Sneak peek: Human preference for other species could determine whether they survive

Human biases affect conservation (or the lack thereof). Our biases also affect protection in other arenas.

Human preference for other species could determine whether they survive

"Color is not the only factor that determines a species' attractiveness to humans. Characteristics such as size and neoteny – the retention of babyish physical traits such as large eyes and large head – also can play major roles for some animals. Pandas, zebras and elephants, for example, are black and white or gray but are highly preferred by humans.


Millions of insects and the countless slimy invertebrates that occupy the oceans are likely not as lucky, Stokes said.
'The work pretty conclusively shows there is a large difference of appeal among organisms, even among closely related organisms,' he said. 'For different kinds of organisms, different qualities seem to cause differences of appeal.'

The work is a signal to conservationists to be mindful of the role of public popularity, and what might cause it, when making decisions about how to deal with various species, even invasive species. He noted that mountain goats introduced to Olympic National Park in Washington state have damaged park ecosystems, but because of their popularity it has been difficult for park managers to remove them. Likewise, while groups of conservationists gather on weekends to pull invasive English ivy from trees and shrubs on public lands, some homeowners continue to plant the attractive vine in their yards, where it can spread to the wild.

'We do have these big differences in how we feel about living things,' Stokes said. 'These feelings are going to play a big role in what we choose to conserve.'"

Sneak peek: Human metabolism recreated in lab

BBC NEWS Health Human metabolism recreated in lab

Following from monkey-on-a-chip and brain-on-a-chip technology, scientists now claim they have captured a comprehensive closed-system model of human physiology. This tool could be very important for replacing some animal experiments.

"Study leader Professor Bernhard Palsson said the network could be used to see what would happen if a drug was used to target a specific metabolic reaction, such as the synthesis of cholesterol.

Or it could be used to predict what would happen if you interfere with a metabolic reaction in a specific type of cell, such as a blood or heart cell.

And eventually it could even be used to create an individual network for a person.

The announcement continues:

'The new tool we've created allows scientists to tinker with a virtual metabolic system in ways that were, until now, impossible, and to test the modelling predictions in real cells,' said Mr Palsson, who is professor of bioengineering and medicine. Study leader Professor Bernhard Palsson said the network could be used to see what would happen if a drug was used to target a specific metabolic reaction, such as the synthesis of cholesterol.

Or it could be used to predict what would happen if you interfere with a metabolic reaction in a specific type of cell, such as a blood or heart cell.

And eventually it could even be used to create an individual network for a person.
'The new tool we've created allows scientists to tinker with a virtual metabolic system in ways that were, until now, impossible, and to test the modelling predictions in real cells,' said Mr Palsson, who is professor of bioengineering and medicine. "

Get out your spell-checker: altruism, autism and blue devils

Activation of brain region predicts altruism: But what does that brain region have to do with autism? No. That's not a typo. Scientists from Duke have linked the two in their research.

Many biologists have asked how altruism could even evolve given that it requires self interests to be subverted in the interests of others. Kin selection, reciprocal altruism and selfish genes, i.e. green beard effect, were all notions that arose to explain altruism. But Duke researchers looked for insights with a proximate explanation, rather than a functional one. They investigated what happens in the brain during situations where one had to choose between altruistic and non-altruistic responses.

"According to the researchers, the results suggest that altruistic behavior may originate from how people view the world rather than how they act in it."

(Ummmm. Like this trait just suddenly cropped up in Homo sapiens See my prior posts on empathy and primate fairness for more)

" 'We believe that the ability to perceive other people's actions as meaningful is critical for altruism,' Tankersley said.

The scientists suggest that studying the brain systems that allow people to see the world as a series of meaningful interactions may ultimately help further understanding of disorders, such as autism or antisocial behavior, that are characterized by deficits in interpersonal interactions.

The researchers are now exploring ways to study the development of this brain region early in life, Tankersley said, adding that such information may help determine how the tendencies toward altruism are established. "

Compare this most recent study to those of another team at Duke who claims to study altruism autism by experimenting on primates. In short, monkeys in full-body restraint would fore go a sip of flavored juice to look at photos of fertile female monkeys or socially dominant monkeys. (perhaps they are just desperate for companionship?) When the results of this study were first released, the popular media drew some analogies to porn, gossip magazines or interest in celebrities. The investigators, however, claimed it provided important insights into autism.

While I acknowledge that low-ranking individuals are wise to keep an eye on those with higher-rank, and males are wise to keep an eye on fertile females (evolutionarily speaking), I find the whole thing dubious.

1. Field primatologists have known for decades that monkeys prefer high-ranking group members – without ever keeping thirsty monkeys in cages. In fact, the social preference for or avoidance of an individual is part of how scientists assess status in monkey groups to begin with. What was the question again? Are popular monkeys preferred over unpopular ones? Who's on first?


2. Does any evolutionary biologist doubt that males take risks or accept costs for access to fertile females? Sexual selection or intrasexual competition ring a bell with anyone here? Would any person doubt this based on his or her own experience or plain old common sense?

My point here is that while noninvasive studies in human subjects are underway, primates are suffering in the lab - for naught. It's criminal.

Help wanted: No immune experience required

From the news release:

"Around 50% of adult human T cells are memory cells, having been activated by infections and illnesses during the course of a person's life. However, animal models, such as those used to test TGN1412 before tests were carried out on humans, do not have many memory T cells because they are deliberately kept in a sterile environment where they are shielded from infections."

Hmmm. Presumably all the specific pathogen free (SPF) colonies are part of a plan to eliminate pesky diseases that vivisectors view as confounding variables. Oh. You mean immune systems don't exist in a vacuum? And that species differences and experience influence immune function? Well go figure. (shucks)

"The research, by scientists from Imperial College London, King's College London, and the Babraham Institute, is presented today at the Club de la Transplantation conference in Cernay la Ville, near Paris.

Dr Federica Marelli-Berg, lead author of the research from the Department of Immunology at Imperial College London, explained: "The drug TGN1412 appeared to be relatively safe when it was tested in animal models. However, when the drug was tested on human volunteers, some experienced very severe side-effects."

I'm sorry. Did she say that some volunteers had very severe side effects? How would anyone in her right mind not admit that all six men suffered extraordinary, indeed life-threatening, effects?

"TGN1412 was developed to treat chronic inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, leukaemia and multiple sclerosis, which are caused by the body's immune system attacking itself. It was thought that by targeting CD28, the drug could over-stimulate the rogue T cells, making them burn out and die."

Doh!

Not everyone is so quick to buy this spiel. One expert consulted by the science journal Nature had a very different view:

As part of a report into how to minimize the risks of future clinical trials, immunologist Stephen Inglis of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in London developed a new test, using human cells in a test tube, that could have spotted the risk of a cytokine storm (see 'New test could weed out dangerous drug trials').

Inglis also doubts that Marelli-Berg's theory represents the whole story. Monkey cells did not respond to his test in the same way, suggesting that there is something fundamentally different about the two species' cells, rather than simply a question of which cells are present.

What's more, he says it is unclear whether or not lab monkeys do indeed have less-developed immune systems. "They're not like mice," he says. "Colonies of monkeys live in groups, they're not in individual cages, they do get infections and they're not pristine. We would now recommend using human cells for preclinical trials. But whether that is the cause is a different thing."

Maybe monkeys used in preclinical trials conducted in European labs live in groups. Those here in the US certainly do not.
Other posts on TGN1412 can be found in the pharma category at right.

Original news item: Researchers propose reason for severe side-effects of Northwick Park clinical trial

The brain, risk and taxpayers' dollars

Researchers using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to look at the decision making process in "risky" situations have found that people are generally risk averse, but there are situations that make risk more tolerable.

I'd say these patterns were generally evident from simple observation of human behavior, but the brain activity associated with these behaviors is better understood through the imaging techniques. fMRI studies with human subject make primate experiments that test "economic" or "risk tolerance" behaviors look redundant and wasteful.

Of course, the experiments are also inexorably cruel.

Such experiments, take this one for example, usually entail the exchange of some liquid or food treat for some behavioral task. Sometimes the food or water is reward for doing behavior X. In other cases, food/drink is purportedly a way to measure preference or how an animal values some thing. The primates are food / water deprived to ensure that they "work" during the experiments.

Normally, experimental measurements are taken while primates are in full body restraint (primate chair) with the head bolted into a stationary position so that electrodes can be implanted into the brain. (Hmm - measuring preference in the absence of free will, in the context of a lifelong history of trauma with an n of ??? Who thought of that one?)

Many field primatologists look at preference in wild primates. Some also try to measure costs or benefits of various behaviors, either in terms of resources like food or in the "currency" of evolutionary success. Obviously, such studies don't involve capture or invasive procedures.

fMRI has been used in some captive primate experiments. fMRI replaces some of the most risky and invasive parts of the experiments (surgeries, electrodes, etc). The real point here is that it is possible to do the experiments in human beings.

You can check out the full article on the UCLA study here: UCLA: How does your brain respond when you think about gambling or taking risks?

(PostScript: It's unusual to think of the responses of the brain and not the whole organism. The former could not "respond" without the latter.)

Sneak peek: Morals do not conquer all in decision making

Beliefs we "protect" trump doing the right thing based strictly on outcomes. The authors use the example of "you can't place a value on a human life," but of course judges and juries do that all the time. How does this translate to the value we place on animal lives?

Morals do not conquer all in decision making:

"Is morally-motivated choice different from other kinds of decision making? Previous research has implied that the answer is yes, suggesting that certain sacred or protected values are resistant to real world tradeoffs. In fact, proposed tradeoffs between the sacred and the secular lead to moral outrage and an outright refusal to consider costs and benefits (e.g.'You can't put a price on a human life').

Previous theory in moral decision making suggested that if people are guided by protected values, values that equate to rules like 'do no harm', they may focus on the distinction between acting/doing harm versus not acting/allowing harm, paying less attention to consequences. People who make choices based on these values, thus show 'quantity insensitivity' relative to people without protected values for a given situation. "

Dogs may be responding to psychological seizures, not epilepsy seizures

This caught my attention today. Two new studies out on people who have a "seizure dog." Some dogs can be trained to detect seizures in advance of their occurrence, other seizure dogs stay with the person during a seizure, presumably to provide support or safety.

Fewer than half the people in the study actually had epilepsy, but instead suffered from psychological seizures. The lead investigator noted that failure to diagnose the nature of the seizures was a serious problem. Psychological seizures are not responsive to epilepsy medications, for example.

So why do people who have psychogenic seizures wind up with seizure detection dogs? How? The investigator suggested that people with psychological seizures may seek out service animals for support.

The really interesting part comes from commentary by an independent neurologist here in Seattle. Michael Doherty MD wondered if the psychological seizures could be a response to cues from the dogs. The question of how the presence of a seizure dog affects seizure activity is interesting. Is it higher or lower?

In the end, I am concerned about this because of the potential for exploitation of the dogs who "accidentally" become caregivers to people with psychiatric conditions, and then are not properly monitored and have no support for the burdens they shoulder. Certainly better screening and access to mental health services for the people are part of the answer.

Dogs may be responding to psychological seizures, not epilepsy seizures

Breaking News: 'Monkey Business' Ends At UConn Health Center

The Daily Campus - 'Monkey Business' Ends At UConn Health Center:

Good news from CT today:

The controversial research on non-human primates at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) has been stopped.

The research, which involved implanting coils into the eyes of rhesus macaque monkeys and drilling a hole into their heads, has been the subject of many protests, led in large part by UConn graduate student Justin Goodman.

According to documents from the USDA and the UCHC Animal Care Committee, the USDA made an inspection of the research facility on Aug. 29. Two days later on Aug. 31, Dr. David Waitzman, who was in charge of the research, voluntarily stopped his experiments. Then, on Sept. 6, UConn's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee revoked Waitzman's ability to continue the research.

The committee's decision came more than four months after UConn President Philip Austin said in a May 2 letter to the university community that UConn has 'dealt successfully with problems related to research animal care.'

According to Goodman, the USDA has now launched a formal investigation into the research, which can result in a formal charge with the Secretary of Agriculture as well as fines for the UCHC."

Trauma early in life, disease later in life

A new study published this week reported a definitive link between early life trauma, i.e. child abandonment, abuse and neglect, and disease later in life. It wasn't the injuries from beating that were to blame. Authors indicated that it all boiled down to psychological stress, because, as the lead investigator put it, "...stress is the fear of pain."

While I might argue some subtleties of the last statement, the link between early psychological trauma and later health outcomes was very convincing.

Investigators found that adults who reported being abused or neglected as children had higher levels of an inflammation protein in their blood than did folks who had no such history.

To make matters worse, the research team indicated there were also implications for cortisol, a hormone that normally acts as a brake on inflammation. The result was high risk for conditions like heart disease and diabetes.

This is a case where investigators learned something about early life experience and health and welfare in adulthood through careful, longitudinal study of humans. Real people living real lives complete with all their confounding variables and covariates, are the best and only way to look at complex psychobiological issues like early life trauma. The new study is really quite impressive. One reviewer noted, "They have elegantly connected childhood stress to a real adult risk of disease." (See NewScientist below)

By comparison, other perhaps less creative and certainly less compassionate people try to create animal "models" of child abuse and neglect by subjecting baby animals to maternal deprivation or by purposefully taking healthy babies and putting them with aggressive adults. If the baby animals used in these terrible experiments survive, they suffer from a range of physical and psychological pathologies, conditions that are rarely acknowledged or treated. The outcome has many similarities to post-traumatic stress disorder.

People who run such animal experiments are unable to draw powerful conclusions or to translate their findings directly into clinical practice. Rather, animal experiments cause untold suffering for the animals, waste tax dollars on fruitless research, and divert resources from programs that could benefit humans and other animals affected by trauma and abuse.

In the end, the abuse and neglect experiments with animals relieve no human suffering and cause extraordinary animal suffering, making the entire endeavor morally bankrupt.

Link to abstract in PNAS here.

Other news coverage of the study:

BBC: Child abuse link to future health

NewScientist: Why childhood trauma brings ill health later on

Poor predictors of human outcomes

From an LTE in response to Monday's article on primate testing at SNBL:

My last complaint is with Meyers' claims of good science. Even if we ignore the USDA violations for the moment, something few would be willing to do if the details had been reported, the science is dubious. Readers deserve a realistic view of what the so-called "good science" really achieves.

The FDA itself has reported that over 90 percent of drugs tested in animals eventually prove to be unsafe or ineffective in human trials. This figure doesn't even include drugs that get approved and then later get recalled. Let's not forget that Vioxx was tested in monkeys and went on to be a disaster. Recent independent studies published in highly respected medical journals, JAMA and BMJ, reported that animal tests were poorly designed and executed, and utterly miserable at predicting outcomes for people.

Click here for full letter - Animal Testing: Poor predictors of human outcomes

Baboons eating bears in Buhusi (Romania)

This is dreadful:

"BUHUSI, ROMANIA – Just up the hill in this forgotten manufacturing town, it's feeding time at the rundown Buhusi Zoo, tucked behind a bouquet of Soviet-style apartment buildings. Mihai Gheorghiu, the deputy director, cracks open the freezer and the stench of meat tumbles out. As if on cue, a rumbling emerges from the cages.

He hauls out a few chunks of horse meat and drops them on the grass with a thud. A large bear peeks his snout through the bars on top of the cage. The caretakers stack the meat into a wheelbarrow and, as they do several times a week, roll it through the grounds to feed the lions, baboons, and bears. "

The article goes on with a quote from an American living there:

"There is an overall apathy that is deeply ingrained in the population," says Christopher Troxler, the American executive director of the Romania Think Tank in Bucharest. 'Asta este' ["it is what it is"] is an institutionalized statement."

As far as I am concerned, cruelty and apathy are related problems in this case
...and the latter does not excuse the former.

The full article can be found at CSM.

Industry-funded "marketing material" passed off as scientific articles

PLoS Medicine has just published a study which found that essentially ALL reports from clinical trials in one European survey (40 over one year) were written by industry ghost-writers rather than clinicians (all if we use the most liberal definition of ghost-writer, nearly all if a strict definition is used.) Conflict of interest and financial disclosure policies should preclude such nonsense, or perhaps such reports should be marked as advertisement. (Or, for the sake of public health, tossed.)

This is deeply disconcerting:

This study is the first that has systematically examined the prevalence of ghost authorship using a cohort of protocols and corresponding publications. The authors conclude that "ghost authorship in industry-initiated randomised trials is very common, and we believe that this practice serves commercial purposes". They go on to urge that in order to reduce the prevalence of ghost authorship, existing guidelines such as those drawn up by the International Committee on Medical Journal Editors, World Association of Medical Editors and European Medical Writers Association, are followed. This action could increase the chance that publications accurately, fairly, and comprehensively reflect the data collected from trials

A related perspective by Liz Wager, an independent editorial consultant, who has been involved in drawing up guidelines for medical writers, discusses the implication of these findings further.

Full article available online, here, at PLoS Medicine: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040019

Pitt's cloned monkey embryos are abnormal - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Monkey embryos at Pitt are abnormal, but apparently scientific fraud is not. Pitt's strategy for dealing with the fraud? Clamming up. Charming way to instill confidence.

The stem cell line has twice the number of normal chromosomes...the work was "very publishable" though fraudulent. One or the other, people. Really.

From the article:

Results of the prior experiments, conducted in 2005, never made it to the hands of independent scientists, but Dahlberg called them "very publishable."

Park, who left Pitt in February 2006 to return to his native South Korea, has had eight stem cell papers retracted by leading scientific journals.


They include a fraudulent 2005 Science paper co-written by Schatten that claimed to have derived stem cells from cloned human embryos.

Since that fraud was uncovered last winter, Schatten, who heads the Pittsburgh Development Center at the Magee-Womens Research Institute, has refused to comment publicly.

Pitt's cloned monkey embryos are abnormal - Full article available here

Chimp, heal thyself

Some chimp news:

“The chimps and human beings around Kibale use similar plants to overcome sickness,” Sabrina Kreif, a researcher, said. She was speaking at Makerere University’s Faculty of Science at a ceremony to launch a memorandum of cooperation between Uganda Wildlife Authority and French institutions.

Motivation to use medicinal plants would, of course, be dependent on the ability to reflect mentally on how one "felt," an ability to associate the awareness of that state with a given plant, and the state (potentially) achieved through treatment. Other forms of self-diagnosis and treatment quite probably exist in chimps and other animals.

Full article available here: Chimps, healers use same herbs

Making millions with monkeys

Tracking down data on failures in transparency and oversight in biosafety, The Sunshine Project has become acquainted with some of the National Primate Research Centers (and affiliated institutions) as well as others that have been criticized for primate experimentation:

"How big is this enterprise? At just one venue, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio, Tex., there are 6,000 caged chimpanzees, baboons, and other primates, Sunshine reports, whose upkeep alone costs U.S. taxpayers $6-million annually. SFBR genetically engineers monkeys and harbors some of the world's most dangerous viruses such as Ebola and Lassa, authorities state. "

In their 2004 report, Mandate for Failure, TSP named the University of Washington for the most embarrassing moment for biosafety regulators. This dubious distinction came courtesy of its programs for 1918 flu experiments, which took the modified and modest "Texas strain" with genes from the Spanish flu strain (including genes responsible for virulence).

Plans to expose monkeys to 1918 flu at the WaNPRC were dependent upon the retrofitting of labs there, a process which was repeatedly delayed. Progress was apparently too slow for investigators; it seems that the program may now be moved to a Battelle Lab in Ohio. Notably, Battelle is also named in the TSP report for biosafety failures of its own.

Other institutions under the lens for primate experimentation and biosafety failures include the University of California at San Francisco and Wake Forest University.


See the entire piece at opednews.com