I support necessary medical and scientific experimentation on animals. But I don’t think this experiment is necessary. From the story:
Nasa is to expose squirrel monkeys to daily radiation doses to help them understand the effects of long space trips on humans. It will be Nasa’s first experiment on primates in decades.
If a manned mission to Mars ever takes place, the human pilots will be outside Earth’s protective magnetic field for several months, unprotected from solar radiation. Little research has been done on this sort of long-term exposure to low doses of radiation. Rats and mice have been exposed to this sort of radiation before, but that gives only a hint of what the effects would be on humans. Eleanor Blakely, a biophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said: “Obviously, the closer we get to man, the better.”
The researchers are to pay particular attention to the effects on the monkeys’ central nervous systems and behaviour. The monkeys, previously trained to perform a variety of tasks, will be tested to see how the exposure affects their performance. Jack Bergman, a behavioral pharmacologist at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital in Boston, said: “We realized there was a need for this kind of work. “There’s a long-standing commitment on the part of NASA to deep space travel and with that commitment comes a need for knowing what kinds of adverse effects deep space travel might have, what are the risks to astronauts. That’s not been well assessed.
This experiment seems wildly premature. We are probably decades from being able to technologically support–much less afford–manned trips to Mars. Indeed, we may not conduct such missions in our lifetimes. If and when we get closer to actually doing these missions, these experiments might be necessary, and they can be conducted with a better understanding of the actual conditions the astronauts would face based on the technology of the time.
This isn’t to say that there should be no research into the issue. We have had people in space for months at a time in the space station. Surely, they were exposed to continual radiation and their health can and should be monitored over the coming years. Surely that information would be more fruitful than these experiments. But even if not, until and unless extended space missions become plausible, I see no reason to put these monkey through the potentially painful consequences of being exposed to radiation. There may be a time, as I said, to conduct such studies. But that time is not now. After all, one of the duties of human exceptionalism is to not cause animals to suffer for unnecessary or gratuitous reasons.
November 3rd, 2009 | 3:54 pm
One of the things I love about your blog Wesley is your ability to promote sound and reasonable arguments. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read your headline and thought to myself “I don’t know on this one, I think Wesley might be off his rocker” only to read the post and find your position to not only be reasonable but truthful.
This post was no different.
One caveat that I don’t think harms your overall point: I think the space station is close enough to the earth that they’re still mostly protected from the radiation that they’d be subject to on a trip to Mars.
But still, I agree, don’t do the experiments until we’re even remotely close to launching the project, which we’re not. (And Universal Health Care won’t get us any financially closer, will it?)
November 3rd, 2009 | 4:33 pm
Thanks, Ken Crawford. I appreciate that.
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:35 pm
I don’t know, Wes, I think you’re falling into the same trap the AR supporters stumble into all the time, which is “I don’t understand or agree with the object of this research so I don’t think it should happen.”
I thought the spokespeople gave very logical and reasonable explanations why they were doing this work. It’s a long term study so they need to start early to make sure they’ve got enough results. Once they’re done, their data will still be around when/if the actual travel becomes feasible.
What really worries me is that you’re labelling a study that has a direct application as unnecessary. The AR’s focus their harassment on scientists doing basic research exactly because it does not generate direct applications. It generates the knowledge that leads to more knowledge that leads to someone saying, “Hey, that might work on this disease I’m studying.” As such, few understand its importance, and it’s easy to make the researchers look like they’re grasping at straws.
The guys and gals in the lab coats could use a little more support and a little less second-guessing, Wes.
November 3rd, 2009 | 6:27 pm
Wesley and Ken,
I think I would agree that this type of experiment isn’t necessary at this point, but at some point it will become an issue. The Space Station is well within the Earth’s magnetosphere and is in a far less hazardous radiation environment than interplanetary space. Indeed, the radiation hazard is going to be the outstanding issue in piloted spaceflight to mars or long-term exploration of the Moon.
November 3rd, 2009 | 6:41 pm
Eleanor Blakely, a biophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said: “Obviously, the closer we get to man, the better.”
She should know better. Small primates are not a good homologue and as anyone can tell her it is lifetime exposure that counts. As for radiation and degradation of task performance; the results will be inconclusive short of a lethal dose! Pointless experimentation that will further erode public support of NASA.
November 3rd, 2009 | 6:41 pm
No, I don’t think so, padraig. Animal rights activists say that animal research is never justified. Most, albeit not all, say there are no human benefits to be derived therefrom.
Animal welfare says that animal research is justified, but not in every case. Thus, each potential experiment needs to be looked at on its own merits, for example, as to whether it is needed, can be done with other than animals, can be done more humanely than proposed, etc. It seems to me that irradiating monkeys now, is unwarranted under an animal welfare analysis. That may not always be true, but since we are so far from having people in deep space for extended periods, I see no reason to subject these animals to harm at this time.
November 3rd, 2009 | 7:34 pm
BRAVO, WESLEY!!
THIS animal rights person says that even if it’s “useful,” it’s wrong and lazy, bad science for which humans pay a terrible price that humans seem to be too dumb to realize they’re paying.
November 3rd, 2009 | 8:59 pm
But there’s more to it, Wesley. You’re saying in effect that if it’s “necessary” or “not gratuitous” it’s ok to cause suffering. I say that unless we’re eating them, doing what other animals do, it’s unnecessary and gratuitous. If we’re NOT “animals,” and “human” is “exceptional,” “human” has to be “humane.” Period. If we’re still doing what other animals do, we’re not so far removed from them that we’re justified in doing otherwise. Other animals have more humanity (and common sense) than we do. Futile care theory is about the “unnecessary” and the “gratuitous.” That’s where thinking in those terms ends up. Condoning research on non-human animals for any reason is as utilitarian as Singer is. He’s not an animal rights activist; he latched onto something and subverted it and took it off in a perverted direction.
As for the “white coat people,” here are a few anecdotes:
My family home had some very “significant” (style of taxidermy, lots of points on the antlers,etc.) animal-head trophies in it when my parents bought it, shot by one or both of the former owners of the house. They’re part of the estate; as executrix, I called a taxidermist to ask how to have them appraised, etc. I don’t want them in the house; I was once offered a full time staff position by PETA (I’m not a vegetarian, but the trophies are just too much). The taxidermist turned out to be a very nice person who told me he’d used to work in the animal laboratory at the university’s hospital in town (the same one that murdered my mother) but he couldn’t stand to see what the doctors and researchers who, he said, were only interested in advancing their careers, did to “those poor creatures,” for the stupidest and most selfish and mercenary of reasons. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. I remember one doctor after another reacting as though it were amusing, rather than outrageous, that my mother’s internist, whose privileges were at that hospital, had screamed at me when I called to try to tell him she was too ill to call him herself and that we something had to be done, “Don’t call me unless she’s lying unconscious on the floor!”
The university hospital that nearly killed my father in another state, I learned later, used to round up stray dogs in the canyon nearby to use in its laboratories. I remember my mother’s outrage over one of the doctors at that hospital looking at my father’s xray and saying “he won’t live two years with those lungs” — and LAUGHING.
Good medicine and vivisection are contradictory. Give these mercenary, narcissistic, spoiled bastards with second-rate (at best) intelligence who’ve been made a fuss over their whole lives because they were or were going to be “scientists” and “doctors’ the right to torment animals and how do you think they end up treating people? Why do you think people do their best to stay away from doctors? The lab animals don’t have that option.
Years ago, I had a bumper sticker on my then-car that said “Laboratory Animals Never Have A Nice Day.” It certainly is a true statement. You should have seen and heard the way other drivers, and various other people, reacted to it. I had some stickers and brochures that had the same message on them. One night I was in a rather deserted train station in Westchester, coming back from somewhere, and “posted” a couple of them while waiting for the train. A while later, along came some “white coat people” who evidently lived around there; their professions became obvious from their conversation, but even before that it was obvious that they were obnoxious people in and of themselves, and they looked just like what they were, in any event. One of them saw one of the stickers on the train station wall, and, not realizing that I, the only other person in the station waiting area, sitting nearby, was the one who’d put it up, started making laughing and making fun of it, and they all joined in. THAT’s the kind of people these white-coat people are, and it’s no accident when supporters of the Obamaare plan are also supporters of the white-coaters. That’s to be expected. What’s also concerning is the support of the white-coaters by those who are trying to fight the culture of death.
November 3rd, 2009 | 9:07 pm
p.s. The ones laughing at the sticker in the train station seemed, once they noticed me, to think that I’d put it up, and it only made them mock the sticker more, based on their assumption that I must be “sensitive.” THATS’s the kind of people who do experiments on laboratory animals. Unevolved, dangerous sadists. Futile care theory wasn’t born in a vacuum. They learn that it’s OK to be callous, that they’re justified in what they do, that “detachment” is proper. In other words, they learn to be sick. Then there are the ones who are sick to begin with and attracted to medicine and research and the laboratory for that reason. Many a good doctor will say that the medical and nursing professions draw a good number of sadists. I’ve certainly seen examples of that, and many reading this have as well. What amazes me is that people don’t get the connection between vivisection and what’s happened in medicie. Futile care theory didn’t arise in a vacuum. As for Obama, watch how he moves, how he moves his arms, etc.; like his speech patterns, that reflects the same thing in him that is proposing “Obamacare.”
November 3rd, 2009 | 9:10 pm
And by the way, Wesley, WHO says what’s NECESSARY? The government? The white coat people? As in Obamacare? One thing has led to the other. I think you’re starting to see it, from this post today, and I hope you follow it through to the conclusion. It will strengthen the entire argument for human exceptionalism. If not humane, not human, and humane doesn’t have exceptions.
November 3rd, 2009 | 9:54 pm
Sorry for the repeat posts, but there is one more important point to be pointed out:
Terrible things are done, and terrible suffering caused — often unnecessarily and gratuitously — to non-human animals in slaughterhouses, animal shelters, and elsewhere. But those doing it are NOT in the scientific, research, and medical professions, you know, the ones who claim to be trying to help humanity and alleviate human suffering. You want someone who would kill a cow or give the needle to a dog, cat, kitten, or puppy to be responsible for your HEALTH? But when they’re trained based on vivisection, somehow it’s ok?
I rest my case…
November 3rd, 2009 | 9:55 pm
Sorry for the repeat posts, but there is one more important point to be pointed out:
Terrible things are done, and terrible suffering caused — often unnecessarily and gratuitously — to non-human animals in slaughterhouses, animal shelters, and elsewhere. But those doing it are NOT in the scientific, research, and medical professions, you know, the ones who claim to be trying to help humanity and alleviate human suffering. You want someone who would kill a cow or give the needle to a dog, cat, kitten, or puppy, let alone do other stuff that goes on, to be responsible for your HEALTH? But when they’re trained based on vivisection, somehow it’s ok?
I rest my case…
November 3rd, 2009 | 11:52 pm
except to say
IT’S WRONG FOR NASA OR ANYONE ELSE TO IRRADIATE MONKEYS AT ANY TIME. IT’S WRONG TO EXPERIMENT ON NON-HUMAN ANIMALS. PERIOD.
When THAT’s sufficiently understood, the fight agains the Culture of Death will be WON.
November 4th, 2009 | 3:30 pm
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November 6th, 2009 | 11:03 am
One of the duties of true human exceptionalism is to realize how stupid, unnecessary, lazy, and barbaric vivisection is, and how harmful it is to our own species, and to be willing to do the work that would constitute better “science” and use talent we share with other species rather than denigrate it. But then we wouldn’t be exceptional, we’d have as much sense as other animals do. We’re exceptional, all right…
November 6th, 2009 | 11:05 am
It’s WRONG. We know it’s wrong because it makes us queasy. Yet we do it anyway, and justify it to ourselves. When we bend on that, we lose our integrity, and that’s how we ended up with the world we’ve got and the culture of death. It’s no different than what’s wrong with insurance companies and futile care theory and medicine in general and related aspects of society today.
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