So, opponents of animal research: Should we not investigate the factors in snakes that make their hearts so powerful? If so, we might miss out on some very important knowledge. From the AFP story:
The secret to the giant Burmese python’s success is in a massive amount of fatty acids that circulate in the snake’s blood after eating a meal, which could be as big as a deer, according to the study in the journal Science. Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder found that as the snake starts digesting its catch, natural oils and fats called triglycerides spike by more than 50 times the usual level. But there is no fat deposited in the snake’s heart, due to the activation of a key enzyme that protects the thumping organ as it grows in mass by as much as 40 percent in the first few days after a meal.
Scientists identified the chemical composition of the python’s blood after eating, and injected either the fed python’s plasma or a mixture devised to imitate it into pythons that were fasting. “In both cases, the pythons showed increased heart growth and indicators of cardiac health,” said the study… Researchers then tried the experiment on mice, and found that mice injected with either fed python plasma or the fatty acid mixture showed the same results. “It was remarkable that the fatty acids identified in the plasma-fed pythons could actually stimulate healthy heart growth in mice,” said researcher Brooke Harrison. Researcher Cecilia Riquelme said the next step is to figure out how the concoction works so that it may be one day adapted for use in people.
This is a good example of the kind of basic biological knowledge that could not be accomplished with computer programs or cell lines. Animal research is a necessary and respectable enterprise from which everyone who is reading these words has benefited in ways that cannot be quantified.
October 27th, 2011 | 10:19 pm
If stem cell research also leads to promising results, will you support that as well?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 27th, 2011 at 11:17 pm
I support all kinds of stem cell research. Not ESCR and not human cloning, which involve either the destruction of human life and/or its creation as a matter of manufacture. So, no as to those two, precisely because it is human life being treated as a mere natural resource, which once started would not remain long at the nascent stages. Indeed, we see advocacy for harvesting people in PVS and using them in experiments already in some of the most notable bioethical and medical journals. It’s all connected.
To some degree, animals are natural resources. But because they have the ability to feel pain, fear, etc. we have human duties toward them based on welfare principles.
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
October 28th, 2011 at 6:22 am
@Wesley J. Smith, I certainly respect your position. But the notion that animals can, simultaneously, be “natural resources” as well as sentient beings, is incoherent. The fact that they ARE sentient beings, necessarily precludes them from being “natural resources.”
Michael Reply:
October 28th, 2011 at 8:05 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
So then you admit that promising results then should be irrelevant to the question. If research on mice yielded no medical advancements, it should still be allowed, because it’s only a mouse that’s being killed. On the other hand, if we could find a cure for cancer by doing research on human embryos, it still wouldn’t make it okay. So why bring up the promising results?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 28th, 2011 at 9:29 am
Wrong. If a scientist decided to do mouse research to see if the heart circulated blood, I’d oppose it. Animal welfare principles. Not animal rights. Ridiculous.
I am educating the intellectually dishonest or ignorant who say animal research provides no value that it does. One can say that we should eschew the value. I don’t agree but it is honest. One can’t say that it provides no value. And obtaining basic information is how breakthroughs begin.
If you have had any medical treatment of any import at all developed after the Nuremberg Code, which requires animal research before testing on humans as human rights protection, you have benefited from animal research. If it is so immoral, you can always refuse the care.
October 28th, 2011 | 8:21 am
In a USDA press release January 12, 2006, Health & Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said:
“Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.”
But there is a simpler argument that testing is either morally or scientifically dubious: The animals must be a great deal like us for the results to be scientifically unproblematic, but very different from us in order to be morally unproblematic. When we want scientifically useful results, the more like us they are, the better. When we want clear consciences over causing disease, suffering, and death to innocent creatures, the more like us the animals are, the worse. We cannot have it both ways?
Another ethical problem: The diseases that cause most of the illnesses and death in the United States are chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. All major health groups (AMA, ADA, Cancer Society, etc.) agree that these diseases are most often due to lifestyle choices, which means they are largely preventable.
The serious ethical question is: why should millions of innocent animals be tortured and sacrificed to find treatments for largely self-inflicted diseases in people who refuse to take responsibility for their own choices?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 28th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Spoken like a true animal rightist. Why help people? Animals matter more.
Patrice Reply:
October 28th, 2011 at 9:29 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
Spoken like a true irrationalist. Don’t address the actual argument presented. Resort to name-calling.
padraig Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 3:48 pm
@Patrice, re: the 90% of animal-tested drugs (actually 92%) that fail in human trials:
http://speakingofresearch.com/2008/07/25/92-of-statistics-are-taken-out-of-context/
Re your statement, “The diseases that cause most of the illnesses and death in the United States are chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. All major health groups (AMA, ADA, Cancer Society, etc.) agree that these diseases are most often due to lifestyle choices, which means they are largely preventable.”
Sometimes they are preventable, sometimes not. Some diabetes is preventable or reversible, but Type 1 (childhood onset) is not. Some cancers come from smoking and the like, but a great many are not. So you have a good argument for making better lifestyle choices, but not for foregoing medical research using animals.
October 28th, 2011 | 11:07 am
@Wesley J. Smith re: “If you have had any medical treatment of any import at all developed after the Nuremberg Code, which requires animal research before testing on humans as human rights protection, you have benefited from animal research. If it is so immoral, you can always refuse the care.”
You drive on roads that slaves built. Doesn’t mean it was right.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 28th, 2011 at 11:13 am
Comparing the proper use of animals to slavery is profoundly misanthropic. I would eschew using any product or service supported by slavery. Put your body where your mouth and computer are and eschew all medical treatment that used animals in their creation. You shouldn’t, and if you are smart, you won’t. But if you are to be true to what you claim are your beliefs, you are morally obligated to so do.
padraig Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 3:51 pm
@DCM, Those guys in the hard hats laying down blacktop for $20 an hour are slaves? Who knew?
October 30th, 2011 | 12:59 am
At some point they’ll probably be able to conduct research on computers, but we aren’t there yet, and it’s better to experiment on animals than on humans.
Hmm,there’s a cure for getting rid of the pythons in Florida; manipulate their genes so that fat does clog their hearts. They’re a vicious, invasive species that threatens to eventually make its way in all the southern states,so all’s fair in getting rid of them.
October 30th, 2011 | 2:43 am
“Hmm,there’s a cure for getting rid of the pythons in Florida; manipulate their genes so that fat does clog their hearts. They’re a vicious, invasive species that threatens to eventually make its way in all the southern states,so all’s fair in getting rid of them.”
The python’s ability to be invasive outside of select areas in Florida (and their aggressiveness) has been sensationalized by the media.
It gets simply too cold in most of the US for these animals to live. There’s a reason why breeders and keepers of these animals spend a lot of money on heating them. F&W estimated the cold snap in Florida last year killed about half the population.
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