Dye Used In Blue M&Ms Can Lessen Spinal Injury

SydShamino writes "Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that the dye used in blue M&Ms and other foods can, when given intravenously to a lab rat shortly after a spinal injury, minimize secondary damage caused by the body when it kills off nearby healthy cells. The dye is called BBG or Brilliant Blue G. Given that 85% of spinal injury patients are currently untreated (and some doctors don't trust the treatment given to the other 15%), a relatively safe treatment like this could help preserve some function for thousands of patients. The best part is that in lab rats the subjects given the treatment turn blue." The researchers are "pulling together an application to be lodged with the FDA to stage the first clinical trials of BBG on human patients."

Re:Blue Eyes? Blue Vision?

[NFN_NLN]

Notice that the eyes have completely changed color as well. I'm thinking I do not want my eyes filled with blue tint.

Yeah, given the choice between blue tinted eyes and spinal injury most people will chose spinal injury, I know I would.

85% are untreated!!???

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I'm a little confused. So I'm up on my roof, cleaning my gutters or hanging Christmas lights; I fall off and break my spine in half. The ambulance takes me to the hospital and the doctor says what, "Just walk it off, you'll be fine." What am I missing here?

I would think all those people walking around with broken spines would like at least SOME treatment.

Why M&M?

[Relic of the Future]

Why are M&Ms getting attached to this story? This dye is used in all kinds of foods, not just M&Ms.

Maybe M&M/Mars, thanks to all the free and undeserved publicity, would be willing to help fund the necessary study, since no drug company seems interested in doing so (after all, there's no profit in selling a commodity food coloring.)

Re:Sound Methods?

[Anonymous Coward]

They inject 200 rats with an overdose of, say, acetaminophen, and wait for horrifyingly painful liver failure. I guess it's better than testing it on humans though.

Why? Are rats less deserving of our sympathies than "intelligent" humans? Wouldn't it be /more/ humane to test on those creatures that can give informed consent?

Re:Blue Eyes? Blue Vision?

[Trahloc]

I wish someone would invent something that creates light ... like ... well ... a bulb of some sort ... maybe .. ahh... a light bulb? No too crazy, yes much better to be in a wheel chair pissing all over yourself than potentially have your night time vision affected for a short while. The lil rodents turned blue for only a short time, it wasn't permanent, even a year is a short while vs permanent spinal damage.

Re:Sound Methods?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The funny thing is, if you want to poison a rat for scientific reasons, or (as in this case) break a rat's spine for scientific reasons, there are all sorts of rules to be followed, standards to be upheld, forms to be filed, etc.

If you just have rats in your house/warehouse/store/(or heck, even your lab, as long as they aren't lab rats) you can put out backbreaking traps, glue traps that cause slow death by dehydration, warfarin baits, whatever you want and nobody will say a thing. No standards, just the maintanence guy hittin' em with a shovel if they are twitching too much for the garbage.

Same thing in other areas: You don't need to deal with an IRB to raise feedlot pigs. And, for human testing, you (ostensibly at any rate) need informed consent, and various safeguards, IRB oversight, etc. If you need to spray your nerve toxin/probable human carcinogen on your crops, you just hire some undocumented mexican for $3.50 an hour, and throw him away if he breaks...

I'm not arguing that science needs less scrutiny(unethical conduct is always bad, and "trust us, its for the greater good" doesn't have an especially noble history; but I do think that science draws flack well out of proportion to its relative ethical risk, for reasons I don't fully understand. Numerous fields of human endeavor kill, maim, or cripple far more animals and humans, to far less benefit, than science, and somehow get away with less scrutiny and opposition. Why is science the target?

Re:Sound Methods?

[JPLemme]

You guess it's better than testing it on humans?

I agree with you that it's unfortunate that animals are sacrificed for medical research, and I hope and expect that the researchers are aware of their moral obligations to the animals under their care. But fixing spinal cord injuries so that people can walk again is worth the lives of millions of rats.

This is going to be a can of worms

[overshoot]

Apparently this is one of those things like clotbusters after a CVI or MI where time counts -- only more so: waiting an hour or two can make the difference between walking and not walking.

Which means that restricting it to use in trauma centers is going to end up with a lot of nonurban victims left paralyzed for life. Trouble is, administering it outside of a trauma center is going to cause a lot of problems with licensure etc. Which causes me, as a nonurban first responder, to simultaneously stress out and reach for the popcorn.

Re:Sound Methods?

[interkin3tic]

Why? Are rats less deserving of our sympathies than "intelligent" humans?

Yes.

Wouldn't it be /more/ humane to test on those creatures that can give informed consent?

No.

Re:Sound Methods?

[digitrev]

Actually, we did need the first 999,999 rats. So we could figure out what doesn't work. To (mis)quote Edison, "I didn't fail, I just found a thousand ways not to make a lightbulb".

Re:Sound Methods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool. Can we use your dog?

Re:Sound Methods?

[dffish]

No, they're rats. Bred specifically for scientific purposes. If they have to experiment on millions of rats to ease the suffering of one human, then experiment away. I'm always amazed when I see a comment like that. It says to me that you find it more important to have a rat live to its ultimate potential...whatever that is...spreading disease most likely, than helping humanity. The only creature capable of informed consent IS humanity... So...what are you saying really?

Re:Sound Methods?

[Tubal-Cain]

You may not even use my rat. Buy your own, or go to your local animal shelter.

Re:Why M&M?

[Kligat]

Or maybe instead of blaming the scientists, you could be blaming the stupid U.S. media that wants you to associate science with candy, and candy is delicious, so you'll think science is delicious and click. I originally read the story on BBC [bbc.co.uk], and they never mentioned M&M's once.

Re:Sound Methods?

[spud603]

Is that supposed to be an argument that we shouldn't care about ethics? Most other species also don't cook their food.

Re:Sound Methods?

[CrimsonAvenger]

How many rat deaths exactly is a person walking again worth? A million? Could you stomach the hundred thousand gallons of blood flowing from the chopping block, knowing it was saving someone's mobility?

You exaggerate, a rat has nowhere near a pint of blood in him. Probably not more than ten thousand gallons, tops.

Are you sure you're comfortable with the ramifications of throwing out a number like one human life = 1 million rat lives?

Yes, in fact I am.

You know, the only reason it's not the other way around (1 million human lives for 1 rat life) is because we're the apex predators with the cages and the needles and the power. But what if some alien civilization more intelligent than us needs a million human lives to save one of theirs?... fair?

"Fair" has nothing to do with it. We're the apex predator, and all those prey animals will just have to suck it up.

And if some alien civilization wanders in and displaces us as the apex predator in these parts, we'll just have to suck it up too.

Re:Sound Methods?

[yincrash]

Also, we happen to be sentient.

Re:Sound Methods?

[Anonymous Coward]

The $3.50/hr Mexican is a myth! I know because I can't afford those guys standing out in front of HomeDepot. The one guy willing to take $10/hr quit after 1/2 a day.

Re:Sound Methods?

[PopeRatzo]

No, they're rats. Bred specifically for scientific purposes.

I agree with your conclusion, but not your argument. The fact that they are "bred specifically for scientific purposes" doesn't have any impact on the moral aspect of animal testing. We've had people who were specifically bred for farm labor but that didn't make slavery moral.

The reason animal testing for medicine is OK is because we agree that the life of a human is more valuable than the life of a lab rat. Whether or not I may agree with that assumption doesn't change the fact that it has become a consensus. The best we can do as far as creating a moral framework for human society is to accept such a consensus. It's imperfect, but I don't see another way, unless you're willing to abrogate moral responsibility to the pronouncements of an imaginary deity, which really means "a bunch of guys who wrote moral pronouncements and then claimed they came from god". I happen to prefer the consensus method to the imaginary deity method.

Re:Sound Methods?

[Dantu]

Even from an evolutionary perspective, yes. Aren't rats kind pretty low on the totem pole?

Depends what totem pole. The totem pole of "most like humans", then they are a little ways down, but still FAR above the 1/2 way point if you include non-mammals.

In terms of "most evolved" rats are exactly where humans are. If there was any argument to be made, you could say they are MORE evolved, since they have a shorter life span and more children - more chance for natural selection to work it's magic.

Evolution works towards optimizing a species for survival; not for "becoming human" or "becoming smart" or anything else that puts people on top. I don't mean to be "anti-human", but evolution doesn't care about those things.

Re:Sound Methods?

[lena_10326]

Just some thoughts as to an explanation why.

1. Slippery slope argument. Institutionalizing a careless regard for animal life will eventually lead to a general careless regard for human life.
2. Role model argument. Scientists as a group form a body of people who are commonly recognized as figureheads of authority, leadership, thought shapers, yadda yadda. E.g. role models. As such they are commonly held to higher standard because they are (supposedly) professionals possessing an elevated level of education, power, or influence. You'll see this with other figureheads. Examples. A cheating politician creates a big public stir when caught, but no one cares when a citizen does the same. A sports hero caught doing steroids. A NASA scientist caught up in a love triangle. A 24 yo high school teacher dating an 18 yo student. A movie star busted for DWI.
3. Priority argument. Animals invading a home represent a health risk to human inhabitants. We value human health higher than animal health so humans win. Animals lose. In the case of scientific experimentation with animals, the existence of those animals possess no (immediate) health risk since they are caged and disease free (at least before the experiment begins). The importance of the rat's health becomes elevated because no one is harmed by their existence.
4. Responsibility argument. Animals in the wild choose to procreate and invade our homes. They bear a certain level of responsibility for not avoiding humans. In the lab, humans choose to breed (or capture) those animals. In that case humans bear the responsibility for the ethical treatment of them.

poorly understood chemicals in our food...

[TermV]

This is pretty scary, actually. We're randomly adding this stuff to food for no reason other than to turn it blue. So it turns out it has some sort of medicinal power, but it could just have easily caused cancer or horrible birth defects.

If our factory food looks so disgusting that it needs dyes, maybe we shouldn't be eating it in the first place.

Re:Sound Methods?

[rantingkitten]

Your answers are coming off as really, really callous. Strictly speaking, you are probably right -- a rat is not worth as much as a human from a purely objective ethical or moral standpoint (though I suspect there are some who would debate this, and the discussion could get interesting).

But even if you're right, that does not mean we should be completely carefree about inflicting harm against creatures that can feel pain or fear or both, merely because they're not human. Tossing off one-word yes/no responses to that guy's questions makes it sound like there is nothing further to discuss, when in fact the issue of animal testing is a hotly contested one and not so easily answered.

Re:Sound Methods?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have to experiment on millions of rats to ease the suffering of one human, then experiment away.

Don't underestimate the magnitude of what is being done.

No, you have the numbers all wrong.

The experimentation on perhaps millions of will not ease the suffering of just one human, if the experiments are successful.

It will ease the suffering of millions and millions of humans, perhaps billions, until another solution is found.

But we do have the moral obligation to the experimental animal, whether rat or mouse or dog or cat or pig or monkey to keep its suffering due to our experiment to a minimum.