From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 9 Dec 1998 03:10:16 GMT

In <74ijs0$6h4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> mjc1@albany.net writes:

>   Oh? Name some drugs or treatments that went directly from animal
>trials to human use, with no human trials in between.


   Surgical gas anaesthesia.  Spinal anaesthesia.  Penicillin for
infections.  Liver extract for pernicious anemia.

    Now, you can always consider that the first few humans a therapy is
tried on, constitute "trials."  In that sense, it's always impossible
to try things on humans without first some kind of "trial", by
definition.  But in the sense of formal trials, approved by human use
committees and preceded by FDA approval hearings and so forth, and with
statistics done before anything else can proceed-- that's a very modern
thing.  Most medical stuff developed before 1965 never went that route,
or anything close to it.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 9 Dec 1998 08:38:49 GMT

<mjc1@albany.net> wrote:

>The end result is that animals die, and the procedures need to
>replicated with human subjects anyway.



Comment:

   I'm amazed that such reasoning gets any truck.  Suppose I suggested
that in airplane design, all that stuff with wind tunnels, scale models
and finally prototypes and test pilots, was all a complete waste of
time?  I mean, is a wind tunnel like the real sky?  No.  Is a scale
model just like the real plane?  No.  Does a prototype flown by a test
pilot and full of instruments necessarily behave exactly like a
commercial production model?  No.  Can all these differences lead to
disaster?  Yes.

   So why bother?  After all, the production plane finally has to be
built and loaded with passengers in any case, does it not?  So why not
just save all that lab time with models and do the real experiment
right off the bat? Build the full sized plane, load it with people
(preferably animal activists), and send it off down the runway.  Let's
call it "clinical research."

   If anyone argued this way against the use of models in aircraft
design, most people would understand right away that they were a few
fries short of a happy meal.  But somehow people argue this same logic
when it comes to drug or medical device design, and get away with it.
Very strange.

   Let me clue you.  Every new "drug" starts as an off-white powder in
a test tube somewhere.  It's just a chemical.  It's not obvious which
white powder is going to be a useful drug, and which is just going to
be some kind of useless junk or complicated poison (most white powders
are).  If there are any animal activists who'd like to try the
thousands of powders that come out of chem labs, in order to save some
animals from some unnecessary pain, they can line up at door #1 at
Pfizer.  You first.

   It's been argued that animals don't react to drugs exactly the same
way people do.  So?  Nobody said they did.  There is an intermediate
position which is not the same as the idea that animals react exactly
as people do (false), and the opposite position that they don't react
like humans do at all (false).  The world is not black or white.
Rather, the truth is that animals react more or less physiologically
like people do (and like other animals do), with notable exceptions.
So it's a probability thing.  If animals didn't react to drugs at all
as humans did, my vet wouldn't use any drugs that I, as a physician,
recognize.  Instead, I recognize most of them, and those I don't are
in categories of drugs closely related to those I use on humans, and
most probably COULD be used on humans, if anybody had bothered to jump
through all the expensive FDA hoops to get them approved for that.
Veterinary medicine and human medicine are not THAT different.  My vet
understands me fine, and vice versa.  The CBC I just got on a pet cat
of mine which happens to have feline leukemia virus, is pretty much
like that of any human patient infected with a retrovirus in the early
stages.  The red blood cells are a bit smaller than human normal--
that's it.

   I work in a dog lab.  We put dogs on cardiac bypass, and take them
through a very complicated resuscitation protocol.  Needless to say, we
don't use special dog heart-lung machines, and special dog surgical
equipment, and special dog drugs.  They get human stuff.  If it didn't
work at all on dogs as it does on people, we'd wind up with 100% dead
dogs, and not a clue as to what killed them.  Instead, they do fine.
Adjustments for the fact that they are dogs and not people have been
minimal.  You understand that the first time you see a dog EKG strip,
or a dog blood gas panel, and cannot tell it from that of a human.

                                          Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 9 Dec 1998 09:07:29 GMT

In <366E1CFB.85A@netcom.ca> Tom Matthews <tmatth@netcom.ca> writes:

>mjc1@albany.net wrote:
>
>> Oh? Name some drugs or treatments that went directly from animal
>> trials to human use, with no human trials in between.
>
>For supplements and/or other unpatentable therapies, conclusive human
>trials and FDA "hoop-jumping" are far too expensive to likely ever be
>done. Testing in appropriate animal models has often shown results that
>could reasonably be beneficially applied to humans when the chemical or
>therapy involved was also known to be reasonably safe. The result cannot
>be "claimed" as beneficial by the seller (under FDA regulations), but it
>can still be advocated by science writters and used by the public.
>
>--Tom
>Tom Matthews



Comment:

   And note that megavitamin therapy, the one health practice which
seems to be touted by nearly any alternative type who is opposed to use
of animals in medical experiments, is something that comes directly
from animal research, without a great deal of clinical support (at
least, not in the early days).  There isn't a single one of the classic
13 vitamins which was not isolated from food using an animal model as
assay, so that it could be identified and synthesized.  In some cases
(B1, K), deficiency syndromes in animals suggested a new food factor.
In others (examples: B2, pantothenate, vit E) direct animal
experimentation identified food factors previously unsuspected from
human experience.

   I don't know what the animal activists think should have been done
to do this work.  Yes, you can tell from natural observations that
there's something in citrus or fresh food that keeps sailors' teeth
from falling out, and their GI tracts from bleeding.  But you can
hardly ethically or morally create thousands of edentulous and
scorbutic college students on your way to finding out just what the
stuff is, in those foods, that does the job.  There's not enough money
for that, and even if there was, no human experimentation use committee
would let you do the work.  Even if you were willing.  And they were
willing.

   Vitamin E was identified because on certain diets it was found that
rats could not reproduce, and instead resorbed their fetuses.  But not
until put on a highly artifical diet of the kind that no humans
naturally get.  I would like the animal activists to suggest how we
could ever have identified vitamin E AS a vitamin, just by human
clinical research?  And understanding this, I presume all such people
will stop taking vitamin E, knowing its nefarious history?  You
wouldn't want to profit from the deaths of animals, now would you?

                                      Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 9 Dec 1998 11:01:56 GMT

In <366D2E0A.CFC@flash.net> Feralpower <frlpwr@flash.net> writes:

  >>I don't think that anyone is disputing that all mice will die
someday. The mouse that dies in the beak of a hawk or in the jaws
of a feral cat or even by the poison or nets set out by ADC were
able to experience themselves and their life as a mouse up to the
point of their death.  "Your" lab mice only experience the
unnatural conditions of the life you create for them.  You have
stolen their lives.<<

COMMENT:

   Has he?  Have their lives been stolen more than that of the
spider which has been paralyzed by the tarantula hawk wasp,
dragged down a hole, and had an egg laid on it?  Or the baby
turtles which don't make it down the beach to the water, because
they are eaten alive by frigate birds?  Or the lion cubs killed
in the pride when new males move in?

   Perhaps you object to the idea that the mice are bred for the
purpose and have never been in the "wild."   Would you object
then to experimenting with captured mice?  Captured feral dogs or
cats?   What then IS your problem?

   Perhaps you're one of those people who do not view human
activities as "natural."  That there is some difference between a
human dam built for human purposes, and a beaver dam built for
beaver purposes.  That there is a difference between my cat,
pouncing with obvious delight on a mouse, and me, finding out
something with equal delight in an experiment on a mouse.  Or a
cat playing with an injured mouse in pain, attempting to teach
her kittens how to survive, and me subjecting a lab animal to
some unpleasant experience in order to save my own or somebody
else's children.  Okay, how are we different?

   Ah, because I have the moral choice, and can choose not to
kill, you may say.  But there are a number of problems with that.
First of all, it isn't true if you want you and your family to
survive.   We all kill for a living.  Even if you're a
vegetarian, you cannot eat vegetables grown on a farm without
eating the products of a hundred fields disced and plowed in
Spring, and harvested in Fall, at the cost of the lives of
thousands of rodents and other creatures.  You cannot drive a
car, live in a house, or use a computer without using the
products of a hundred industries, all manufactured on land which
was once used by animals now defunct because of loss of habitat,
and all using resources from lands that served the same wild
animal habitat function, and now do not.  If you have more than 2
children, you drive that process.  If you're a hermit living in
the woods exclusively on fruit which falls from trees, you can
make this moral argument.  Otherwise, you descend to hypocrisy.

   Second, though I hate to say it, I think rather that the
prejudice goes deeper than that.  It isn't just that animal
activists love animals and hate people.  Actually, they only hate
certain people.  The traditional 19th century American plains
Indian who kills the buffalo, invoking the Great Spirit and
asking forgiveness of the buffalo's spirit, is not condemned.
Rather, he is politically correct.  He could, one supposes,
choose to not hamstring the beast and put it to painful death,
and he could watch his children starve.  That he does not make
that choice is not held against him.  But it is for some of the
rest of us.  Not people who have 3 children, drive cars, own
houses, use computers, or eat meat, of course.  Rather it's
biological SCIENTISTS who are the targets.  Biomedical scientists
are not the only people who are responsible for killing animals
to save humans, to be sure.  The important thing about them,
however, is that they are the people responsible for killing
animals *using complicated technology*.  This all involves
electrodes and math and other awful and anxiety provoking stuff.
THAT is the real horror.  It's Frankenstein that is scary, not
Tarzan.

   I have come to the conclusion that the real basis for animal
rights activism is not love of animals-- for animal rights
activists don't really mind seeing animals die in pain in many
circumstances, so long as it doesn't involve a white male wearing
a white coat.  Nor is animal activism simply Luddite-ism, because
activists don't mind using high technology, from computers to the
internet to fax machines, so long as it involves nothing more
complicated than pushing a few buttons.

   No, the basis of animal activism is, at heart, a hatred of
scientific education.  It is profoundly anti-intellectual, and
seeks to view the world in terms which are basically spiritual
and magical.  Any discipline which opposes magical thinking is
anathema to animal activism, and there is hardly anything more
threatening in this context than a science which seeks to apply
technology and mathematics to biology.   Talk of the pain the
animals feel is a smokescreen.  Animal activists have cats that
eat mice in their yards, and they don't really give a damn about
pain that lab mice feel.  What they care about is the pain *they*
feel when they have to take statistics to get that degree they
need to buy that house in that suburb which used to be the woods
or fields outside of town.  What they really want is a world
where such a thing (statistics, bioscience) does not exist, and
is replaced instead by shamanism.  Understand that, and you'll
understand what they're really about.


                              Steven B. Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 10 Dec 1998 03:44:34 GMT

In <366E8CCE.6F6E@flash.net> Feralpower <frlpwr@flash.net> writes:

>Steven B. Harris wrote:
>
>(snip)>
>>   My vet
>> understands me fine, and vice versa.  The CBC I just got on a pet cat
>> of mine which happens to have feline leukemia virus, is pretty much
>> like that of any human patient infected with a retrovirus in the early
>> stages.
>
>As a great believer in the benefits of medical science, how is it that
>you didn't vaccinate your cat for FeLV?  Couldn't afford it?
>Didn't know enough to keep an unvaccinated cat indoors?

  I don't like your tone.  If you must know, I picked up a stray kitten
who turned out to already have the virus, as I discovered when I took
him in for his first set of shots (I know this, since he was housebound
and no chance for contact with any infected cat between these two
events).  I would guess he probably had FeLV from his mother, as this
virus is often vertically transmitted.  Of course, there is no way to
tell with a stray.  Had I gotten a cat from a pound this kind of thing
would not have happened, since such cats are tested and destroyed
without being offered as adoptees.  That's the chance you take with
strays.  But I like this cat, and will try to give him a good life as
long as he lives.


>>    I work in a dog lab.  We put dogs on cardiac bypass, and take them
>> through a very complicated resuscitation protocol. Needless to say, we
>> don't use special dog heart-lung machines, and special dog surgical
>> equipment, and special dog drugs. They get human stuff. If it didn't
>> work at all on dogs as it does on people, we'd wind up with 100% dead
>> dogs, and not a clue as to what killed them. Instead, they do fine.
>
>How many of these dogs that are just "fine" walk out of your lab and
>resume life as a normal dog?  If your answer is not 100%, these dogs are
>NOT "fine".


   I didn't say they were ALL fine.  That any are fine is enough to
prove the point I was making.

    A couple of survivors have been adopted out, and some we've kept as
breeders and for long-term observation.  They are fine.  No, the number
isn't close to 100%-- right now it's about 10%.  There is a learning
curve, and this is research.  If we knew how to bring back 100% of
animals after being dead 15 or 16 minutes, we wouldn't have to do any
more research at that duration.  Instead, we'd go for 20 minutes.

    Animals not subjected to cardiac arrest, but simply put on bypass
and given drugs as controls, do survive with no injury nearly 100% of
the time.  Exceptions have to do mostly with human error in a complex
procedure, not any differences in dog vs human physiology. The point is
that if dogs were completely different from humans, we'd have no
survivors at all in a cardiac bypass model using human equipment and
human drugs.  Ever.

                                Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 10 Dec 1998 04:01:23 GMT

In <366E860A.3377@flash.net> Feralpower <frlpwr@flash.net> writes:

> It is this
>one-way street ending in the death of all research animals that I find
>especially troubling. No matter how successfully an animal endures the
>rigors of any one experiment, the next one will mean their death, or the
>next one, or the next one. There is nothing they can do to win their
>release.


    This only shows your ignorance.  It is illegal under USDA regs to
use an animal for more that one major procedure (ie, surgery) except
under very unsual conditions (where two surgeries are necessary for the
same experiment, for example).  It is flatly illegal to use the same
animal for different painful experiments.  Nor are scientists much
tempted to break the law here, BTW, since obviously an animal which has
been through one major procedure is hardly going to be a good test
subject.

   After one procedure our animals are either euthanized (we need to
study pathology), kept as breeders, or adopted out (sometimes by lab
personel, and in one case by an observer at a lecture to which a
survivor had been brought as a demo).  An awful lot of USDA inspection
insures that such practice continues.  We frequently have more
survivors available for adoption than we can find people to take.
Anybody reading this who wants a dog is invited to send me email.
We'll keep you in the file.

                                      Steve

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 10 Dec 1998 04:18:25 GMT

In <366E860A.3377@flash.net> Feralpower <frlpwr@flash.net> writes:


>Not only is the above overly-paranoid, it displays an unfounded attitude
>of superiority. Medical research is not the only human activity that is
>targeted by AR advocates. As a matter of fact, far more attention has
>been paid recently to the fur industry than to the research industry.
>Obviously, organized AR groups are going to choose the least defensible
>targets first. No one wants to do battle against the odds.


Comment:

    Sure.  We've all noticed that you're rather throw paint on middle
aged ladies in minks than you would bikers in leather jackets.  But
that only shows your cowardice.  If you cared about animals, you'd be
taking on the industries in which animals suffer the most, for the
least reason.  That is the food industry, where inspections and care
standards don't even come close to those which science research has to
comply with.  Next would be fur, and after that, the city pounds.  By
selecting medical research as target, a field where animal used suffer
least, and do it for the best of all possible reasons (to save human
lives) you only show yourselves for what you are.  Hypocrites.



> Next to the
>meat industry, animal research is the least assailable of the
>exploitive uses of animals.

    On the contrary, since biomedical research has the least money
behind it, and since post people understand it least, it is probably
the most vulnerable.  The spate of laws passed in recent years making
animal research nearly cost prohibitive shows this quite well.
Eventually, we'll all pay the price for that.  I only wish there was
some way to make those who pushed the legislation pay the price
differentially.



>  As you stated before , most humans are quite aware of
>where their self-interests lie and they are not about to risk harm or
>benefit to themselves for the sake of animals.  Add to this the
>enormous
>investment of government funds in research and you can rest easy that
>your income and your interests are protected.


    Not at all.  I'm seeing government funds simply diverted to other
scientific areas.  You're going to get routine genetic engineering at
this rate before you get the artificial heart.  Despite the fact that
the artificial heart is a much easier problem, and despite that fact
that genetic engineering probably won't do diddly to help the
half-million people dying every year in this country of primary cardiac
disease.  That's the price of animal activism.



>However, your suggestion that opposition to the use of animals by
>medical research is, in reality, simply fear of the unknown by minds too
>primitive to understand the intricacies of modern technology is an
>indulgence of your ego.


    Maybe.  Maybe not.  I've certainly read a lot of defences of animal
activism written by people who don't understand the intricacies of
modern technology, and that's putting it mildly.  So what AM I to
think?

                                        Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 10 Dec 1998 04:23:20 GMT

In <366E860A.3377@flash.net> Feralpower <frlpwr@flash.net> writes:


Harris:
>>    No, the basis of animal activism is, at heart, a hatred of
>> scientific education.  It is profoundly anti-intellectual, and
>> seeks to view the world in terms which are basically spiritual
>> and magical.  Any discipline which opposes magical thinking is
>> anathema to animal activism, and there is hardly anything more
>> threatening in this context than a science which seeks to apply
>> technology and mathematics to biology.   Talk of the pain the
>> animals feel is a smokescreen.  Animal activists have cats that
>> eat mice in their yards, and they don't really give a damn about
>> pain that lab mice feel.  What they care about is the pain *they*
>> feel when they have to take statistics to get that degree they
>> need to buy that house in that suburb which used to be the woods
>> or fields outside of town.  What they really want is a world
>> where such a thing (statistics, bioscience) does not exist, and
>> is replaced instead by shamanism.  Understand that, and you'll
>> understand what they're really about.


>This is a convenient notion, isn't it?  The ignorant, unwashed simply
>don't understand the lofty nature of the scientific mind.  More to the
>point, those not willing to give medical researchers carte blanche to
>animals are really only trying to conceal their failure to gain a
>position of influence and affluence in society (and with it the house
>in the burbs and the two cars, or is it three by now?).
>
>If the science of the last fifty years has taught us anything, it is
>that we know practically nothing, even in those areas where the
>scientific method can be applied.  Science is limited in what it can
>examine and what it can know; it is useful for learning how things
>work.  Scientists are the great dismantlers, disassembling life to the
>simplest of forms.  But science is careful not to ask the important
>questions that it cannot answer, questions that are better asked and
>answered by a "shaman(istic)" approach to life.


    ROFL!  Right after you condescendingly dismiss my "convenient
notion," you go ahead and support it by your further remarks.
Simplistic or not, it looks like I had YOU nailed, anyway.

                                   Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.animals,
	alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Animal Testing (was Vitamin Vultures (was Re: Life Extension HIV 
	protocol))
Date: 11 Dec 1998 08:39:12 GMT

In <366F9167.11F5@flash.net> Feralpower <frlpwr@flash.net> writes:

>I apologize. I don't mean to insult anyone who is offering aid to a stray
>cat, especially one that is ill. FeLV is not the quick death sentence
>that it once was, but I'm sure you have investigated the latest findings
>for the care and treatment of FeLV. I wish you and the kitty good luck,
>sincerely.
>
>With regard to the testing and euthanasia of cats that test positive to
>FeLV or FIV, the lastest findings have shown that this practice may well
>be overkill, literally. Like human infants infected with HIV, young cats
>that test positive for these viruses have been found to be negative at
>later testings.


Comment:

    That happens with human infants incredibly rarely (if you mean
actually clearing the virus, rather than the antibody passively picked
up from mom).  Cats are sometimes able to clear the FeLV virus from the
blood (the test for FeLV, unlike the test for FIV, looks for the virus
directly, not the antibody), but that doesn't mean the virus is gone.
It's just hiding.  Such cats are still at risk for leukemia from the
appropriate strain of FeLV, and we know that leukemia is caused by the
hidden virus, because the leukemic cells contain the viral antigen.
Ability of the immune system to "see" FeLV is doubtless the reason why
there is a successful vaccine for it, but not yet one for FIV, or (for
that matter) SIV or HIV.

   At last report, cats have about a 50% chance of dying for every two
years they live with FeLV.  That means 50% are dead at 2 years, 75% at
4 years, 83% at 6 years, and so on.  Cats with FIV (the lentivirus
analog of HIV) do better in terms of survival, actually.  But they do
not clear this virus, and remain antibody positive (what the FIV test
tests for, just as the most common human HIV test).   Cats with BOTH
FIV and FeLV do worst of all (my cat is FIV neg).

    Treatments for FeLV are not advanced.  AZT plus various ways of
activating lymphocytes have been tried (interferon, IL-2), etc.  These
clear the virus from the blood as often as not, but none has yet proven
to increase survival.  Clearing virus from the blood, as mentioned, is
not good enough.


>I am happy to hear that at least a few of your "prisoners" are finally
>released from prison and found adoptive homes.  According to our
>resident research guru, this is an occurrence to be ridiculed.

    Why?  We need to follow these animals long term, and it saves us
money and makes the animals happy to have other people take care of
them.


>The obvious question remains, why are these procedures not tested on
>the humans who are to be the beneficiaries?  Of course, failure of an
>experiment means death, but death is imminent for these patients
>anyway. Humans can consent to the risk, animals cannot.


   For resuscitation research, actually, humans generally cannot
consent.  That's been a big problem in the past.

   I will agree that since a person in cardiac arrest, who has failed
other efforts of revival, has much less to lose by being the subject of
an experiment, resuscitation experiment standards on humans should
probably be more lax.  The reason why animal experiments are still
required has more to do with ability to detect clinical effects.
Humans are far too inhomogenous to see small effects with.  They vary
in disease, age, underlying health.  It's usually impossible to
acurately guage time of arrest for them (when DID that heart stop in a
drowned person?).  It's hard enough finding small effects of
resuscitation chemicals in animals where most variables can be
controlled (and the reason why most single resuscitative treatments
which have passed animal trials have failed in humans-- the effect is
swamped by other factors).

   But that doesn't mean you don't have to do the animal tests.  A
really successful cocktail will be a mix of many treatements which are
individually marginaly effective, but in the aggregate, very effective.
Effective enough to see in a human trial.  But how to identify the
dozen or two marginally effective treatments out of possible thousands
to combine for such work?  There is no substitute but the severely
controlled experiment, and that means deliberate brain insult under
controlled (not accidental) conditions.  And that means animals, unless
you'd like to volunteer yourself.  Again, it's them or us.  I choose
us.

                                   Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 21 Dec 1998 09:30:11 GMT

In <slrn77r8ju.gtt.soma@amanda.dorsai.org> soma@iii.dorsai.org
(*selah*) writes:

>The excuse that the Nazis used to torture other humans, was that they
>decided that those other humans were animals. If animals weren't
>treated as if it didn't matter if you torture and kill them, the whole
>Nazi psychology couldn't have existed.


Comment:

    Boy, is that a convenient point of view.  And boy, is it ever
wrong. Hitler loved animals, particularly his dog, and was a vegetarian
for ethical as well as health reasons.  Moreover, The Nazis were one of
the first regimes to pass anti-vivisection laws outlawing animal
experimentation, and that's simply a historical fact.

    Hitler's problem was not that he didn't care for animals.  He did.
His problem was he didn't much care for *human beings*, and thought the
ones he most detested could be used in *place* of animals, because they
were ethically worth LESS (I'm reminded here of the death-row inmate
experimentation suggestions made on this forum, which leave me cold).
Furthermore, the Germans since long before Hitler were into natural
healing and natural hygeine and naturopathy in a big way.  And they
were in Nazi Germany.  And they still are to this day (if you want to
learn about scientific herbalism you had to read German until very very
recently).

   The idea that most basic physiological and medical research is
simply a quest to make people escape the consequences of their own
moral failures in health routines; and furthermore that high tech cures
would not be needed by pure genetically superior Uebermenchen eating
vegetables, is German to the max (cf Peter Duesberg and his approach to
AIDS).  So are most of the arguments of the eco-activists, who seem to
see snail darters and spotted owls fine, but can't *quite* seem to
focus on children whose parents need jobs to feed them.  Need I go into
the Green/German/Nazi connection?  If you want parallels to the modern
animal rights movement in all of its philsosophical implications and
eco-connections, I suggest you really try to stay away from discussing
the Nazis and German eithical ideas in general-- they don't bolster
your argument one bit.  A culture that spent most of it's time in the
16th century keeping cows in houses while it burned elderly women (and
anybody else with defenses it would find) at the stake, is not one what
was likely to find redemption in the mid 20th century.  Nor did it.

   Of course, it's probably good to stay away from the Nazis in any
argument, as it is just pushes too many emotional buttons for rational
discussion to continue. That's long been a usenet custom (frequently
broken, of course).

                                       Steve Harris

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 21 Dec 1998 20:41:00 GMT

In <5241.659T634T7713698@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>I'd like to suggest, however, that the Nazi's attitudes towards humans
>were actually paralleled by their attitudes towards animals, i.e. a
>eugenic view that some humans are racially/genetically good, some humans
>are racially/genetically bad; some animals are similarly good, some
>animal are similarly bad. Thus, as part of their campaign to exterminate
>the "bad" humans, the Nazis _did_ compare them (I should say us, because
>I'm a Jew myself) to "vermin" (bad animals, unlike Hitler's beloved
>German shepherds). Nobody - - except for animal rights supporters (which
>I also am, in a nonviolent way) -- has much compassion for "vermin." That
>willingness to say and think that some living things -- in this case
>certain animals -- are not worthy of our sympathy and protection, alas,
>helps make it possible for some people to harden their hearts and become
>Nazis and for others to harden their hearts and become "vivisectionists"
>(with "vermin" being the emotionally easiest animals to exploit this
>way).
>
>I wouldn't dream of accusing your average member of the latter group
>of having the soul of a Nazi, but there are similarities to consider:
>Nazis (and other ethnic cleansers) purge their environments of people
>whom they consider toxic to the population at large -- in other words,
>the most idealistic ones, at least, believe they are committing
>inherently distasteful acts (not every Nazi enjoyed
>their genocidal mission) in order to protect, preserve, and advance
>the greater good of a greater people. An idealistic animal
>experimenter also regrets sacrificing the animals, but feels that the
>potential benefits to humanity (considered to be more worthy than the
>animals) justify these acts.

COMMENT:

    But as I pointed out, we all do this to survive, and it cannot be
helped.  If you eat vegetables from a farm, you contribute to the
deaths of millions of mammals in the fields where the vegetables are
farmed.  If you don't feel they're less worthy than you, I suggest you
become a Jaine, eat only fruit from trees in the wild, and sweep your
path with a broom when you walk, so you don't step on ants.  And get
rid of that computer, since the industries that made it are all
environmentally nasty, almost without exception.  If you don't want to
make your stomach the grave of animals, you don't want to make your
keyboard caressing fingers the instruments of animal habitat
destruction, either.


Syd:
>I would argue that if we deplore the Nazis' ruthless, black and white
>approach to their fellow human beings we need to bring that same moral
>indignation over to our own attitudes towards living things (including
>the ones we farm and eat) in general and see if that changes those
>attitudes and behaviours.


COMMENT:

    It might.  I have a colleage in lab research who loves animals, and
has the most amazing menagerie you ever saw.  He's also a vegetarian
because he feels it's unethical to kill (and particularly farm) animals
in order to eat them.  But he recognizes that there's no other way to
make progress in some physiology research.

    I'm a fan of trying to get away from black and white thinking,
which (as you know from my posts) does indeed characterize fanatics and
nuts (aka fundamentalists) of almost every type.  Including, of course,
the Nazis.

    I have no problem with the idea that animals are something like
people, and deserving of certain protections from pain.   What I ask
people thinking about the ethical issues to remember about this, is
mainly two points:

[1].  Pain is not suffering.  Suffering comes when pain is associated
with anxiety and psychological stress.  A woman in labor may be in
great pain, but only mild suffering compared to a woman feeling exactly
the same sensations from what she knows is an incurable abdominal
cancer. Animals have a very limited capacity for anxiety, and we need
to be careful not to project our own idea of suffering onto animals who
are feeling a small amount of pain.  It's not the same.  In particular
we need to avoid projecting our own anxiety about impending death to
animals who are to die in experiments, or in some other service of
mankind (aka, as meat or fur providers, or as sacrifices to vegetable
farming). Animals are the perfect Buddhists, and they mostly live in
the present (along that line, there's a fine Robert Burns poem about
apologizing to a mouse whose home he's destroyed while plowing a field,
which I'll include below.)

  Yes, higher animals do feel a limited amount of anxiety associated
with past experience, and under direct stimulus at the time (as when
you take your dog to the vet, where it's been before).  But it can be
minimized by handling.  And pain is subject to pharmacological
intervention.   Suffering, on the whole, is small in most animal
research.  Yes, we do kill them, but that's a different thing.  We all
kill animals to survive.  And animals cheerfully kill each other.
Killing and torture are very different things.  The electric chair
shock per se is not painful, I'm reasonably sure from what I know of
people who've survived head shocks which produce unconsciouness and
seizure.  But what leads up to legal electrocution, which isn't
physically painful, most certainly is horrendous suffering because it
involves excruciating anxiety (though almost all of the pain is not
physical).  If you were to do the exact thing to an animal, however, it
would involve almost no suffering.  Humans and animals are different in
important ways.

[2]  I fully recognize that society may want to make some kind of
tradeoff between animal deaths and human deaths.  If it wants to make
rules here, where one human is worth so many animals, I want it to be
explicit, and closer to across-the-board.  The standards for housing
and care and monitoring of chickens who lay eggs or are to be used for
meat should be exactly the same as those of chickens used in scientific
research.  And rules for the local "animal shelter" should be no
different than rules for the local medical lab which also kills dogs.

  Indeed, I would argue that rules for uses of animals that are
relatively frivolous (fur industry, even mean industry) should be more
stringent than for uses in which there is no substitute (physiology
research and medical device and drug development).  At present, this is
not the way it is at all. USDA standards for lab animal care and
welfare are so onerous that, if applied to the meat and fur industry,
would convert us into a vegetarian and synthetic clothing society
literally by next month.  And it would certainly close down all animal
shelters.  It would also, BTW, outlaw the way most people keep their
pets (does YOUR dog sleep on a surface which is capable of being
regularly semi-sterilized, as for example by live steam?  I think not.
Are you liable to 5 years of prison if you don't provide one?  Don't
make me laugh).  There's something dreadfully wrong with all this.  If
you're going to have ethical standards, at least be fair about how they
are applied.


                                       Steve Harris, M.D.


---------------------------------------------------------

   The poem commenting on the "here and now" mental state of
animals is by Scotsman Robert Burns.  His poems are in dialect, and
include classics like Auld Lang Syne ("Should auld acquaintance be
forgot.."), Tam o' Shanter, and To a Louse On a Lady's Bonnet (which
includes a verse that goes something like: "Oh wad gift the giftie ge'
us/To see oursilves as ithers see us./It wad frae many a blunder free
us/ An foolish notion..")

   The poem I described earlier "To a Mouse" (1786) was composed
on "turning up her nest with a plow, November 1785".  It's the
source of our familiar saying about the best laid plans of mice
and men.  The last two verses, spoken to the mouse, go:


But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,       [not alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
               Gang aft a-gley          [go oft awry]
An' lae'e us nought but grief an' pain,
               For promised joy.

Still, thou art blest compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och!  I backward cast my e'e
                   On prospects drear!
An' forward though I canna see,
                   I guess, an' fear!


-----------------------------------------------------

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 22 Dec 1998 03:42:30 GMT

In <367ED66B.C06B3206@htl.net> Keith Waldron <waldo@htl.net> writes:

>Hello Steven,

>This is how my dictionary defines *suffering* [Random House College
>Dictionary (1988 revised):
>
>1. to undergo or feel *pain* or distress
>2. to sustain injury or loss
>...etc


   Dictionaries are reporters of language usage, not final arbiters and
policemen.  We do NOT use pain and suffering even approximately
synonymously in English.  Many an athelete in training feels pain, but
not necessarily suffering (what-- you want your children to do
something that makes them suffer?).  Pain as a result of an activity
which brings satisfaction, or which is expected to end soon, is hardly
ever thought of as suffering.   Watch the olympics: I know that some of
those guys on the stand getting the gold medal must be in a fair amount
of pain.  Strange to tell, however, they don't look like they're
suffering.  How come, if the two are the the same thing?  Indeed, why
do we have two different words at all?

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 22 Dec 1998 06:24:08 GMT

In <3420.659T2540T14055488@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>I think what it comes down to is that pain is a sensation felt by bodies;
>suffering is a state experienced by beings. And you don't have to be
>human to be a being -- and to suffer. One can argue about the quality and
>complexity of suffering that higher or lower beings can feel (and I
>include beings higher than us, whom I suspect exist, some of whom may
>even be experimenting on _us_ for _their_ selfish or higher altruistic
>purposes). But I think you really have to be a hardcore Cartesian
>("animals are just stimulus- response machines, with no actual feelings")
>to deny that beings simpler than us, from chimps on down to... well,
>certainly down to lab rats... can suffer in their own simpler -- and
>perhaps even _keener_ (as I believe Keith has said or implied) -- way.


    You misread me.  I don't deny that animals can suffer.  Anybody
who's had a cat or dog knows they can suffer (ie, experience not only
physical pain but also emotional distress).  However, one must assess
animal suffering objectively by the signs of it, and not by projecting
what you and I would be feeling in such circumstances.


>At least those Olympians have a positive purpose and a sense of reward
>to smother their pain with joy, not suffering.  But research animals?
>What kind of payoff do they get?


    Well, they get saved euthanaai, which is what would otherwise
happen to them as failed field trial breeders.  There is a surplus of
dogs, if you hadn't noticed.  Some of them get to breed.  They have a
social life.  They're well fed and out of the weather.  Some of them
survive the procedure and are adopted out.  The chances are not great,
but they're not zero, either.

    Somebody proposed using humans on death row for experiments, a view
I find revolving and very odd.  It's illegal in California to use dogs
from pounds scheduled for euthanasia, for experimentation.  It's
illegal even to use their BODIES.  Go figure.


> To me, that's one of the things that makes the suffering of
>an animal at the hands of man so aweful and poignant: they don't even
>know why they are being subjected to such grey laboratory lives (the
>suffering of being deprived of what naturally fulfills them, socially
>and environmentally) punctuated and/or ended by acute pain.

   I've got a newsflash for you: neither do animals in the wild, by and
large.  And that's the way their lives general end also, except more
so. If you think animals in the wild generally live lives of great joy
and jest, and end by assumption into animal Heaven like the Catholic
Virgin, it's probably because you've been watching too many Disney
films.  Nature photographers have a horrible bias, and editors even
more so.   People don't like to watch animals in pain and slowly dying,
which means there really is no market for most of the nature film that
exists, because that's what it shows.  Thank God we've recently had a
few realistic ones, and now the masses can watch cheetah cubs slowly
starving to death in Etocia.  Maybe somebody will make some
connections.  I doubt it, though.  Too much Disney already.



>  I think of Harlow's monkeys and the
>number his lab did on them vis a vis their maternal needs, and I feel
>like crying.  Wonderful science; abysmal humanity.  Harlow et al's
>better instincts may have been blinded by science; but thanks to
>animal rights activism it's becoming harder and harder for scientists
>to keep making such grievous moral mistakes, to apply a local
>anaesthetic to their conscience.

   Thanks to the animal rights activists, it's being harder and harder
for humans (at least humans in white coats) to do anything to animals.
It's as if we were a species apart, with no rights of survival, and no
needs of our own.  Animal rights people can watch a lion kill a gazelle
with no qualms, but if a bunch of scientists similarly strangled an
animal in an attempt to learn something to stay alive, the animal
rights people would be trying to put them all in prison for doing
something cruel and unnatural.  Double standards.  Like I said-- the
basic problem is not that these animal rights hate people.  It's that
they don't regard humans and their natural activities with the same
compassion and understanding they do a cat.  Horrible.  And you talk
about anaesthetic to the conscience!

    Incidentally, Harlow's monkeys *looked* like they were suffering.
They didn't interact well socially, they didn't gain weight, they
looked like hell.  They remind me a lot of certain chimps in the Gombe
who had run afoul of the wrong male, and were destined to be
molested in various ways until they died.  Normal chimp behavior, but
you don't see anybody going on about it and picketting for chimp child
molestation laws for other chimps.  In a zoo or a lab, if an animal's
environment is not enriched enough, it does indeed begin to have an
effect on the animal's physical well-being, and the way it moves and
behaves.  You see sterotypical and repetative behaviors, poor social
interaction, fighting, immune problems, poor weight gain.  Such animals
make lousy subjects for any experiment, because they aren't healthy.
When you DON'T see any of these things, and you think you're still
subjecting your animals to the gulag, then it may be time to have a
look at yourself and think that you may be projecting a bit much.
That's all I'm saying.  An animal that looks good probably feels good.
It's that way with people, too, by and large (though we're far more
mentally complex, to be sure, and capable of deliberate social
subterfuge).



>I agree with you, Steve, that agricultural animals should be subject
>to the same legal standards of compassionate treatment as research
>animals or any other animals that come under our influence. I agree
>with your insistence, Keith, that not just scientists, but a
>cross-section of society, set those standards. And I think those Jains
>have the right idea, even if I'm too lazy and selfish to keep up with
>them.
>
>Syd


    Can't let you get away with that.  Unless you agree that you don't
want to impose by force of government on other people the kinds of
standards you're too lazy and selfish to keep voluntarily yourself.
It's okay with me if you care about yourself and family less than the
animals.  The animals don't return the compliment, and would eat you in
a heartbeat, but never mind.  It's even okay with me if you think EVERY
human being should care less about himself than he does the animals, or
the animals do about him (her).  Just don't FORCE that view on us.
Otherwise, you may find that I'm capable of acting more like an animal
than you think.

   (In fact, the next animal rights activist who enters my lab with the
object of destruction is going to find out first-hand more about the
law of the jungle than he ever dreamed.)

                                      Steve Harris, M.D.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"There is no more pleasing sound in the world than that of
a hungry animal at its food.  Unless you are the food.

                         -- Edward Abbey

--------------------------------------------------------------------

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 24 Dec 1998 07:59:09 GMT

In <2644.661T2201T13455117@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>The question is, is the scientific community really racking its brains
>to try and find ways to solve human problems without causing suffering
>in the process?


COMMENT:

   Yes, the USDA regs require evidence of a net and literature search
for alternatives for every single procedure done to any animal in any
experiment which causes even momentary anxiety and or pain (thus runs
to hundreds of pages for a complex procedure).  And a statistical
analysis showing you have some idea of how many animals you need to
answer your questions (so you don't use too many), AND a search to see
if somebody has done substantially the same research already (as if you
wouldn't do that anyway).  And standard operating procedures in writing
for every single procedure in an animal experiment, from cleaning cages
to giving an injection to using a heart lung machine.  A whole wall of
stuff that has to be written by each institution de novo.

   It's all overseen not only by USDA inspectors but also by a
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) composed of a vet,
some scientists, and some people from the community who work with
animals but are not connected with the company (farmers, vet techs,
etc).  They have to sign off on experimental protocols which all must
be put down in excruciating detail.  In coming standards of USDA regs,
expected to follow those of Association for the Assessment and
Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International, this
committee will have to contain people like theologans or philosophers
or God help us, animal activists.

   The USDA itself, and (even more so, AAALAC) requires vivarium
standards for researchers which would bankrupt any other major industry
(agriculture, zoo, pet breeders and kennels, animals shelters) which
house animals.  And would certainly leave 99.999% of all pet owners in
major violation, which they would not have the money to remedy.  USDA
standards for operating and recovery rooms for experimental procedures
on animals, and OSHA type training and survailance of the personele who
carry them out, are in excess of those for any vet, and indeed, for any
nursing home, dialysis center, or human chronic care facility (if you
sense something wrong with this, be my guest).  I cannot go into the
details here, because I'd have to summarize a tome called Guide for the
Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, which is the present standard for
such stuff.  And it's due to get worse.  But I recommend it for anybody
who thinks that nobody works on this stuff.  In reality, these days
scientists who work on anything larger than a rodent work MOSTLY on
this stuff.  They don't do research-- they work on regulatory matters.

   Here are a few starters.  Every dog that comes to our facility has
to be accounted for in origin (an approved center), tatooed or
microchipped, transported in temperature controlled vehicles (which
must have VIN numbers recorded and be available for inspection), must
be inspected for multiple parasites and have multiple vaccines and
health exams, must be housed in a vivarium which has too many
requirements for food, bedding, materials, sanitary techniques, and
exercise to go into here, and must be available for inspection by the
USDA inspector at any time, along with all personal records.  If
euthanized, there must be a kind of death certificate with (so help me)
methods used to assess and ascertain death, with records of same.

  I have mentioned getting written up because one USDA inspector with
calipers found that our rabbits' toenails were a couple of millimeters
too long.  We had not been clipping our bunnies sedulously enough.  Too
many write-ups means being shut down, fines, or jail.  The guy across
town who raises rabbits for food has no such standards, needless to
say.  Not long ago, we were very nearly written up because a table on
which rabbits are killed in order to remove their kidneys for organ
preservation research, had the wrong surface. Seems it might be too
easy for germs to be hiding there. Nor can you anaesthetize an animal
to remove its kidney without monitoring its heartrate to make sure it
is deeply enough asleep before it is euthanized, and records of this
must be kept for inspection.  If you have a heating pad to keep an
anesthetized animal warm, you have to have a temperature monitor and
alarm to make sure you don't burn it (I'm waiting to see THIS reg in
nursing homes).  And so on and so on.  Each thing by itself seems
utterly reasonable.  Put then all together, and you get a parasitic
mess which causes money that would otherwise be going to finding
medical answers, going instead to satisfy inspectors who are looking
after 0.00001% of the mammals in this country with 1000 times the care
that they watch over the others.  And all because medical research
draws no votes.  People just want it to have been done when they get
sick, and not think about it.  And they refuse to think that it isn't
being done.  If this stuff causes us to take us 3 extra years to
complete a project which will save thousands of children from brain
damage (which is the least damage it can do), nobody will give a damn.
Because it's not presented to them as a choice.  But resources are
limited, and it IS a choice.   Like it or not.

   You're as guilty as the next person, Syd.  You want to know how your
thyroid works, and what those hormones are and what they do, when
you're depressed.  You want to know the chemistry of the brain. You
never stop to consider how we know all that (you think the structure
and function of thyroid hormones, and the brain chemistry of serotonin
was discovered mainly in human experiments?  Dream on).  You just want
the information when you want it.  Subconsiously you think maybe it
comes from medline, dictated from God.  And you want to do things which
will effectively stop any new information from being generated for
other people who need it.  And you don't want to think of it as a
choice.  But it is a choice.

                                      Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 28 Dec 1998 09:09:07 GMT

In <10445.665T2747T11006147@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>Or do I assue too much?  Give us an example of a medical problem that
>clearly doesn't have a comparable chance of being remedied if animal
>research dollars were to be shifted to other "cruelty-free" kinds of
>research.

   The one I'm working on: how can you present the damage that happens
in a brain after it's been deprived of blood flow or oxygen for more
than 5 minutes?  The problem with using accidentally damaged humans is
that some (actually, many) of the drugs that are good candidates from
mechanistic viewpoints turn out to be poisons.  Or the forms of
delivery or the doses are toxic.  Or simply don't work, for reasons not
understood.  Or work too weakly for the effect to be seen in a human
study (in which you don't even know how long the brain has been without
oxygen, even approximately, and the differences between subjects are
wild and variable).   But the combination of weak treatments found
through animal studies (where there are few variables to fool you)
turns out to be quite powerful, since effects are synergistic.  We
already know that from research on animals that HAS been done.  This
problem will be solved, but it won't be solved purely clinically.

  Unless you'd like to donate your brain and body to a deliberate
cardiac arrest experiment, Syd?  We can get one good experiment out of
you.  No guarantees you'll survive, or that if you do, you won't drool
a lot more.  But it'll be a start.  And you'll save one of those feild
trial breeder dogs from having to be put down immediately.  Instead, it
will live until it's put down later, at the local pound.  What do you
say?

   Another major area of interest in the company I work for is
indefinite cryogenic preservation of organs in solid form.  The only
way to see if a preservation solution is toxic, is to try it on a
living kidney, and then evaluate slices to see if you've killed them.
Have you got a source of good, fresh, living kidneys for me, Sid?  In
perfect shape without previous damage (which would cause too many
variables?)?  I don't think so.  Well, I guess you have two.  How about
just ONE?

                                           Steve Harris, M.D.







> Certainly
>in an area that I'm very familiar with -- depression -- I fail to see the
>necessity of animal research and believe it's possible that resources so
>spent could even be better spent (from the point of view of finding those
>"key[s]") on other kinds of research.
>
>Syd
>
>
>
>                            ____________________
>
>                         http://www.escape.ca/~sgb
>
>   a place for books and articles by Syd Baumel on depression, serotonin,
>    and other natural health matters.  Also record reviews!
>
>                      an Amazon.com associate website
>                           _____________________

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 29 Dec 1998 16:09:29 GMT

In <6023.666T1057T7564177@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>I would love to donate my body to a different kind of "experiment." If I
>have a stroke tomorrow, I would like to have administered to me ASAP
>(assuming the odds are it's been a nonhemorrhagic stroke) a cocktail of
>substances already known to have the kinds of effects (antioxidant, blood
>thinning and flow enhancing...) which should protect my brain during this
>period. In fact, as you know, there already is a substantial body of
>literature on such agents' (hydergine, ginkgo, vitamin E? CoQ10?...) in
>vivo benefits under these circumstamces (stroke, head trauma, heart
>surgery/failure...), mostly with animal subjects, but some of it, if I
>recall correctly, with human subjects too.

    No, actually there isn't.  Almost nothing with animals and
basically nothing with humans.  These are urban myths promoted by Dirk
Pearson and Sandy Shaw.




>The problem is if you have a stroke - - here in Canada at least -- you
>won't get any of these potential "brain savers" unless you or your family
>has a sympathetic doctor who will listen and go along with your
>unorthodox request.

    Nor should you.  The information is lacking.  It's mythology from
popular health books.


>I would also like to receive acupuncture during the weeks and months
>post-stroke because of the consistent body of peer- reviewed human
>clinical trials suggesting it improves stroke recovery.

    Your abstracts?



>In short, I would like to see more money and intellectual resources
>diverted to applying what we already know to dealing directly with this
>human medical problem and less R&D on sacrificial lab animals.


     That's the point, Syd.  We don't know ANYTHING.  You can do a
medline search.  Why don't you teach yourself a REALLY good lesson here
and try to back up the stuff you've said above?  Do you good.



>And I also question if such sacrificial research was necessary to get us
>where we already are, i.e. to the point of predicting -- on the basis of
>in vitro and human experimental studies alone -- that some of these
>relatively safe, natural, and gentle interventions could cautiously be
>tried on human volunteers in controlled clinical trials.

     You can question it all you like.  It's not going to work.  You
don't know how long humans have been without oxygen.  You have too many
variables.  And last, but not least, nobody is going to let you try
anything on people that hasn't been thorougly tested on animals.  Find
me the hydergine study showing animals saved from ischemic damage from
total brain anoxia.  Find me the ginkgo study on acute brain ischemia
in humans (if you're going to suggest Ginkolide B, forget it.  I've
worked with it, and it's a bitch).




>>   Another major area of interest in the company I work for is
>>indefinite cryogenic preservation of organs in solid form.  The only
>>way to see if a preservation solution is toxic, is to try it on a
>>living kidney, and then evaluate slices to see if you've killed them.
>>Have you got a source of good, fresh, living kidneys for me, Sid?  In
>>perfect shape without previous damage (which would cause too many
>>variables?)?  I don't think so.  Well, I guess you have two.  How about
>>just ONE?
>
>I've been signing the organ donation option on my driver's license for
>years. Perhaps animal researchers and animal rightists should get
>together and campaign for more people to do this so animals needn't be
>sacrificed.


    What good would that do?  If your kidney's good enough to be used
for research, it's probably good enough to be used for a transplant.



> I don't
>believe I've heard this angle used to persuade people to donate.  It
>could be compelling for many animal rightists who (as the cliche goes)
>care less about their fellow organ-needy humans than they do about
>animals.

    Don't hold your breath.



>And what, may I ask, is the vital medical need served by _indefinate
>cryogenic_ preservation of organs?

    If you have months and years you can find more nearly perfect donor
matches.  There is also time to do immune preparation which makes some
grafts take better.   Lastly, some organs like hearts don't last long
enough to be able to be transported out of a local area, even by jet.
So some are wasted.  So you don't need indefinite storage for them, but
you sure need something better than what we have.

> You're not working for Bill Gates are you?

   Don't I wish.  Actually, he'd like to be cryopreserved until Windoze
2000 comes out and the big fed trial is over.


>Well, on second thought, if the above campaign worked and you guys found
>yourselves inundated with human organs, that would come in handy. But
>then, you could use some of those same organs to do your cryogenic
>research. BTW, what about the organs from agricultural animals (as long
>as our society continues to exploit them, mostly for their muscle meat)?
>Couldn't you set up "organ harvesting annexes" in slaughterhouses?

    USDA, presured by animal rights activists, have made this almost
entirely illegal. You weren't paying attention to my dissertation about
regs on care of animals used in research, and how they differ from regs
for meat animals, were you?  Or maybe you just didn't believe me.
Remember, meat eaters and the meat industry has the resources to
protect itself.  Scientists do not.  You'll have perfectly preserved
sweatbreads long before you have perfectly preserved kidneys.
Bon appetite.


                                           Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 31 Dec 1998 07:06:06 GMT

In <76eak5$fvp$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> michal8@my-dejanews.com writes:

>These arguments are always flawed and here's why I believe that to be the
>case:If animals are not given the SAME drugs in combination with this
>cruel research, then the outcome of the experiments will not accurately
>duplicate the parrellel effects on a human brain,etc.



    It doesn't have to duplicate it to tell you a lot.  Look, for an
extreme example, you don't even have to consider a live animal.  Have
you ever seen them use crash dummies in experiments with car and airbag
design?  Do you think a crash dummy resembles a human being more than
an animal does?  Does that mean crash dummies provide NO information at
all about the kinds of damage to bodies from car crashes, and are
therefore a giant engineering scam?  If not, I suggest you check your
premises.

   I'm always seeing people suggesting that I stop testing on animals,
and try to use computer models instead.  And they also argue that
animals are so different from humans in structure and response that the
animal data isn't worth much.  Sometimes they use both arguments in the
same post, but usually they aren't that stupid.  They wait until a new
post.

                                  Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 4 Jan 1999 06:34:21 GMT

In <7923.672T1207T7714759@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>Teg, you're assuming too much knowledge on my part (NPY, PCR?), but I
>think I get your main points. I don't doubt that even the blind alleys in
>animal research can yield knowledge that directly or indirectly benefits
>humans medically. But I get the impression from what you say that the
>average number of tightly controlled animal studies you have to do to get
>the real gold -- including the human clinical trials that must follow for
>validation -- may wind up being as costly -- strictly in dollars and
>cents -- as the fuzzier, strictly human research you'd need to do to get
>that same prize.


    Not even close.


>But then those who try and justify animal research commonly insist that
>all manner of medical breakthroughs, past and future, could not have been
>possible without animal research -- that if you don't let the scientists
>sacrifice the animals you'll be sacrificing yourself or your loved ones
>down the road. This too is misleading and emotionally manipulative
>propaganda.


    No, it's the truth.  Stop animal research and progress in
understanding of physiology will basically grind to an almost complete
halt.  And with it, most medical progress.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids,misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: animal torture stories (was Re: LEF HIV protocol)
Date: 5 Jan 1999 11:21:31 GMT

In <2642.673T2360T13275268@escape.ca> "Syd Baumel" <sgb@escape.ca>
writes:

>You don't have to be a vivisectionist to tell which way the health goes.
>
>Syd


    You don't have to be anything, since people fool both themselves
and their practitioners.  Consider homeopathy and faith healing.
That's where we'd be without science.

    Scientific clinical studies cost millions each.  We produce
millions of synthetic compounds each year in an attempt to find new and
improved drugs.  You multiply it out.  And start by figuring that a
large fraction of the new molecules are poisons.  Far more poisons than
useful products.

   Like I said, I've got this new powder from a test tube.  Maybe it's
a cure for cancer, and maybe, like most chemicals in the chemical
catalog, it will just taste bad and make you sick as hell.  Chances are
far better for the latter.  But we gotta try it in people, because we
can't try it first in animals.  You first.

                                    Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Mice and Anesthesia
Date: 18 Mar 1999 12:18:40 GMT

In <36EFF642.B0BFA3F0@club-internet.fr> F Stassen
<twinky@club-internet.fr> writes:

>It is possible to intubate mice! Nowadays special equipment is on the
>market specially designed to ventilated mice (Harvard Instruments, Hugo
>Sachs Electronics). If this was not possible how to do
>ischemia/reperfusion or myocardial infarction in mice?

   Had no idea that had been done.  Gads, what a waste of time in a
critter that has a normal heart rate of 600.   The specific metabolic
rate of a mouse is about 7 times that of a human, and the density of
mitochondria and blood flow in the myocardium is nearly that factor
higher (mitigated by the fact that heart mass in smallest mammals
animals doesn't scale quite as specific metabolic rate (-^1/3 power),
due to absolute heart rate limitations, in turn dictated by viscosity
of blood, which is more or less constant in mammals).  Not the greatest
model, though.


> And with a
>combination of Ketamine and Xylazine you can come a long way, but not
>far enough........


    The old Rompun and Ketalar.  Know it well.  Not suitable for major
procedures, and metabolized fast in small animals.  Don't let the USDA
catch you using it for surgery on large animals.  You can get away with
it in rodents only because these don't yet fall under the same care
guidelines.  But I have news: that's about to change.  Soon, you'll
have to keep a health chart and serial number for each mouse.  Won't
that be fun?  Your animal rights friends at work.  Each week they make
a good animal model too expensive to use.  Next, they note that the
model you're now forced to use is not a good one.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,alt.activism,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Resident Training Costs and Subsidies (was: The Patients' Bill of 
	Rights (was Backlash against HMOs: a declaration of war)
Date: 23 Apr 1999 12:47:47 GMT

In <7forsi$g6a$1@news.laserlink.net> "jsas1219" <jsas1219@gateway.net>
writes:

>I agree that veterinary medicine requires a great deal of knowledge and
>training. However, your argument was that physicians are not paid
>according to their functional value to society. To imply an equal value
>to society between veterinary medicine and human medicine is somewhat
>ridiculous. Not in any way to demean the importance or knowledge of
>veterinarians, but most people value human life considerably above that
>of animals.



   Then why are AAALAS standards for lab animal care, which are in
force for many government and university purposes, and probably soon be
become USDA standard for everybody in lab work, so much more stringent
than HICFA standards for nursing homes?  And in some cases, even more
so than JCHAO standards for hospitals?

    The sad truth is that a lot of people care more about kitties and
doggies than they do about their fellow humans.  Such people form a
political pressure group, and researchers, who are in a minority and
least able to defend themselves econcomically, are the first target.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.med
Subject: Rat ICUs (was Re: IT - Ginger - Segway)
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 14:42:49 -0700

"Ed Green" <nulldev00@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011209114014.20133.00001258@mb-bk.aol.com...
>
> I had a plan to spend a lot of money on animal health
> care.  We all know that we can now spend almost as
> much money as on humans when Fido starts to kick
> the bucket, using extraordinary measures to extent
> canine life.  But the cycle time is too long... Fido might
> have 12 - 15 years of healthy life before the end.
>
> So my plan is to keep a succession of pet rats.  Rats
> only live 3 or 4 years, so every few years you could
> go through extraordinary rat life-saving measures,
> dialysis, operations, round the clock care, drug
> therapires, trying to prolong the life of whiskers from
> 3.5 to 4 years.  Then, surrounded by tubes and
> machinery, you could reluctantly let them turn off
> the switch on your faithful companion, spend a
> decent week in morning, and get a new one.
>
> You could spend perhaps a fourth of your companion
> animal relationship in intensive care!   Think of the
> advantages to the animal health care industry!
>

COMMENT:

The horrid thing about your proposal is that I am beginning to see it come
true, though not for the average man with the average pet. Rather, the feds
(read USDA) are starting to turn the screws on researchers on their animal
care, and they are preparing to apply the same standards they use for large
lab animals (monkeys, dogs, pigs, rabbits), now to *rodents*.

Now, you may not know it, but the USDA standards for the care of large lab
animals are already a disaster. These critters have to be photographed
individually, identified, inoculated, exercised, caged in cleanliness
conditions which are far more stringent than the feds require for the
nursing home where demented humans dribble poop on the floor, and so on.
Tomes are written on their care and research, and tomes have to be filled
out to keep them. Committees and federal inspectors watch over them. This
costs researchers untold money that could be spent on research. And the
standards are completely hypocritical, also. If you're raising rabbits for
food, nobody really cares much how they are housed, unless the conditions
are so bad as to cause disease (which the producers don't allow to happen
anyway). But if you're using rabbits for research, their housing has to be
several grades above anything you've seen. I had an inspector write my lab
up once because she came with a set of calipers and measured the fact that
our rabbits' toenails were too long. This is not a joke. They were sitting
their in their capacious steel cages munching hay and apples and carrots and
looking fat and happy, but no doubt they were silently suffering the pangs
of insufficient manicurial attention. Likewise, the dogs at my facility have
to be in conditions nice enough to completely bankrupt your average
dogpound, and certainly better than are required of private dog owners, or
of private dog kennels.

Now it's coming to rats, which are already used for 95% or something of lab
animal research, simply because the USDA and the animal rights people who
push them, have made it so by making large animal research prohibitively
expensive. Soon you'll have to microchip your rats, inoculate them, exercise
them, inspect them for diseases, vow to operate on them no more than once,
have special committees that oversee the planning of rat experiments, and
hire many personnel to insure that the rats don't suffer any discomfort in
experiments, and that when they are killed, it is done with cardiac
monitoring and anesthesia, and in a completely politically correct fashion.
All while nobody cares in the least about the chickens and cows you eat, or
the cats and dogs being housed nastily and killed in droves at your local
animal "shelter".  Why have animal rights people targeted researchers but
not pet owners, animal shelters, or the food industry? Hey, for the same
reason they throw paint on women in fur coats rather than bikers in
leathers. They're softer targets.  Nobody cares about animal research until
they (the people) get sick and find out there's no cure for what they've
got. And then it's too late, anyway, is it not?  So it's the Arkansas
traveler problem (cabin roof can't be fixed in the rain, and it doesn't leak
when it doesn't rain).

The cost of all this will more or less bankrupt research on mammals, but
that's the idea.  And there you are-- the news from Lake Wobegone.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.med
Subject: Re: Rat ICUs (was Re: IT - Ginger - Segway)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 11:15:29 -0700

"Maleki" <maleki_m_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9v2pt1$conk2$1@ID-20678.news.dfncis.de...

> > All while nobody cares in the least about the chickens and cows you
> > eat, or the cats and dogs being housed nastily and killed in droves at
> > your local animal "shelter".  Why have animal rights people targeted
> > researchers but not pet owners, animal shelters, or the food industry?
>
>
> Answer to this seemingly confusing situation is, the _intention_
> for a pet owner, animal shelter officer, and even the worker in
> the food industry compounds is to create least amount of pain
> for the animals,

COMMENT

How the hell do you know what the intensions of the average chicken farmer are?
Or what the average animal shelter animal goes through, due to institutional
neglect problems, and not due to any particularly sadistic impulse?  Ever
been to one (the inside, not the public side). The animals are there to
mostly die, you know.  Nobody cares if they're scared or don't eat. And if
they are, there's not much to do about it. They aren't like the animals
raised at my facility, who stay with their "pack" through their lives.

Having an animal in bad condition or in pain or not eating or socially
isolated surely will screw up most phyiological experiments. And that's true
even if you don't like animals (which I do).

> while in a research institution deliberate operations
> and cruel tests are conducted on animals and potential for disregard
> of animals' rights is higher especially for >someone who thinks like you.

How do you know what I think?  My dogs have far better living conditions
than those at the pound, and when they die, they die far more peacefully and
painlessly than those at the pound. In fact, I'd like to use dogs from the
pound after their claim time is up, but it's illegal. How's that for stupid?

My research is going to save lives-- quite a few, I should imagine.  How
many lives saved by your average chicken being raised to be turned into a
McNugget?  Eh?

> The fact that I must mention this to you is proof enough.

You mention nothing of consequence. You don't know what you're talking
about, and trying to defend your position you're only going to get in
deeper. But be my guest. Tell us how the average cow going up the ramp to be
disassembled for hamburger, gets a shot of ketamine and acepromazine to calm
it, then a shot of barbiturate so it doesn't know it's being hung up by the
heels to be bled. Tell us, Maleki. We want to hear you say it.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.jai-maharaj,soc.culture.indian,alt.support.cancer,
	misc.health.alternative,sci.med
Subject: Re: 'THE CANCER RACKET' by Gavin Phillips
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:37:36 -0700
Message-ID: <a4rvvn$u5e$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>

> Steve,
>
> Not what I said.  I said that it is discarded because it didn't work on
> mice, not that it was toxic to them.

Sure, both happen. The second is actually more common.


>  I have been on three clinical
> trials, and two of the three were Phase I trials.  On one of those, I was
> the first human to get the treatment drug.  It had been tested on mice,
> and monkeys before I got it.

COMMENT:

Bravo and good for you! No kidding. You've got guts. Similarly, did you know
that the first person to get AZT was an insurance salesman who didn't have
HIV. Some of the first people to get Hep B vaccine were executives at Merck
who weren't really at much risk.  If not for people like you in phase I's,
things would go slower.


> It only worked for a short time, but then I got a very low dose.  Someone
> has to be first.
>
> Berky the Warrior
> Folie à Deux

Yep. Though I personally would prefer that possible new drugs were tested
first, right out of the beaker, on animal rights activists. THEN in mice and
rabbits and such, for those candidate molecules that don't kill the
activists.  This way, everyone should be happy-- the activists, the lab
animals-- even me who believes in personal responsibility for philosophical
views. It's a win-win-win situation.


SBH

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com (Steve Harris  sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com)
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,sci.med,alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?
Date: 19 Jul 2004 13:05:54 -0700
Message-ID: <79cf0a8.0407191205.367ef48c@posting.google.com>

Derek <derek@1066ad.com> wrote in message
news:<vnolf0ddkl85t3203hpomf2sh43urssvbd@4ax.com>...

> Here's a reply to that very comment from Tom Regan. I took
> the liberty to type it directly from the book in question.

> Professor Cohen makes a number of claims on this topic. I
> consider two. First, he states that "In the history of modern
> medicine... virtually all of the greatest advances have relied
> essentially on animal research" (pg 85). This is false. Public
> health scholars who have studied improvements in human
> health attribute only a modest contribution ( somewhere
> between 3.5 and 5 per cent) to standard medical interventions
> that depend on animal model research. In particular, decline
> in mortality resulting from both infectious and chronic diseases
> are best explained by improvements to the environment and to
> changes in personal hygiene rather than because of the kinds
> of therapies professor Cohen describes in his essay.


Actually, this is a point to which there is a lot of contention. There
really is no way to parcel out death reduction in this century (which
is mainly due to saving children from infectious deaths) to sanitation
vs antibiotics vs modern fluid/electrolyte therapy vs vaccine use vs
improved knowledge of nutrition. They all happened simultaneously and
nobody ever did the controlled experiments to find out what was doing
what.

There's no doubt the with good sanitation a lot fewer people die of
dysentery. It's also true that with good medical care, children no
longer die of dysentery even when they do get it. And a lot of that is
due to basic understanding of physiology which is impossible to come
by without controlled experiments which are destructive. If you give
too much potassium intravenously to a cholera victim, you'll kill
them. So how much is safe to give? There's no way to find out but by
giving more and more potassium until you start killing people with it.
Your comment here is: "If you can't find volunteers, then do without."
By answer is simply that I don't want to do without. And I vote that
YOU be the volunteer for the IV potassium challenge, since you don't
like use of animals for this. I think most cholera patients and their
families would vote the same way.


> The situation respecting prescription drugs is similar. Throughout
> its regulatory history, there is not a single instance of the Food
> and Drug Administration's approving a drug that has not been
> tested on animals. So, yes, given the history of FDA regulatory
> practice, we would not have the prescription drugs we have today
> if they had not been tested on animals. That is true. But it is also
> trivial. Because the only way FDA has been willing to approve
> such drugs is after they were first tested on animals, it cannot be
> surprising that this is the only way drugs have become available
> on the market.

We see the point, but it's obvious WHY the FDA requires animal tests
of new chemicals which MIGHT be drugs. There is no such thing as a
"new drug."  There's just a yellow powder from a test tube in a lab,
which has never existed before. It might be a slow poison, a quick
poison, an inactive compound. What drug activity it has is a mystery.
Nobody in their right mind would ever test toxicity of a new molecule
from a lab by putting it in healthy people. Nor could you put it in
ill people if you didn't even know what class of drug it might be.

Back to my comments about volunteers. You first.


> Suppose we grant Professor Cohen all that he might wish: the
> benefits human derive from animal experimentation not only are
> extraordinary but could not have been obtained in any other way.
> What, then? Has vivisection been justified, on utilitarian grounds?
> No. Why not? Because all those harms causally linked to reliance
> on animal model research must find their rightful place in the
> utilitarian mix. To fail to enter them into the calculations is manifestly
> to fail to make the utilitarian case in favour of vivisection.


We really have no way to guage human harm resulting from reliance on
animal models to do things first. We'd have to run a side by side
human experiment in which we developed something using only human
volunteers. Not only would this be illegal, but even if we made it
legal, nobody in their right mind would do it. So you couldn't even
run the experiment to TEST how well things would work without
animal-use. Though there is some pleasure in contemplating such a
trial, using animal-rights activists as standins for the animals in
the human arm.


> And there's the rub. Throughout his lengthy disquisition in praise of
> vivisection, one looks in vain to find so much as a hint that Professor
> Cohen is aware of the massive harm done to humans because of
> vivisection;

COMMENT

One looks in vain at the animal rights literature to see any kind of
good evidence for the extravagant claims they make in this direction.
They argument they use is always specious, and it goes like this:
Animal trials of drug-candidate molecules catch a lot of problems
which keep the molecules from going on to human testing, but not all
of them. It's not fair to blame the animal testing process for the
failures, because THOSE would have been failures even if you hadn't
used animals. My impresssion is that the extra confidence gained from
doing the animal tests actually harms few humans, because drugs that
have been though animal trials are still treated with a lot of respect
and fear in phase I and II human testing. Would you have even more
respect and fear testing virgin chemicals in humans which had ever
been put into an animal?  Sure. But you'd also have a set of much more
dangerous chemicals, too. I think it would more than even out. But of
course, the experiment has never been done, for reasons discussed
above.


> >The authors overlook a huge amount of
> >such nutritional stuff, and that's just for starters.
>
> They're discussing the proposition of animal rights, not nutrition,
> and if you'd "read the article this whole argument is based on.",
> as you claimed to have done, then you would've known that.


I'm looking at claims for how we got medical advances. Knowing about
vitamins and nutritional components (fluids, electrolytes, etc) are
medical advances used by doctors every day. But they mostly come out
of animal research, because it's hard to get human volunteers to eat a
vitamin C free diet until their teeth fall out. Or at least it is,
these days. Once upon a time (18th century) you could do it. But a lot
of horrible things were done in the 18th century we wouldn't tolerate
now. Slavery, impressment, etc.


> >Same with anesthesia. Nobody in their right mind would have dared
> >knock a human out with ether unless they'd tried it first on a dog. Or
> >give a human a spinal injection of cocaine for a spinal block, without
> >trying THAT on an animal (what, do YOU want to be the first organism
> >to get cocaine into your spine?!). And so on.
>
> If human volunteers cannot be found, then so be it: go without.


No, YOU go without. If you want your surgery without anesthesia, be my
guest. Good luck finding a surgeon.

We all live on the deaths of animals. Anybody who has harvested a
field of wheat knows what it does to the field mice and many other
small mammals it harbors. And that's not counting the total
destruction of the virgin forest or great plains area in the first
place for farming. How much habitat and how many animals was that?

If you stay on this planet, you do it at the expense of mammals who'd
be taking your spot if you weren't here. I suggest you animal rights
blokes all admit this, and quit your whining. You're in this mess with
all the rest of us. The only way to get out is just shoot yourselves
and leave your spot to the critters. And of course, please remember
not to reproduce first.

SBH

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com (Steve Harris  sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com)
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,sci.med,alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?
Date: 20 Jul 2004 20:42:10 -0700
Message-ID: <79cf0a8.0407201942.4b12c3a1@posting.google.com>

Derek <derek@1066ad.com> wrote in message
news:<16eof0tccanjm1tlf98fmd8s91lb312ems@4ax.com>...

> >Would you have even more
> >respect and fear testing virgin chemicals in humans which had ever
> >been put into an animal?
>
> No.
>
> > Sure.
>
> I wrote, "No."


Well, then, you're a fool. Because the actions of a drug in various
animals do somewhat predict what the drug will do in humans. It's not
a perfect prediction, rather it's more like a weather forcast. It's
much better than nothing. Just as the actions of a drug in one species
somewhat predicts action in another. Exceptions (and there are many)
say nothing about the general trend.


> >But you'd also have a set of much more
> >dangerous chemicals, too.
>
> And that's why I wrote, "No."


And that's why you'd be wrong. A chemical which hasn't been through
multispecies animal tests is far more dangerous to use in humans than
one you don't know what to expect from.

You obviously have spent little time in vet clinics, where almost all
of the anesthetics, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals are all
perfectly recognizable to a human doctor, since they're used in
multiple animal species for just the same thing they are used for, in
people. Without concordance of pharmacological effect, this would be
impossible.


> That isn't WHY medical research use animals, "because it's
> hard to get human volunteers ...." or because we haven't
> enough patients with the particular ailment researchers are
> trying to find cures for. They use animals because it's cheaper
> and faster, but that rush to find our cures is a crime against
> animals and the patients killed by the prescribed treatments
> and drugs derived in this way.


You're wrong. It's hard to get human volunteers for much of what we
need to do to test drugs. It's impossible in the modern tort climate,
in fact.

The "rush to find cures" is because people are dying without them.
Cheaper and faster means lives saved.

> There are many cases throughout medical history were
> human subjects have been used unethically to collect
> data to get medicine where it is today. More modern-
> day examples are;

[Beside the point historical cases deleted]

You admit these were unethical. So we can't just start doing it again,
to save animals.

> >> >Same with anesthesia. Nobody in their right mind would have dared
> >> >knock a human out with ether unless they'd tried it first on a dog. Or
> >> >give a human a spinal injection of cocaine for a spinal block, without
> >> >trying THAT on an animal (what, do YOU want to be the first organism
> >> >to get cocaine into your spine?!). And so on.
> >>
> >> If human volunteers cannot be found, then so be it: go without.
> >
> >No, YOU go without.
>
> I do. We all do.


No, you don't. If you have surgery, you'll use the anesthetic gases
and agents we first invented using animals. Which have responses to
general anesthetics very much like those of humans.



> We still haven't cured many ailments
> which I'm sure could be cured much quicker if we used
> healthy children instead of animal models, but we don't,
> so we go without. So be it, and rightly so.


Which you're "sure" would be cured much quicker if we used healthy
children? What do you know about it?  How much cross species testing
of new pharmaceuticals have you done? I myself just finished
preliminary testing of a new anesthetic preparation in dogs. Which
data successfully predicted its performace in cats. Which predicted
its performance in rabbits. So that when we finally tested it in
horses, we knew what to expect. And we were right. That abstract was
just accepted and will be presented next year at a vet conference in
Europe. According to you, all that is pure luck. But I've been there,
and I know differently.

> >If you want your surgery without anesthesia, be my
> >guest. Good luck finding a surgeon.
>
> Anaesthesia already exists, and there's no moral obstacle
> in using what is already available.

I don't see why there is no moral obstacle. Would you continue to use
the products of slave labor, if you were campaigning against slavery?


> >We all live on the deaths of animals. Anybody who has harvested a
> >field of wheat knows what it does to the field mice and many other
> >small mammals it harbors. And that's not counting the total
> >destruction of the virgin forest or great plains area in the first
> >place for farming. How much habitat and how many animals was that?
>
> You'd better ask the person[s] who killed them.


I'm asking you. If you continue to benefit from it, and you know it,
and you don't stop, then it's the same as if you did it yourself.
Again, see use of products of slave labor. Next you'll be telling us
you eat meat because you didn't kill it, and (heck) it was already
dead. So why not eat it?


> >If you stay on this planet, you do it at the expense of mammals who'd
> >be taking your spot if you weren't here. I suggest you animal rights
> >blokes all admit this, and quit your whining. You're in this mess with
> >all the rest of us.
>
> Rather, they're making the mess and we're putting the brakes
> on to stop them. Vivisectionists don't do what they do in my
> name; they do it for themselves.


Antivivisectionists do it too, but are hypocrites.


> >The only way to get out is just shoot yourselves
> >and leave your spot to the critters.
>
> You're ranting now.


Nope, just being logical. Either you're part of the food chain or
you're not.



> >And of course, please remember not to reproduce first.


You get that?

SBH

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com (Steve Harris  sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com)
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,sci.med,alt.animals.rights.promotion
Subject: Re: Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?
Date: 21 Jul 2004 13:05:34 -0700
Message-ID: <79cf0a8.0407211205.87e6bd7@posting.google.com>

Derek <derek@1066ad.com> wrote in message
news:<s3bsf0d6bi1jnsbq5i1bq71nn5a50g0u5l@4ax.com>...

> On 20 Jul 2004 20:42:10 -0700, sbharris@ix.netcom.com (Steve Harris
> sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com) wrote:
>
> >Derek <derek@1066ad.com> wrote in message
> >news:<16eof0tccanjm1tlf98fmd8s91lb312ems@4ax.com>...
> >
> >> >Would you have even more respect and fear testing
> >> >virgin chemicals in humans which had ever been put
> >> >into an animal?
> >>
> >> No.
> >>
> >> > Sure.
> >>
> >> I wrote, "No."
> >
> >Well, then, you're a fool.
>
> Obviously not, since, as you've pointed out, "But you'd
> have a set of much more dangerous chemicals too."
>
> >> >But you'd also have a set of much more
> >> >dangerous chemicals, too.
> >>
> >> And that's why I wrote, "No."


Possibly this is an argument about a typo. I meant to write:

> >> >Would you have even more respect and fear testing
> >> >virgin chemicals in humans which had NEVER been put
> >> >into an animal?


And the proper answer is yes, you should. I don't know whether or not
you would.  But of course you should.


> I've proved I'm right with evidence;
> [106,000 Americans died and another 1.3 million were
> injured as a result of adverse reactions to properly
> prescribed drugs... Deaths due to drug reactions are the
> fourth or fifth leading cause of death.]
> http://tinyurl.com/9d91


I've addressed that in another message. An injured motorcycle rider on
the side of a mountain may be unstable and in no condition to move
safely. If you do move him, he may die immediately.  So, do you move
him?  Of course-- you have no choice because he's surely die
eventually, if left in place. But it's not fair to count his death as
a "result" of treatment, if you treat him. Or ascribe his death as
iatrogenic if he cannot withstand the shock of anesthesia and surgery
to stop his bleeding. His death is result of driving off a mountain,
period.


> >It's hard to get human volunteers for much of what we
> >need to do to test drugs.
>
> Ipse dixit and false.
>
> >It's impossible in the modern tort climate, in fact.
>
> Evidence please, and bear in mind that clinical trials
> already exist while you're looking for it.


Not clinical trials to find out LD50s (50% lethal toxic dose). Which
is something you need to know for any drug, to use it safely. What is
the margin for error? What is the therapeutic window? You can't tell
until you know how toxic it is-- how much it takes to kill. You can
find that out to reasonable estimates without use of humans at all, by
testing the drug in multiple species.


> Yes, we do. There isn't a cure for many of our most
> common ailments, so we go without until such a cure
> is found. Using children instead of animals would
> make great leaps in our efforts to find these cures fast,
> but we don't use them, and rightly so, so we go without.


Most of our common ailments don't often occur in children. The leading
causes of death are heart disease, cancer, stroke.

And as for whether use of children or prisoners, even if it were
ethical and legal, would result in rapid finding of cures, tell it to
the Dr. Mengele and crew. There's no reason to think it would, in most
disease (with the possible exception of research in a few infectious
diseases--- we could have made much more rapid progress with HIV had
it been possible to deliberately infect some people with it in
controlled circumstances).


> >> We still haven't cured many ailments
> >> which I'm sure could be cured much quicker if we used
> >> healthy children instead of animal models, but we don't,
> >> so we go without. So be it, and rightly so.
> >
> >Which you're "sure" would be cured much quicker if we
> >used healthy children?
>
> Of course, because children are humans, not animal
> models of humans, AND they can relay what their
> experiences are while testing drugs.


Children medically are not just small adults. But even extending your
argument to adults, it's impossible to use them due to violations of
human rights. These rights don't exist for animals. If you say they
should, which animals do you propose to extend them to? Do you count
all mammals as equivalent to humans? All vertebrates?


> There's no doubt
> that human children would benefit medical science better
> than the animal models currently used, so why aren't you
> demanding the use of them? Surely, according to the
> utilitarian principle underlying medical research, the use
> of a small number children for vivisection purposes is a
> requirement that must be met, else the case for vivisection
> on utilitarian grounds isn't met.

You've a false premise there. Medical research isn't based on
utilitarian premises, since strict attention to providing the greatest
good for the greatest number would indeed violate individual human
rights in many cases. Formal attention to individual human rights
issues has been a part of medical research protocols since the
Helsinki declaration, at least.


> [snip rant]

Snip "rant" which nails your philosophy. Do you eat meat or not? If
somebody else already killed it, and you're merely making use of the
body of an animal which is already dead, what's the ethical problem?
That's the argument you made to me in regards to your use of already
discovered anesthetics, or your use of already cleared forest, for
farming to make your bread. Well, do you accept this argument or don't
you?  Inquiring mindsd what to know.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,alt.animals.rights.promotion,sci.med
Subject: Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
Date: 26 Jan 2005 13:52:04 -0800
Message-ID: <1106776324.235819.130990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

>>Just as the introduction of asepsis, antisepsis, ether, opium,
curare, cocaine, morphine, chloroform, and other forms of anaesthesia, all
of determinant importance for the rebirth of surgery, owe nothing
to vivisection, <<


Let's just stop right there, as I know something about the history of
anesthesia. Don't go quoting Reusch, because he knows almost nothing of
medical history.

Technically "vivisection" refers to disecting living organisms, but
people like Reusch use it thoughout the book to refer to all animal
experimentation, including the testing of drugs. Verify that for
yourself.

And in fact, the anesthetic powers of nitrous oxide and ether were both
tested on animals before humans. Dogs specifically were etherized
before first use of ether in humans at Hopkins.

For spinal/regional anesthesia, dogs were also used to test the
technique before anybody dared inject the first local anesthetic into
spines (they actually used cocaine). Reusch simply is making this stuff
up.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,alt.animals.rights.promotion,sci.med
Subject: Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
Date: 26 Jan 2005 20:08:33 -0800
Message-ID: <1106798913.030501.241940@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

Apparently you're quoting from Ruesch or somebody, because every
paragraph, indeed every sentence is filled with errors. And you're
doing what antivivisectionists typically do, which is to simply ignore
rebuttal and quote more junk.


>>Relatively recently, the story was repeated when the modern anaesthetic
fluroxene (based on ether) was discovered. M J Halsey, an enthusiastic
vivisector himself admitted it was: 'One of the most dramatic examples of
misleading evidence from animal data' after it failed animal tested
conclusively following a decade of safe human use. Dogs cats and rabbits
suffered from effects including ataxia, hypotension and seizures. He
concluded: 'If these particular experiments had been carried out 20 years
earlier, the agent would never have been released'. Some people never
learn.<<

I've never heard of fluroxene, and neither have GOOGLE or MEDLARS. I
guess it never was released. Want to try again?

>>Similarly, Midazolam and other benzodiazepines are commonly used in
humans, but do not render cats and dogs unconscious, and can even
cause agitation and excitement when given by injection. <<

COMMENT
They don't render humans unconscious in normal amounts, either, so the
premise of the sentence is wrong. As for producing "aggitation" in
animals, any rapid anesthetic induction can produce a panic response in
onset, in ANY conscious being who isn't prepared for it. That includes
demented people, children, unprepared adults, mentally handicapped
persons, etc. All human. This is not a difference between animals and
humans so much as a difference between prepared and unprepared minds.


>>Results are proved not even transferable between different species of
lab animals.  Propofol is effective for dogs cats, pigs, sheep, and some
rodents (rats and mice), but rabbits (also rodents) are given severe
respiratory problems.<<

COMMENT:
Complete nonsense. In fact propofol is one of many useful anesthetics
in rabbit anesthesia, as a routine google search will verify (google
"rabbit propofol"). I've seen it used in rabbits myself. Propofol is
universal, and is a very, very bad example for your side. Unless you
simply lie or print things that are erroneous.


>> The laboratory method is further scorned by clinical experience
which shows human women and men are not treated the same by Propofol,
with women recovering about twice as fast as men.<<

COMMENT:
No, this has nothing to do with propofol and really nothing to do with
humans vs animals. It is true that women are 20-30% more sensitive to
anesthetics of all kinds by body weight, but this is simply due to
their having roughly 20-30% less lean body mass and body water, per
pound body weight. This rule, as I've seen in dogs, applies equally
well to fat and thin animals. Anesthetics are properly best dosed by
lean body weight for a given species, end of story.

Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2003 Mar;47(3):241-59.

Gender differences in drug effects: implications for anesthesiologists.

Pleym H, Spigset O, Kharasch ED, Dale O.

Departments of Anesthesia & Intensive Care, St Olav's University
Hospital, Trondheim, Norway.

BACKGROUND: The gender aspect in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of
anesthetics has attracted little attention. Knowledge of previous work is
required to decide if gender-based differences in clinical practice is
justified, and to determine the need for research. METHODS: Basis for
this paper was obtained by Medline searches using the key words 'human'
and 'gender' or 'sex,' combined with individual drug names. The reference
lists of these papers were further checked for other relevant studies.
RESULTS: Females have 20-30% greater sensitivity to the muscle relaxant
effects of vecuronium, pancuronium and rocuronium. When rapid onset of or
short duration of action is very important, gender-modified dosing may be
considered. Males are more sensitive than females to propofol. It may
therefore be necessary to decrease the propofol dose by 30-40% in males
compared with females in order to achieve similar recovery times. Females
are more sensitive than males to opioid receptor agonists, as shown for
morphine as well as for a number of kappa (OP2) receptor agonists. On
this basis, males will be expected to require 30-40% higher doses of
opioid analgesics than females to achieve similar pain relief. On the
other hand, females may experience respiratory depression and other
adverse effects more easily if they are given the same doses as males.
CONCLUSION:  These examples illustrate that gender should be taken into
account as a factor that may be predictive for the dosage of several
anesthetic drugs. Moreover, there is an obvious need for more research in
this area in order to further optimize drug treatment in anesthesia.

Publication Types:
Review

PMID: 12648189 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,alt.animals.rights.promotion,sci.med
Subject: Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
Date: 26 Jan 2005 20:15:40 -0800
Message-ID: <1106799340.229065.271270@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

>> Technically "vivisection" refers to disecting living organisms, but
>> people like Reusch use it thoughout the book to refer to all animal
>> experimentation, including the testing of drugs. Verify that for
>> yourself.
>
>
>viv·i·sec·tion    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (vv-skshn, vv-sk-) n.
>The act or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living
>animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research.
>http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vivisection

COMMENT:

Yes, that's the Steadman, one of 5 entries at dictionary.com. Others
from other dictionaries (like Mirriam-Webster) make no mention of
anything but surgery. So you picked the definition you like, but not
the most common one.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,alt.animals.rights.promotion,sci.med
Subject: Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
Date: 26 Jan 2005 20:25:48 -0800
Message-ID: <1106799948.065802.181230@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

>>"Dogs have been extensively used in heart research, but their coronary
arteries differ from those of humans - they have smaller connections with
one another and the left coronary artery dominates, while in humans the
right does so.<<

COMMENT:

The right coronary dominates in humans? You're joking, right?  Or
quoting a joker.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,talk.politics.animals,
	uk.politics.animals,alt.animals.rights.promotion,sci.med
Subject: Re: Lab Experiments 'Terrifying' For Animals
Date: 26 Jan 2005 20:37:05 -0800
Message-ID: <1106800625.687477.240770@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>

>>'The writer's first witness is Dr Moneim A. Fadali, for 25 years one of
America's leading cardiovascular surgeons. This highly respected doctor
is also: Diplomate to the American Board of Surgery; Diplomate to the
American Board of Thoracic Surgery; Certified with the Canadian Board of
Surgeons; Certified with the Royal College of Surgeons, Canada;
twenty-five years on the clinical staff of the University of California
where he currently practises. The statements of Dr Fadali, are confirmed
and supported by doctors equally impressive and prestigious in many
fields of medicine who are vociferous in their agreement that
abolitionists are correct in their claim that vivisection is fraudulent
and that those engaged in it are scoundrels and charlatans who should be
imprisoned.<<


COMMENT:

Excuse me?  I've never heard of this guy except that he's telling us
that the right coronary is dominant in humans, according to Ruesch.

As for how many eminant people agree with him, I'll just post a
historical link by the John E. Connolly, who did the first modern
coronary bypass, which this Fadali guy says wasn't developed by animal
research. Connolly, however, says differently.


>> Of the use of the dogs for coronary by-pass and open-heart surgery Dr
Fadali writes:

"Animal research was NOT responsible for the development of
coronary bypass surgery. In 1961 in France, Kunlin first used a
portion of a person's own vein to replace obstructed arterial segments.
This gave birth to arterial bypass surgery for different parts of the
body, the heart included. <<

COMMENT:

"Gave birth to" is short for "after a lot of years of dog research."
Here's the rest of the story, by Dr. Connolly. It's complicated, but
then all history is.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=101261

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,misc.kids.health,sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,
	uk.people.health
Subject: Nazis, natural hygeine, natural health, blah, Re: Major Confrontation 
	Brewing Between Big Pharma and Natural Health Movement
Date: 28 Jan 2005 12:02:24 -0800
Message-ID: <1106942544.066823.156340@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>

>Are you saying the natural health movement is equated with Nazis?
I think it is a stretch, but you may be right.<

Invocation of Godwin's Law is not quite fair here, since the Nazis (and
in truth the Germans before and after them) have been huge advocates of
"natural hygeine." Which is basically the idea that people with correct
genetics who live properly, don't really get sick, and don't usually
need doctors or pills or even very high technology. It's all about
German herbal remedies (the Germans just love herbs) and homeopathy
(invented by a German) and hup, hup in the fresh air with the
lederhosen and the exercises in the Riefenstahl footage. Hitler the
vegetarian is not an aberation, but a part of all this stuff. So are
German animal rights activists like Hans Reusch who figure we don't
need animal research because it's just high tech wastage of time that
could be better spent eating vegetables and doing the sunshine mountain
exercises. Hitler the antivivisectionist (which he was, I kid you not).
And the idea of experimenting on people, not animals, when it comes to
human diseases. That's animal rights activism. And also Mengele.

All the emphasis on nature-cures and fresh air and vegetables and
exercise is fine from prevention viewpoint, but it starts to get really
dark when it comes to people who DO get sick. Because if you think
standard medicine is at all judgemental about blaming the patient for
the disease, just try most of the alternative movements, and especially
the natural hygeine dudes. They figure if you're sick, it's probaby
because you have defective genes from a defective race, and if not
that, because you haven't followed the Hitler youth lifestyle. And in
both cases, maybe society would be better off without you.

This is Germany. The place where, if your car breaks down on the
autobahn, there aren't any excuses. It's assumed it wouldn't have
happened **if you had properly maintained it**.

Hans Reusch was the first person to drive me nuts with this stuff,
until years later I encountered Peter Duesberg, son of two Nazi
doctors, and chief proponent of the idea that HIV is harmess, and
"AIDS" is entirely due to drug abuse, antibiotic use, and the "gay life
style". In other words, pretty much the natural hygeine philosophy.
Which is you don't need no stinkin' antivirals or high technology---
just take responsibility and clean up your life. And of course that the
viral animal models of AIDS are irrelevent to understanding the
disease. I'm still bedeviled with yet another German virologist named
Stephan Lanka, who is pushing the same thesis. Call me
ethnically-insensitive, but I'm starting to sense a pattern here....
SBH