Sneak Peek: Wild rhesus monkeys taken in Nepal

Monkeys captured for vaccine research

The research center has taken permission from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) to capture 50 monkeys including five male, according to him.

The team has trapped 20 monkeys within three days from Bhutandevi area. Nine of them have been sent to Kathmandu, while the remaining are to be sent on Saturday, he said.

There are already 80 rhesus monkeys at the breeding center of the research center in Kathmandu, Khadka said. DNPWC is paid Rs 25,000 for each monkey captured and used for the research, he said.

Full text available at South Asian Media Net: Monkeys captured for vaccine research

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.

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.)

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

Animal tests did not predict failure of heart drug - Pfizer reeling

Stocks fell sharply earlier this month when Pfizer announced that trials of its drug candidates were being terminated because of deaths linked to the drug. The drug was supposed to be a new blockbuster, something Pfizer apprently needed because patents on older drugs are expiring.

From the news item:

Drug company Pfizer announced on 2 December that it was cancelling all clinical trials of torcetrapib, a drug designed to raise heart-protective high-density lipoproteins (HDLs). In a trial of 15000 patients, a safety board found that more people died or suffered cardiovascular problems after taking the drug plus a cholesterol-lowering statin than those in a control group who took the statin alone.

The news came as a kick in the teeth to many cardiologists because earlier tests in animals and people suggested it would lower rates of cardiovascular disease. "There have been no red flags to my knowledge," says John Chapman, a specialist in lipoproteins and atherosclerosis at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris who has also studied torcetrapib. "This cancellation came as a complete shock."

[emphasis not in original]

You'd think that with Vioxx, TGN1412 and other failures looming so large in the media and the courtroom that the shock factor of these sorts of failures would wear off.

See the full story over at Nature.

Ebola Outbreak Killed 5000 Gorillas -- Bermejo et al. 314 (5805): 1564 -- Science

This is freaking dreadful.



Ebola Outbreak Killed 5000 Gorillas -- Bermejo et al. 314 (5805): 1564 -- Science: "Science 8 December 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5805, p. 1564
DOI: 10.1126/science.1133105Prev Table of Contents Next

Brevia
Ebola Outbreak Killed 5000 Gorillas
Magdalena Bermejo,1,2* José Domingo Rodríguez-Teijeiro,2 Germán Illera,1 Alex Barroso,2 Carles Vilà,3 Peter D. Walsh4
Over the past decade, the Zaire strain of Ebola virus (ZEBOV) has repeatedly emerged in Gabon and Congo. Each human outbreak has been accompanied by reports of gorilla and chimpanzee carcasses in neighboring forests, but both the extent of ape mortality and the causal role of ZEBOV have been hotly debated. Here, we present data suggesting that in 2002 and 2003 ZEBOV killed about 5000 gorillas in our study area. The lag between neighboring gorilla groups in mortality onset was close to the ZEBOV disease cycle length, evidence that group-to-group transmission has amplified gorilla die-offs. "

Ebola Threatens to Kill Off Gorillas in Africa - New York Times

Ebola Threatens to Kill Off Gorillas in Africa - New York Times: "“A lot of animals are dying,” said Dr. Peter D. Walsh, an ecologist at the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary primatology in Leipzig, and an author of a report being published today in the journal Science. “There’s a massive decline.”

Several vaccines have been developed that work in animals in the lab, including monkeys, and Dr. Walsh is eager to test them on gorillas in the wild by injecting the animals with darts or putting an oral vaccine in food. By tracking the spread of the virus and vaccinating animals in its path, it might be possible to stop outbreaks, he said.
Other researchers say that although vaccination might be feasible, it is not known whether the vaccine could made into a heat-stable version or an oral form. In addition, there would be miles of red tape to cut through, involving various conservation groups, donors and governments.

Dr. Stuart Nichol, chief of molecular biology in the Special Pathogens Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: “It’s really going to be a nightmare to try to press forward with some kind of vaccine approach. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel good to sit back and do nothing. But in reality it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to do anything.”"

And what if the experimental vaccine hurts the gorillas or does nothing? Oy.

AZ and WI: More on TB outbreak at Covance

"You get the feeling that the suits at Covance were beginning to breathe a collective sigh of relief - that is, of course, until Dec. 2, when I'm guessing they began to collectively hyperventilate. That is the day that the headline of The Chandler Republic read, 'Covance foes reveal monkey TB outbreak.'"


How Covance can boost its image

Covance foe blows whistle

Covance foe blows whistle: "Arizona law requires that primates be tested for three ailments before they're brought in: tuberculosis, the virus simian herpes B, and simian immunodeficiency virus (similar to HIV in humans), Lawaczeck said.

Aysha Akhtar, a public health specialist and senior medical and research adviser to PCRM, said, 'I'm not surprised that Covance hid this information from the public, considering Covance's track record.'

Boerman said he began the process of the public records request after getting an anonymous tip from a disgruntled ex-employee at Covance. He said he was angry that 'it appears as though there was an attempt to cover up the fact that there had been an outbreak.'"

Monkeys with TB, others killed in WI

Wisconsin State Journal: "Covance confirmed Thursday that five monkeys at its research laboratories in Madison were diagnosed with tuberculosis in June.
Thirty-two monkeys housed in the same room were euthanized to keep the illness from spreading, and additional monkeys that may have had 'fleeting contact' with the infected animals were quarantined, Covance said."

proposed lab would test deadly, infectious diseases on animals

The Badger Herald - Town debates UW proposal: "“So, are we talking about absolutely the worst, the most infectious, terrible diseases in the world coming right here to the heartland?” one female resident asked the panel. "

Local people are not pleased with the University's proposal...see more in the article.

Threats from the wild: Zoonotic disease

Inside Bay Area - Associated Press content: "For instance, the thousands of monkeys that are imported each year for research from countries like China, Indonesia and Vietnam are quarantined for at least 31 days. While the monkeys are checked for tuberculosis, they aren't tested for other diseases unless they show signs of sickness.

However, monkeys can carry dangerous viruses and bacteria that don't make them sick but can harm people. For example, herpes B virus is a pathogen carried by 80 to 90 percent of adult macaques. The virus may not harm the macaques, but humans can be infected and suffer severe neurological damage or death.

In 1997, a 22-year-old researcher at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta died from herpes B virus weeks after a caged monkey splashed something in her eye.

Though the CDC has prohibited importation of most monkeys as pets since 1975, some macaques imported for research are now being sold on the open market.

'Whatever researchers are using and importing in great numbers is what we see in the pet trade,' said April Truitt of the Primate Rescue Center in Nicholas, Ky.
The government acknowledges it doesn't track where animals go after quarantine."

Human Deaths from Animal Diseases on the Rise

Note reference to diseases carried by monkeys and apes:

LiveScience.com - Human Deaths from Animal Diseases on the Rise

Ebola heads for last great apes - health - 11 November 2006 - New Scientist

Ebola heads for last great apes - health - 11 November 2006 - New Scientist: "YET more evidence is in that the Ebola virus is spreading in a wave across Africa - putting the world's last big populations of lowland gorillas directly in its path.
In 2003, an outbreak of Ebola struck gorillas living in the Congo. Bats in the area at that time were also carrying the virus, researchers recently discovered (New Scientist, 3 December 2005, p 20). That meant either the virus had always been lurking in bats, and spread to the gorillas, or that the bats were newly infected as the epidemic crossed their territory.
Now researchers have found that the bat viruses all descended recently from a common ancestor, confirming that the virus was new to the bats and is on the march (PLoS Pathogens, vol 2, e90).
From issue 2577 of New Scientist magazine, 11 November 2006, page 17"

Trim5, then siglecs, now LEDGF (p75)

The repeated failure of HIV vaccines in humans after they have proven effective in other primates provides ample evidence that the nonhuman primate model is itself a tragic and miserable failure in vaccine development. Yet the animal trials continue while all the world holds its breath waiting for vaccines and cures as the death toll rises.

Why have these vaccines failed in humans? One team suggested that differences between monkeys and humans for the gene TRIM5-alpha played an important role. A few months later, we learned about critical differences between nonhuman primates and humans with respect to "siglecs," proteins which serve as the "brakes" on the immune system. And now, just a few short days ago, yet another set of investigators has found another critical difference : HIV uses a specific human protein (LEDGF-p75) to copy itself into the host genome and create an untouchable resevoir of its own genetic code.

Despite all of these differences, and this latest evidence of a human-specific disease mechanism, thousands of monkeys are being tortured and killed right now in government-funded experiments of SIV and SHIV.

ScienceDaily: Mayo Researchers Discover HIV Dependence On A Human Protein