil rights. Their are first responsible for their own citizens, and then for the citizens of other nations. If citizens of other nations are attempting to violate the rights of US citizens, then it is completely appropriate for the US government to infringe upon the rights of those individuals to defend the rights of its own citizens. (that goes for any government for that matter, not just the US)
NOTE: I at no time intended to defend the use of torture, although after looking back at what I wrote, I can see how you might have gotten that impression.
Wow, apparently I need a nap. Take every instance of the word "Laptop" and replace it with the word "Battery" except for the first one. (I can't believe I made that mistake 2 times in a row)