not too bad as far as research animals go… it’s a pretty low stress situation for the rabbit.

Hmmm, that might come in handy — although, for the project I’m thinking of, we’ll be working with mouse T cells so it might not work, and we won’t have a lot of serum even if it does. Still, I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.

these are rather gentle, survival procedures

Huh? Rabbits used to raise polyclonal Ab are nearly always exsanguinated at the final bleed, and anything used to make monoclonals is sacrificed as part of the procedure. Large animals, like sheep/goats/donkeys, may well survive Ab production — I don’t actually know, I’m only familiar with small animal work. I’ll find out though, because if I have a choice I’ll take the large-animal antibody if it means the donor animal survived. Unfortunately, primary antibodies are not usually made in large animals for some reason (maybe cost vs quantities expected to sell — seeing as how secondary antibodies are often sheep, goat or donkey).

I doubt that animal rights activists would accept antibody production even if the animal survives. For myself, I have few qualms if the donor survives — in most cases, the total discomfort to the donor would be on par with a handful of tetanus shots over a month or two, no fun but no big either — but I don’t like the small animal procedures any more than I like any animal model work. As per the three R’s, I’m looking into this, which is a system to raise human antibodies in yeast and might eventually replace many animal antibody production methods. My boss has already said he’ll buy it if I can show evidence that it will work for our purposes. (Note to self: get on that already.)

cells come from animals

But when the animals in question are humans, one can at least get informed consent. (Well, sometimes… HeLa cells anyone?)

I wonder if that is acceptable?

Oh yeah, and cells come from animals, so even though we’d all love to work with cells only, it’s not like we’re completely side-stepping the moral quandry here. :)

If you’re doing short term experiments with small amounts of primary hematopoietic cells, autologous serum can be a good substitute. In some cases, it’s even better (ie trying to keep CLL cells alive in culture.) Of course, this isn’t applicable to all or even most situations, but thought I’d mention it just in case it might help.

Your Daily Art: Blue Heaven IIWhat is art? Can you invent a colour? Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Can an animal rights activist accept medical treatment invented through animal testing?Not, if I understand “animal rights activist” correctly, witho…

Cows found to be pregnant at slaughter are the source of the calves, which are removed along with the uterus during evisceration. The uterus/fetus is then transferred to a separate facility where the fetal blood is collected by cardiac puncture, using a vacuum line and without anaesthesia. It is not clear whether the majority of fetuses are dead before blood collection as a result of anoxia; death from exsanguination is rapid but not instantaneous. There is a chance that the fetuses are alive and even that they have sufficient brain function to suffer during the collection procedure.

If you’re going to do this stuff, I think you have a certain obligation to know what you’re doing and make fully informed decisions. I’ve been looking into FCS alternatives for some years now; the short version is that no really good ones are yet available for the vast majority of cell types.

Of course, if they’re embryonic stem cells or even fetal derived human diploid cells you’re going to get into trouble with the forced childbirth people…Actually, the dirty little secret of cell culture is that most cells are grown in solutions that contain fetal calf serum. I’m not sure how it is obtained, but I’m 100% certain that it is not vegetarian. So a radical anti-animal testing person should also be opposed to the use of cell culture.

Oh #$%^*^%#^@! Speaking of cells, I’ve got to get over to the ATCC web site…Excuse me. I knew I was forgetting something today…

I mean if animal testings were disallowed (until a better way is found) then how many of us would even be here? How many would of already died from infections, and cancer or diebetes etc? How long do you think we would be alive, at 40 you would be considered old. I agree that humane methods should be priority, but personally if something will save me or someone I love yes I would use it.

If you believe that we are just animals, evolved from so called lower forms of life then this using animals for survival purposes shouldn’t be a problem, but if you believe otherwise then you are still trumped, as in the bible animals were used for all kinds of purposes and not just for food, tho they were supposed to do it humanely, and even if you only believe in god but not necessarily the bible then you are trumped again, as animals also kill one another for survival. and if god created them then they are the way they are because of god created them that way. Animals even use animals for entertainment, when not hungry they still play with their food, which is cruel for the targeted animal.

I know that cats will kill just for sport and not even eat the animals they kill. I have seen the cats I have owned, and others do this.

And if you drive a car you contribute to animals dying, as if no one drove a vehicle how many dead animals would you see on the side of the road? And if you buy a house in a new allottment do we even consider how many animals died or are displaced by that? I remember how many ground hogs entered my yard when they developed a 100 acre woodland behind me, the poor things had no where to go and I must have had 10 or more in my yard, and they couldnt’ compete with each other, too many in a small area and many got pushed into the streets and got hit by cars. They also had very cute babies. After that there must of been a dozen ground hogs in the road for a couple of months afterward. And skunks galore, on the side of the road. But as time went on the numbers dropped to almost zero, showing that their numbers had dwindled considerably.

Deer had the same problem now I have deer living in my yard, my neighbors and across the steet because of developement. I have one deer that has been hanging around for two years she is so tame I can talk to her and even stand outside near her. I think this year she had a baby nearby. she was pretty. across the street there is sometimes a dozen deer grazing. And sometimes I walk upon one everyonce in a while that was sleeping or resting in some brush near my home.

Anyway so what is needed is balance, there is balance between need and want. If you are hunting just for the thrill of killing because it makes you feel good, then I think that is wrong, if for survival and needing food clothing etc, then no, I don’t think it is wrong, you don’t have to enjoy it, and if you use animals for experimention and get some kind of thrill out of the suffering of the animal, then that is wrong, but if you really do care and do you best to minimize as much as possible the suffering of your charges that I agree with.

Tho personally I wish there was a better way, poor animals, I love all animals, except maybe crocidiles, and mosquitos, and biting flies. I like the animals hanging around my yard, but see I am not trying to grow crops or whatnot and see no need to push them out, as my survival is not at stake,I just go to the grocery store, but if they were a serious threat to my livlihood, such as being a farmer or whatever then I would try the most humane methods of keeping them out and use only severe methods as a last resort. And as for meat I love my meat, but I don’t like that sometimes animals are kill inhumanly, but not all meat animals are killed inhumanly, some are killed the way they are supposed to be, so how do you determine which package of meat at the store was from a humanly killed animal or not? You can’t. Where I get most of my meat the guy is an old time butcher, he gets one that walks into his store and he kills it there, the difference is that on an assembly line in a factory the stunner has to move so fast that he can’t make sure the animal is really unconcious, but this guy can take his time to aim the gun properly and do it right he is not being pushed to go extremely fast. in fact in some factories they move so fast that many of the animals are improperly stunned, sometimes they have to move over 400 animals through in an hour that leaves only a few seconds per animal for proper stunning.

I have tried to eat alot of vegies and fruits and such and limited meat considerably, I found I couldn’t get satiated that way no matter how much I ate, in fact it just made my insulin resistance worse. I found myself eating all day, which I hated. I like it whan I can eat a meal and not be hungry for hours that way I can concentrate on the projects I want to get done.

Then I only eat 2 or three times at the most on average, and one meal is usually a large one the other two are small, because that is how hungry I am not because of any attempts at controling food quantity. but eating non meat doesn’t allow me to do that.

RR

The thing which animal rights folks ignore is that NOBODY who uses animals likes it.

They animals themselves are expensive. (this is huge from a corporate standpoint). VERY expensive. not incidentally, this is one of the reasons to treat them well, so it’s not a bad thing.

They are smelly.

They are dangerous; they can bite/scratch you. Depending on what you’re doing and how infections it/the animal is, this can be reasonably serious.

They require a significant capital investment in housing/cages, and maintenance of that housing/cages.

They requires strict compliance with a variety of regulatoins, violation of which can shut you down or get you heavily fined.

Now….. Cells? Cells in tubes (or on agar) are great. No guilt. No special training. Keep them in the freezer. Free if you grow your own. No supervision.

Same with computers.

Everyone would happily trade their animals in a second for a nice reliable computer or in vitro equivalent. But the equivalent is not there. If it was we’d use it.

I have thought about this question before. If I were pure, 100% vegan, I would be much more deeply conflicted about it than I am now. But since I am, to some degree, already participating in some animal exploitation, I suppose I would simply accept the procedure and feel bad that our culture has not progressed any farther.

Someone once asked Jane Goodall if she would want to deny someone a surgical procedure because animal experimentation was used to develop it, and she said of course not; she just worked toward the day when animals would not be used. One of the nation’s most articulate animal rights activists, Peter Singer, says that he is vegan at home and vegetarian when he eats out because it is so extremely limiting to try to dine out as a vegan.

I do not believe that any advances we make can be thought of as totally “good” is they are made by causing other living creatures to suffer or by taking away the lives of other living creatures.

this was a few months back — I don’t think the preliminary sound findings were published when it was presented, but I can’t be sure. Unfortunately, like an idiot, I didn’t take notes during the talk so I can’t remember her name. Let me try and figure out who she was I’ll get back to you in this thread with that information…

-Jenn

Jenn: Has the work on A/C’s effects on mice been published? I am planning to do some mouse work later in the year and do NOT want to be doing it on mice that are stressed and have out of kilter immune systems so any info on how to reduce the stress on them could be helpful.

That can’t be right, or else we’d do the experiments on humans instead, or not do them at all — at least those protocols for which a short generation time is not needed.

My understanding of the “gold standard” is continuous application of the “3R’s” of animal experimentation: Reduce (pain/discomfort, number of animals), Refine (techniques, housing) and Replace (animal with in vitro models) in every way possible.

Hugo wrote: “Procedures which cause animals pain or discomfort are unacceptable to me; if it is possible to perform procedures and tests in a way that causes no significant pain or loss of socialization opportunities for lab mice (or other creatures), I’m reluctantly prepared to countenance it.”

While it’s not perfect, most researchers spend a great deal of time researching ways to improve treatment of animal models. I recently attended a talk in which a researcher had spent her considerable career researching improved housing and sound conditions for research mice, to improve their living conditions. She had developed larger, two-story cages that are significantly more interesting than most commerically-available housing for pet rodents, and has done research showing that conventional air-conditioning produces a level of stress for mice that renders them unhappy. And there’s rationalization for such research: I’d argue that most, if not all, animal experimentation is carried out to minimize pain and prevent loss of socialization for the mice. Remember that a stressed-out, unhappy mouse makes for a poor animal model, because it is not physiologically “normal”, jeopardizing the relevancy of the resulting data. So we have great incentive, in relation to our own research, to treat our animals well.

That being said, I agree with Bill — depending on how you define “pain and discomfort”, you might end up excluding all medical techniques developed through experimentation that caused either of those things.

I think the taboo creates this sort of information vacuum that makes most people largely unaware of how scientists are required to treat the animal models. I spoke with one P.I. who just this year decided that she would stop hiding what her animal model was because it was hurting the publicity of her research more than it was helping.

I agree about the problems of the leather/experimentation analogy, too. It’s certainly not a perfect parallel, and I should probably have noted that when alluding to it.

I did however just want to add a third “oversight” to Sailorman’s comment above me (#16) [incidentally, I agree heavily with Sailorman and he has articulated many points I would have said, but in the spirit of disclosure, if you couldn't already tell, I also am working with a mouse model. However, unlike Sailorman and Bill, I am a graduate student, so I don't yet hold a graduate degree].

Most university animal care facilities have extremely rigorous animal care protocols, developed specifically to maintain ethical treatment of animal models. It is recognized by these boards that in vitro (outside of living creatures) work is not feasible for many techniques especially when it comes to the final stages of developing a new drug treatment. We simply don’t know how a living body will react with a given drug or therapy, because physiology is so complex, and so frequently something unexpected will occur when we transition from in vitro to in vivo (in a living creature) work.

Aside from experimenters having advanced research degrees and your labmates watching out for your behaviour, Animal Care has several federally mandated guidelines for working with animals. Each protocol must be approved, each technique justified to minimize pain or discomfort. The gold standard (as far as I understand) is basically that anything that would be unethical to do to a person, we cannot do to an animal — this means that we must satisfactorily anesthetize before any procedure and we can only use the minimum number of animals as needed to establish statistical significance for our experiments. Every step is heavily reviewed by administrators, and each lab is privy to an annual surprise review (i.e., we know they’re coming, we don’t know when) by a group of veterinarians and Animal Care administrators to ensure that we are following approved protocols. If we are found in violation (ranging from improper anesthesia to allowing an unapproved person to perform a protocol technique), we risk losing the privilege of working with an animal model entirely. This can and has ruined a researcher’s career.

Perhaps it’s too trusting, but I don’t think there’s room for a sadist to operate. And I guess I just don’t think most researchers are out to enjoy an animal’s pain… because of the hassles with animal work, most of us would rather avoid working with animals altogether, if we could. My P.I., for example, let her protocol lapse because she simply couldn’t handle the paperwork and extra cost of working with animals, preferring instead to focus on cellular level questions — consequently, it’s been tough for me to transition back into tissue-level experiments because I’ve had to basically re-do the paperwork from scratch.

Lastly, I just wanted to say to Hugo that my belief is that there’s no way to divorce “old techniques” and “new techniques”. At least as far as I understand it, all techniques are constantly being re-evaluated, improved upon and researched. Even if the original technique was discovered a long time ago, we are still working on ways to improve efficiency, cost, or applicability (for every drug therapy, there’s a subsect of people for whom it is ineffective or inapplicable). Surprisingly, there are even some established techniques for which we don’t even know *why* it works.

Let’s not kid ourselves: virtually every experiment in virtually every animal model is “unacceptable” by this standard. So, what do you mean by “unacceptable”? As Sailorman points out, accepting treatment based on past experiments but refusing treatment based on current work is a convenient way not to have to refuse any effective treatment, or reduce the future use of animal models.