Chimpanzees, Science, and Ethics
On February 6, Jon Cohen published “Entering a Wild Frontier: Testing Vaccines in Apes for Apes” on the AAAS website ScienceInsider. He describes how captive chimpanzees at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana will be given a vaccine against Ebola. Ebola is a virus that is killing wild apes. (It also kills humans.) The purpose of the research is to assess whether the vaccine is toxic, not whether it is effective. This is similar to a Phase 1 clinical trial for a new drug in humans.
This experiment gives me the opportunity to make two points.
1. Science. Just because this vaccine does not harm the six chimpanzees it is to be tested on does not mean it will be safe for all chimpanzees in the wild. As readers of this blog know, small differences between members of the same species can result in dramatic differences to perturbations such as vaccines and other drugs. The differences in environment alone could trigger genes that result in different outcomes between the two populations. In reality, I think that testing on the six captive chimpanzees will probably have good predictive value for the wild chimpanzees but once again we get back to the fact that genomes vary, even genomes of the same species, and these differences can be important.
The vaccine was tested on monkeys in 2007 and was shown to protect them from Ebola but once again we are being asked to believe in trans-species extrapolation; that because the vaccine worked in monkeys it will also be safe and effective in apes, in this case the six chimpanzees being tested. All of this is about science and there can be, and probably have been, scientific discussions about giving this vaccine to the six chimpanzees and what the results will and will not mean.
2. Ethics. Ebola is killing apes in the wild. No doubt about it. But is it ethical to use six sentient beings, against their will, to test a product that might help other sentient beings, in this case the wild chimpanzees? This is an ethical question. While the science can inform the ethical question, “Is the test likely to give valuable/predictive information and is it likely to be safe?” it cannot answer the ethical question.
Here again we see a real-life example of an issue that has two separate and distinct aspects: science and ethics. Regardless of where you come down on the two issues, good science or bad, ethical or not, the fact remains that there are two issues.
Americans For Medical Advancement (AFMA) is frequently criticized for not condemning animal experimentation on ethical grounds. That is fine. AFMA is not an animal protection organization and has never claimed to be. Half the board eats meat and half doesn’t. So, if people want to criticize us for not advocating for a specific issue, so be it. (The first death threat I ever received was from an anti-abortionist. He was mad because I was focusing on my issue not his issue.) AFMA’s position revolves around the fact that we think the science surrounding animal use is important to everyone, not just animal advocates, and therefore we will continue doing what we do.
Life is complicated. Sometimes separating the variables is a wise course of action.
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No one knows when or which strategies will correct errors in science . Not even those of us with a PhD or MD. A person can only follow his conscience or dismiss it. Similar beliefs as yours about change were widespread before Gandhi defeated the British government and during the U.S. civil rights movement.
Do not suggest our perspective is against science when it's against speciesist brutality. Clearly, we're not reductionists nor are we the ones who believe in the whimsy of homeopathy and crop circles. There is no controversy about either, except for those who want a platform for profit or to gratify superstition. We're fools to not put our faith into such whimsy? Then call us fools.
The only domino effect we see is incremental surrender to the status quo. We are for animal and human liberation. This you don't understand. Unchallenged animal use is the problem we confront. Our position doesn't depend on the erroneous, irrelevant claims of the vivisection faction. The lives of animals belong to themselves.
There are many oars that will row the boat some are thicker than others, that is, work better in moving the boat faster. People have a mystery/deity complex when it comes to scientists and Dr's. Vivisection is a unique activity unto itself. In 2002 at FARM's AR's conference Dr. Greek debated a very competent, capable, intelligent Joan Dunayer(sp) and WON, more hands went up for him. What makes this amazing is that his evidence was still of the clinical/empirical type(it is not anymore) while Joan did the usual animal atrocity ethics aspect. It is very telling when Ray Greek wins a debate when all the attendees judging him were animal people! Vivisection needs to be approached in whistleblower fashion: ie: focus on the tens of millions of humans who have died needlessly and NOT the tens of billions of animal lives. I did the Peta/HSUS approach for years. When I switched to portraying myself as purely a human medical patient advocate VIOLENCE came my; why? Figure it out: the latter was simply MORE effective! Vegan Outreach saw a huge difference in reception to their pampklet merely by changing their front cover to "Even if you like/eat meat .......; hence not scaring people away from having to be perfect and pure.If you did some spiritual research you would see that most humans on Earth are beginner(non-advanced souls) who have almost ethical zilch in their cellular memory of past lives which often determines their capacity to fully care about an issue. When you tailor your message to what they could get out of it for themselves they automatically become more concerned. Howard Lyman practically confirmed this to me in conversations when I drove him in my car to several speaking engagements in the 90's. AR's groups have been using Vivisection for fund-raising purposes tailoring their message to people who ALREADY care and this $$ gets put to use for other areas of animal rights . Occasionally, a lab will get closed down though. The way Howard spoke around the country non-stop is the what Ray Greek should be doing and the AR's groups have the money to do this. He was invited to Scotland, of all places to speak to parliment there. When I drove a taxi FT for 5 years I saw AGAIN a dramatic shift in concern amongst my passengers when I switched the tactic to human harm only. When you concede a tiny portion of medical research should be of animal origin(mathematically it is a shade under 1%) when you factor EVERYTHING into the equation.Thus your arguement is better received when you concede something to show you are not biased for the animals. The Dali Lama's books make it clear that it takes eons and eons for humans to change morally for the better. Are you willing to tell the research lab animals that what you are doing for their species will work effectively someday a few hundred years in the future? I am not.I am so disgusted with AR's activists not seeing the light on this issue that my new focus is finding a job in a remote animal-sanctuary and timewise extending myself in this position to the point where I quit all animal activism entirely. On the otherhand if I was rich I would be giving almost all of it to AFMA and work for them.
Jon B
Dr Ringach is setting up a straw man in his post "Vaccines and prediction." Further, he has not articulated my prediction position as I said he must in order for me to write yet again why his criticism is invalid. IMO, the reason for this is either he does not understand it (likely) or that he realizes articulating my position would expose his straw man argument. I have answered similar questions from vivisection activists many times only to be met with the equivalent of "Oh yea!" and "LALALALALAL I can't hear you!"
HOWEVER. As hard as it is for me to believe, not everyone in the world reads every post I write so it is possible someone in the universe has not read our books or my blogs hence does not understand why what Dr Ringach is saying is nonsense. Therefore, I will, once again, address the fallacious reasoning and poor understanding of science in general that ungirds his position, this time using vaccines as an example. As this will necessitate many words, I will probably post it on the website and link to it from OpposingViews. I will try to do it in less words so I can just post it here but explaining something so even the vested interest groups must accept the conclusion usually takes time and even then may be impossible.
To begin with, Dr Ringach is presenting a false dichotomy. But even assuming we got beyond that, the answer to his question lies in an understanding of the prediction position Shanks and I explain in Animal Models in Light of Evolution and even in FAQs About the Use of Animals in Science. So, here’s the deal. IF Dr Ringach (or LifeScientist or anyone else interested in this) will explain the essence of my prediction argument (something I do not think he can do hence I see no reason to go into why vaccination per se works despite the fact some people respond to some vaccines when others do not), hint: it involves those statistics I harp on, THEN I will take the time to once again explain how you can have dramatic differences while simultaneously saying that a practice, for example vaccination, is on the whole effective etc. AND I will contrast and compare the logic and science of those facts with using animal models per se to predict drug and disease response in humans.
The reduction in Hib incidence after the vaccine was licensed was 98.6%, reduction in measles was 99.95%, in mumps 99.6%, for whooping cough 97.6%, polio 99.99%, rubella 99.7%... All these decreases are correlated with the introduction of the vaccine.
Here are the data: http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/concepts/intro6.htm
So please, explain how this is consistent with the "dramatic" effects we expect from one individual to the next.
...where scientists don't yet know everything about human biology, and despite the great ongoing efforts of basic science around the world are unlikely to for some decades yet, we all realise that it is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy the outcome of any treatment in an individual person from previous studies, whether those are in vitro, in animal models or even in other people.
So what!
We are familiar with your arguments about predictivity, and while those those arguments may have some merit when applied to toxicology (though I think you are still very unrealistic in your expectations there), they miss the point entirely when it comes to basic and applied biomedical research.
With the various models available to us we can learn and predict enough to proceed from discoveries made in basic research through the development and refinement of candidate treatments, vectors etc in applied research and on to translation to human trials. It's an imperfect process, but it works, and as we learn more about our own biology and that of other species (the two being complementary) it will improve, the surge of interest in pharmacogenomics among scientists and medics in the past decade is ample testament to that. You try to persuade your readers that there is some kind of chasm between those scientists who advocate personalized medicine and the majority of medical researchers who value animal research, when you know very well that they are the very same people.
http://speakingofresearch.com/2010/08/17/mice-rats-and-the-secrets-of-the-genome /
Dr. Greek, I referred to your approach as a council of despair earlier because that is precisely what it is, you would have medical science effectively give up until it reaches a state of perfection in knowledge and technology that is decades - if not longer - away. I'm pretty glad that medical science didn't follow your approach in the past, I dread to think how many medical advances we'd have been deprived of, and delighted to see that they're ignoring it in the present.
We are unimpressed.
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
Niels Bohr
There must have been a time, in the beginning, when we could have said--no. But somehow we missed it.
Tom Stoppard
It doesn't sound like you (plural) are interested in dialogue after all.
You could have started there and saved me some time.
>>Nonsense cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. [Challenging] well-educated scientists who support the anti-vaxers and so forth is also appropriate and needed.<<
To take animal lives is nonsense. We challenge it, regardless where the endorsement of death comes from: scientists, HSUS, the vivisection faction or among our own ranks. It is reasonable to cause no harm to any species. Support of partial animal use causes and institutionalizes irrefutable harm to life. When a physician supports any intentional harm, in his statements or by careful omission of the problem, at minimum it's a violation of critical thinking as much as an animal liberationist who supports Andrew Wakefield.
We're the ordinary people with whom you and the vivisection faction claim to want to open a dialogue. We make no apology for not being the acquiescent followers desired. If alive today, Carl Sagan might say for those who like order most, don't bother to rock the boat. The killing of animals is nonsense.
Sure, if you want dialogue you are welcome.
But who are you?
Present yourself and come to the table.
"To take animal lives is nonsense."
You probably mean "to take animal life for no reason is nonsense".
I'd agree.
But science does it to advance medicine and health when no other methods are obviously available.