http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/09/peta_crosses_th.html
The author, one empty pockets on reading PETA's claims about this research went and interviewed Dr. Proselli abut PETA's claim that the research is designed to help cure homosexuality in humans.
Emptypockets concludes:
"PETA has joined the company of intelligent designists and global warming deniers, those who misreport scientific research, cherry-pick results, and flat-out lie to further their political agenda. PETA picked Dr. Roselli because sheep are adorable, unlike mice or flies, and because gay rights is a hot-button issue. They lied about his work and his intention because they want to turn as much of the public as they can against scientists who use animals. Lying about and distorting science in a campaign against biology research is something I've come to expect from the right, from Kansas school boards and Sen. Santorum. We should not allow it to take root on the left."Very true and I hope my readers will check this post out for themselves.
A tip of the antennae to Jim Newman for the link.
Update 1/4/07 also from Jim Newman is this article from the Daily Kos:
A wolf in gay sheep's clothing: Corruption at the London Times
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/4/134158/4348
Technorati Tags:
gay sheep
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5 comments:
Happy New Year! Have a great 2007.
Good article there. Strange and unfortunate bedfellows, indeed, and I'm not talking about the sheep.
Of course, the whole choice versus no-choice debate essentially ignores the BT part of GLBT. (At least part of the T spectrum, since I know bi trans folks.) I'm a B (not to be confused with drosophila), so strictly in terms of sexual orientation -- ignoring the plethora of other variables out there -- I have a choice. This does not fit neatly into polarized politics of any stripe.
And mice are, too, adorable. :)
Thanks Elissa,
Being Bi and T, I shouldn't get started on the choice non choice debate because in my world not too many things are either or except in the realm of simple Mendelian genetics. We aren't slaves or at least should not be slaves to our genes or to our environment or quite frankly choices that other people think are good for us because of their concerns about my eternal soul or out of some concern for ideological purity.
thanks for the link, Paul.
I've followed up with a post on this week's Sunday Times article -- either PETA or another anti-science (or anti-gay?) group seems to have gotten inside the Times.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/01/a_wolf_in_gay_s.html
Shalin Gala has been posting the same tripe as above at all message boards. I encourage readers to check out both sides of the discussion and make up their own minds. I emailed with Shalin extensively when this all came out last September, and the only argument that PETA seems to have is that nothing we learn in animals is applicable to humans -- which goes right in the face of a century or two of biology, not to mention Darwin's theory. Like I said, decide for yourself.
Pockets, you are absolutely right about PETA.
I guess being for ethical treatment of animals is supposed to excuse unethical treatment of people.
Dear emptypockets,
I must comment in general on the support you seem to show for animal experiments and point out that growing scientific consensus that such tests are invalid.
Society stands to benefit a great deal by moving away from animal tests and toward more human-relevant and accurate non-animal test methods. Indeed, in August 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published the startling statistic that 92 percent of all drugs (and 94 percent of all cancer drugs according to a New England Journal of Medicine article) that pass preclinical safety and efficacy testing in animals go on to fail in human clinical trials.
A recent British Medical Journal article (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/rapidpdf/bmj.39048.407928.BEv1), which reports a comprehensive scientific and quantitative statistical meta-analysis to test the usefulness of a broad spectrum of animal based drug testing in predicting human outcomes (Perel et al, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/rapidpdf/bmj.39048.407928.BEv1, 15th December 2006). In each of the six categories of animal experimentation studied, the authors found that "the quality of the experiments was poor." They found that only three of the six categories actually predicted the results of subsequent human trials. In other words, the human extrapolation efficacy of animal experiments was no better than the toss of a coin.
The predictive power may actually be even worse, since the authors found evidence of publication bias in addition to the uniformly poor experimental quality in those experiments that did predict human outcome. They concluded, "Discordance between animal and human studies may be due to bias or to the failure of animal models to mimic clinical disease adequately."
It is important to bear in mind that these six categories represent a vast cross section of animal experiments from stroke to head injury to systemic haemorrhage to neonatal respiratory distress to osteoporosis, and can arguably be considered as representative of animal testing as a whole. A total of 228 published animal studies were scrutinized representing many thousands of animal test subjects including non-human primates.
This is only the last in a series of British Medical Journal and other studies critical of the predictive ability of animal experimentation to human health care (Wiebers DO et al. stroke 1990; 21; 1-3; Wiebers DO et al. Stroke 1990; 21;1091-1092; NINDS and stroke rt-PA stroke study group. New Engl J Med 1995;333; 1581-7; Roberts et al, BMJ 2002: 324: 474-476; Pound P et al. BMJ 2004:328: 514-517; Macleod MR et al. Stroke 2004; 35; 1203-1208; Macleod M. J Neuroprot Neuroregen 2005; 1; 201; Hackam D and Redelmeier DA, JAMA 2006: 296, 14: 1731-1732; Knight A and Bailey J. Alt Lab Animals; 34, 1:19-27, 2006; Bailey J et al. Biogenic amines - Stress and neuroprotection; 19, 2: 97-145, 2006). Pound et al (2004) stated that "the contribution of animal studies to clinical medicine requires urgent formal evaluation" and that "much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews."
Many other published studies assessing the predictability to humans of drug side effects by animals have yielded abysmal results of only 5-25% accuracy (Heywood R. Clinical toxicity - could it have been predicted? Post-market experience. In Lumley CE, Walker SR, eds. Animal Toxicity Studies: Their relevance for Man" Lancaster, Quay Publ, 1989'; CMR workshop - Animal Toxicity studies: Their relevance for man. Quay Publ. 1990, p 49-56 and p 57-67; Spriet-Pourra, C and Auriche M, eds. 1994 SCRIP Reports, PJB, New York; Garratini S, 1985. Toxic effects of chemicals: difficulties in extrapolating data from animals to man. Ann Rev Toxicol Pharmacol 16, 1-29; Zbinden G, 1993. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 17; 85-94).
The real effects of such imprecise animal-based science are reflected in thousands of unnecessary human deaths. It has been estimated that the use of steroids in human head injury based on animal studies (the first of the six areas studied above) may have killed 10,000 people worldwide (CRASH study BMJ 2004;329:878; Lancet 2004;364:1321; Daily Telegraph 8 October 2004). Steroids have also been used by neurosurgeons to treat acute spinal cord injuries based on animal research models. A series of multi-center trials, prospective randomized studies and meta-analyses have concluded that their use can have significant adverse effects on patient outcome (NASCIS 1 to 3; Gerndt et al. J Trauma 1997; 42:279; Coleman et al. J Spinal Disord 2000;13:185; Hurlbert. Spine 2001;26;S39). It is anyone's guess as to the number of deaths or instances of permanent paralysis that have occurred as a result of this erroneous animal data.
Recent additional severe and often fatal human drug side effects (following 'proof of safety' in non-human primates) include Vioxx, TG1412 at Northwick Park hospital, amrinone for heart failure, and the withdrawal of an Alzheimer's vaccine in 2001, which must be added in a cumulative fashion to the cautionary examples above. Doctors, pharmacists, and patients groups in the Netherlands are now demanding government action after a national study has found that drug related problems caused twice as many hospital admissions as motor vehicle accidents (www.bmj.com, 16th December 2006).
Clearly animal experiments are not the vanguard of validity that those who conduct them would have us believe.
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