I recently completed my doctorate in Pharmacology and I have a Home Office license to perform specific surgical procedures on animals. I have training in surgery, anaesthesia and euthanasia which is routinely assessed to maintain my Home Office license.
The details of the experimental protocol that the poster lists - deprive resource, validate behaviour and reward - are probably correct, sensationalised, but correct. I say that, because this reads like the sort of pain protocols I have been involved with in the past. The simple fact is that to explore whether a pain medication works, you must inflict pain, see whether your drug modifies pain behaviour and repeat to sufficient statistical power.
The details of the experimenter dispatching (killing, euthanising ...) the animals with chloroform, en masse, in a plastic bag is a violation of his license and his colleagues license, it is not a listed method on Schedule 1 Method of Euthanasia. It is one of the facets of animal experimentation regulation that I am proud of, the humane killing of animals ensures minimal distress. The euthanasia regulation for animal experimentation are stricter than those in the food industry and far more stricter than the exemptions that religious faiths have when preparing meat.
Non-vertebrates animals are covered by the ASPA 1986 guidelines in the UK for euthanasia and commonly you must present an anaesthetic regime for all uses of laboratory animals. Octopuses are explicitly named as they are one of the oldest laboratory animals in use — they were pivotal in understanding the role of ions and ion channel pumps in nervous transmission.
The first article you link to is about the abuse of frequentist statistics, it is not a piece of nonsense primary research (1182327). The article is correct and an interesting read, but not in support of poor use of animal experiments. The second article (8124111) is about clinical research, not pre-clinical animal research although the arguments raised in the article are applicable to pre-clinical research. It is very difficult to find and expose nonsense research!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15509386
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18410164
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/11902612_Effects_of_...
I personally am about to embark on a scientific project that ultimately leads to animal experimentation. It's the development of a chemotherapeutic. Perhaps it's a self-serving thing to say, but I think that's one of the few places where animal experimentation makes sense; even the next-generation anticancer drugs, which recruit the immune system, don't make sense to be tested in mice, because in order to transplant the cancer cells, you have to start with immune-system-less mice (otherwise the cancer gets depleted by the mouse's own immune system).
Monkeys have immune responses that are as similar to humans as we can hope for. Further, Mice while they have some conservation of immune related genes there are many divergent expression of immune related genes including alterations in master-gene (cis) and innate immune gene (CD4) expression [1] which may explain why they don't translate very well into humans. We have an awful time trying to get decent responses to allergic stimuli with mice and guinea pigs! Rodents have very robust immune systems in my experience.
http://www.nature.com/news/animal-rights-activists-wreak-hav...
One thing though: as far as I know (from people having worked in the US, with primates), the IACUC rules for housing like cage volume etc are still not really sufficient.
I used to joke "... and then in the 60s, Ethics was invented" regarding biology experiments...
I had a girlfriend who was working on a some kind of graduate neuroscience degree in the late 90's. She used to tell me stories about students, and researchers killing/maiming animals in order to carry out their experiments.
Her lab job was to kill rats in the lab(adults, and babies). She would slam their heads into a piece of granite. Some times multiple times. (btw--she had horrid dexterity)
I asked her why they didn't administer some type of anesthetic--or kill the animals humanely.
She told me they couldn't because chemicals might affect the brain, or body chemistry when analyzing the tissues.
She told me endless stories about needless experiments on animals by students and faculty. They were not doing cutting edge research. She even admitted a lot of it was validating Current studies--so students could finish their studies in order to get that advance degree.
I finally told her enough. She wasn't a bad person, just looking for the respect a advance degree in neurobiology would bring her. She wanted respect, and felt the degree would provide that.
She dropped out of the program for personal reasons(she couldn't keep up with the studies mainly) and spent the next 10 years taking party drugs in San Francisco. She is now a vegetarian.
I don't think anyone is regulating the treatment on campuses in the United States? My nephew is taking a biology class at a little college in Los Angeles. I asked them if they are still pithing frogs in order to basically show the students the heart will beat once severed from the frog. He said they are still doing this in freshman biology.
So, there are no regulations in the United States on the treatment rodents and amphibians in schools and labs. I can state that with a fair amount of confidence! (The school he dropped out of was a private liberal arts school that accepted any kid who could come up with the tuition)
We need to, at the least, stop killing animals on campuses in order to teach art student majors--biology and anatomy.
Years ago some Researcher put a plywood cover on his truck. He then filled the truck with live piglets. He then went four wheel driving. He claimed to be studying orthopedic injuries.
Why not use carbon dioxide or nitrogen asphyxiation (both are painless, the latter is 'mental traumaless') which wouldn't damage the animal at all, and which I know for a fact are the preferred methods at my old university (a fellow Ph D student was performing macular-degeneration drug treatment experiments on rabbits).
Your final anecdote is also suspect: (1) no sources. But (2), let's grant it as true: the extreme actions of one individual have never been considered adequate justification for carte blanch restriction of anything.
NO IACUC at any university or any veterinarian would approve this.
> Years ago some Researcher put a plywood cover on his truck. He then filled the truck with live piglets. He then went four wheel driving. He claimed to be studying orthopedic injuries.
If not illegal then, this would certainly be illegal now.
> She even admitted a lot of it was validating Current studies--so students could finish their studies in order to get that advance degree.
How is validation useless?
> So, there are no regulations in the United States on the treatment rodents and amphibians in schools and labs.
If anything there is TOO MUCH regulation. There are so many hoops you have to jump through before you're allowed to do animal experiments that it's almost ridiculous at this point in several institutions. I was on a team which proposed an experiment in which we wanted to monitor the uptake of trace quantities of known compounds and their derivatives in hair. The doses would have been far below anything toxic and the only procedures were injection of the compound and shaving the rodents while they were under anesthetic. This experiment took WELL OVER A YEAR to make it through multiple animal welfare committees and for investigators to get the required training; so long that we ended up dropping the proposal all together.
Please also keep in mind that most experiments are being done on mice, animals which people have no problem killing and attacking in their homes using brutal techniques (sticky traps, terrible poisons, spring loaded traps) or feeding to their caged pets while still alive with no moral qualms whatsoever.
My kid, who also attended, said, "I'm doing my experiment on plants."
Elementary school science fair! If you want to condition your own dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, you need to fill out additional paperwork and get your vet to approve. I can only imagine what load of crap university scientists have to wade through to get any research done.
We don't need more gatekeepers dictating morality to us.
The abuses demand oversight, it is true. But that oversight does not require professional qualifications. Something that shocks the conscience of a Nobel laureate will likely also shock the conscience of high-school dropouts. The very same peer jury system that is capable of condemning a criminal human to state execution or awarding millions of dollars in civil restitution can certainly determine whether a method of sacrificing research animals to science is acceptable or not.
The same public concerns that led to the retrofit of commercial slaughterhouses with more humane Grandin animal handling systems can be applied to research animals. My suggestion is this: for any given experiment that involves potential harm or injury to animals, assemble a randomized, unbiased, volunteer jury of at least 12 people. Explain to them the goals of the experiment and the protocols, and the proposed animal involvement. If no more than 25% of the jury objects, the experiment may begin immediately. Otherwise, rewrite the protocols and try again. Ethics approval could take days instead of months.
If you entertain the possibility that an animal can suffer as much as a human being, then all the regulation in the world is not enough. Consider even the most humane animal experiment, replace the animal with a human being, and see how you feel about it. Animals are living beings that we share the planet with; let them live their lives out in their natural environment. Animal experimentation should not even be contemplated, for exactly the same reason that wartime Nazi medical and eugenic experiments are condemned: for causing needless suffering in other living beings.
Regulation must strike a compromise between allowing research to continue with enough oversight to limit abuse. It is the sort of compromise developers use with security; enough to limit abuse, but not too much that no-one can use the system!
The fear to touching flesh and blood of a dead animal is fine if you want to be florist, but not acceptable if your dream is to be a surgeon. No game simulator can provide you with the same experience; you need to fight against this fear and you either win or give up. Sooner is better to avoid to spend many years fading away in the wrong place doing things that you really don't want to do.
Your friend simply seem to be too depressed and unmotivated ("those experiments are useless") to see it coming and finally let this obstacle (and social environment expectatives?) to kill her dream of being a neurobiologist. A pity for her and for all the people that could have benefited of his talent.
In the 90's you could easily find a small guillotine to kill instantly and humanely a rat or a mouse in any lab. Not a lot of blood is spilled (because, well, rats are small animals) but some people just dismay and can't cope with the idea of seeing any blood. Probably the guillotine was so traumatic to her that she prefer to break the nek of the animals with a thin piece of granite instead. Guillotine fail less, but if you know how to do it, this is also acceptable. Farmers all around the world break the necks of rabbits and chickens to kill them instantly and most omnivorous people will name this as example of an humane way to dispatch them for our kitchens.
Please note that this is very different to the gross picture that you are trying to sell of a rock crushing the head of an animal repeatedly until dead. The idea that researchers squash the head of their animals with a rock before to extract the brain for study drug damages is surrealist.
Well, that's one way to (mis)characterise it. Another way is to say that doing that to frogs gives the students practical knowledge in how real specimens behave, how to take care of specimens, and techniques in getting data out of an active specimen. You can watch every video and listen to endless lectures; it's still not going to help you learn to tie a ligature properly. Education involves more than the passive absorption of factoids.
Source: taught just that practical class as a TA.
Any type of animal experimentation must be accompanied by an IACUC protocol that is approved by a committee, typically at least 3 people, and usually including a veterinarian, research scientists, and layperson. The protocol justifies why using animals is necessary for the research and exactly how the animals will be cared for during the experiments.
Performing surgery on live animals - You have to be trained in the procedure by practicing on dead animals first. Any surgery that happens must be done under anesthesia using approved chemicals. For example, in fishes and amphibians, this is an anesthetic dose of MS-222.
Sacrificing animals - Typical standards require that the experimenter sacrifice the animal quickly & humanely, using at least 2 methods (chemical and physical) to ensure that the animal is not suffering due to a sublethal dose of your chemical. Again for fishes, this is a lethal dose of MS-222 followed by either pithing or freezing. For rodents this is usually anesthesia followed by cervical dislocation.
Experimental endpoints - You will not get your IACUC approved if you don't have a way of dealing with your live animals after your experiment is over. Simply killing them because you don't have money to keep them around is absolutely forbidden. For fishes, they get released back into the ocean or kept around for aquarium outreach purposes.
The issue of animal rights is an important one. For example I personally think that the IACUC protocols don't go far enough. Nonvertebrate animals are typically not covered by IACUC at all so this means that it is legally above the board to vivisect slugs without anesthesia. Of course you might not think that slugs deserve rights but this is a debate that needs to happen. In particular many countries do not cover cephalopods (octopuses, squids, etc) under their animal use laws..