OSU President Cans Anthrax Vaccine Research On Primates 230
Wrath0fb0b writes "Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis has abruptly canceled an NIH-funded study on an anthrax vaccine in primates. (The primates would have to be euthanized afterward.) There is suspicion that the decision was meant to appease large donor Madeleine Pickens, the wife of noted huntsman T. Boone Pickens, who had previously pressured the school over animal-rights issues. Scientists counter that the study was approved by the NIH peer-review process, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and subject to the Federal Animal Welfare Act (by virtue of using NIH money) and that the decision by the President has short-circuited months of planning and deliberation on the matter. Hargis has denied being influenced by Pickens and cited 'confidential factors' that he couldn't discuss, telling the faculty council that 'to go through every lurid detail is simply not prudent.' A post on Pickens' blog, on the other hand, obliquely takes credit for the 'great decision,' noting a faculty member's hunch that the 'generous benefactor to OSU and her ties to the Humane Society of the United States may have played a role in the termination of the project.' Meanwhile, the NIH expressed displeasure at the decision, stating, 'NIH fully expects institutions to honor these assurances and commitment to complete NIH supported projects as requested, approved and funded.' Some OSU scientists speculated that the fiasco would make it harder for them to receive NIH funding in the future."
hope he switches to PETA members (Score:5, Insightful)
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Lawyers?
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Because the human child has a reasonable chance to outgrow this condition.
a rat != a pig != a dog != A boy (Score:5, Insightful)
For one thing, only the boy has any chance of understanding such a philosophically complex concept as "Morality". It is an entirely human construct required for civilization to work. That is it entirely subjective and does not possess a single fixed universal rule appears to escape most people becuase so many of the more popular definitions of what is "Moral" are similar. That is becuase, as a result of cultural evolution, selective pressure on societies favor those that define morality to include concepts such as Don't murder, Don't steal, Don't lie, etc.
The moral value of non-human animals is currently being redefined. I'm of the opinion that raising the moral value of animals is based on misplaced belief that without such value, their suffering is guaranteed and a tendancy for humans to anthropomorphise their pets and extend that compassion to other animals. I work with research and production animals. I frequently think of the behaviors I see in terms of human behavior and human emotional responses even though I know that they are wrong. The motivation and perception of a pig is incredibly different from that of a human, even a child at a similar level of intellectual development. The perfect person to readup on to learn about how fundamentally damaging the "anthropomorphic" view is to our understanding of animals is Temple Grandin.
As to your original snarky remark:
why not experiment on the mentally ill, or children born with severe learning disabilities
A. We do if we are trying to learn about the specific conditions that those individuals represent. You learn about Autism by working with autistic children.
B. More in line with what you probably intended to get a response to, Humans of any kind make horrible research subjects. The diversity within human groups, even within specific ethnic groups, is orders of magnitude greater than that between 2 strains of rats. That is why much of our biomedical and nutritional research is piloted in animals and only replicated in humans if it seems like the research is going somewhere.
I realize that you were probably hoping to get into a flame war with someone over your emotional decision to consider the quality of life for a child and a rat to be equivalent, but you won't get one from me. You can make that argument, I just don't buy it.
That you've used such an obvious and flawed comparison leads me to believe that you probably haven't had an original thought on the topic in your life. You're probably just parroting arguments you've seen others use. Saying so may make me look like a Troll, but it needs to be said. This is an issue that most people argue based on an emotional decision to accept a given viewpoint regardless of what any science may have to say on the matter. The vast majority of those posting have probably never spent more than a half an hour actually reasoning out their position.
I don't pretend to have an answer that will address the concerns of all. However, I can state with a high degree of certainty that those monkey's that were going to be used for the Anthrax study were subjected to far less fear and pain in their life than most humans. I've worked with primates (in a behavior lab) and the regulations for working with and caring for them put the laws governing the rearing of human children to shame.
Much of the modern Animal Rights movement is based on a book by Peter Singer. IIRC, there is a line in there in which he indicates that the use of animals for agricultural or research purposes is acceptable as long as their use for that purpose ends up being a net positive for the individuals involved. However, that point seems to be ignored by many who claim to desire animal rights, but have not bothered to do t
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I frequently think of the behaviors I see in terms of human behavior and human emotional responses even though I know that they are wrong. The motivation and perception of a pig is incredibly different from that of a human, even a child at a similar level of intellectual development. The perfect person to readup on to learn about how fundamentally damaging the "anthropomorphic" view is to our understanding of animals is Temple Grandin.
From what I have read, Temple Grandin does not support your arguments. From her essay Animals Are Not Things: A View on Animal Welfare Based on Neurological Complexity [grandin.com]:
Science has shown that animals such as mammals and birds feel pain in a manner similar to humans. Insects, viruses and microbes are not able to feel pain or suffer. More research is needed to determine the extent that fishes and amphibians feel pain. Present research shows that they do experience fear. Fear is very aversive and animals should be shielded form situations that cause great fear. Fear will cause a great rise in stress hormones.
[...]
When the structure of the brain and nervous system is studied, there is no black and white line between people and higher mammals such as chimps, dogs or cows.
[...]
As nervous system and brain complexity increases the welfare needs of the animal increase and become more complex, but all animals that have sufficient nervous systems complexity to suffer from either pain or fear need basic welfare protections. Animals with complex brains also have greater social needs and a need for greater environmental enrichment.
[...]
It is obvious to me that intelligent animals such as elephants experience emotions that are more complex than simple pain or fear. They will need different legal protections than animals with simpler nervous systems. The degree of protection, and environmental and social enrichment an animal will require will be dependent on the level of complexity of its nervous system.
Her opinions do not support your assertion that "the motivation and perception of a pig is incredibly different from that of a human," or that animals do not resemble human behavior or emotional responses.
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She believes that mildly autistic humans and normal animals perceive the world similarly. If you believe that autistic children view, reason and respond to stimuli (be it visual, auditory, emotional, etc.) in the same way that "normal" people do, then you've never actually met an autistic child.
I also didn't make my point clearly. I was referring specifically to her objections to the use of vague and indefinite t
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Some would argue that discriminating based on arbitrary metrics like "being alive" is wrong, and that a rock is as equally deserving of rights and freedom as any human.
These people are quite reasonably regarded as being batshit insane.
Re:hope he switches to PETA members (Score:4, Interesting)
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PETA takes a pretty clear stance for pretty much any mammal. A better example would be single-cell organisms. As far as I can tell, there are zero references to the widespread abuse of bacteria on the PETA site. Also hermit crabs need to be saved from children, but lobsters and crabs don't qualify as "sea kittens" in their anti-seafood agenda. Apparently you're only worth saving if you have an endoskeleton and/or live an idyllic existence free from natural predators.
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By that logic, the whole experiment is pretty evil. After all, even though antrax isn't "cute", it's still alive. Sure, it's not furry like rats or monkeys, but does that imply that it has any less right to life?
Save the bacterium!
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Hello, straw man. Any reasonable person is going to be able draw a line between animal life, plant life, and bacterial/viral life.
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Having been part of animal experiments in the past, this isn't easy subject. I think sometimes the scientific community does get a little impatient with animal rights organizations because they're like Republicans in that anytime you try to find middle ground, they move the center line. It's hard to negotiate with ignorant, closed-mined, intractable people.
Absent on the ot
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You were doing so well until you made that off-topic trollish comment.
It's a typical liberal rant, calling anything right of Rachel Maddow "radical right", and then pretending that demanding that things be done their way is "bipartisanship". No, getting weak Republicans to vote liberal is not "bipartisanship".
It's hard to negotiate with ignorant, closed-mined, intractable people.
So you admit that
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You make the common mistake of confusing "no ethics" with "ethics that differ from my own".
For example, I would personally slaughter every last kitten on earth if it would save a single child with cancer. That does not mean I am without ethics, but rather that according to my concept of ethics, a human life is worth an incredible ammount of animal lifes.
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But would you slaughter every kitten on earth in order to develop an eye liner that lasts all day? I think that is the kind of animal research he was talking about.
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He is making blanket statements without qualification and I am making a point that ethics are perspective.
Would I slaughter every kitten on earth for eye-liner? No. Would someone that would be "without ethics"? Of course not.
Re:hope he switches to PETA members (Score:4, Informative)
Or the animals PETA is euthanizing... Over 85% of the animals they take in are killed [petakillsanimals.com] instead of adopted. So many animals were killed by PETA in fact, that they purchaced a 9,000$ freezer to temporarily store the animals that have been killed.
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Protip: There are worse things than dead.
E.g. being infected by some cruel disease, and then “treated” with a just as cruel experimental substance, to then have electrodes in your open brain, or similar sick shit. If that ever happens to me, I hope I’m not gotta get “saved” by some egocentric* dogmatic** tree-hugging “p.c.” asshole, to become a drooling cripple instead of being freed from it. Because as soon as I can move, I’m gonna bash his head in, for not k
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in 2007, PETA workers were tried for 37 counts of animal cruelty. They were also guilty of killing and then "disposing" of dead animals in dumpsters. PETA isn't being kind by killing these animals; they're just following the line of reasoning and behavior that they've always gravitated toward: that raising funding through crazy stunts is more important than the welfare of any animals under their care.
Re:hope he switches to PETA members (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep in mind that PETA doesn't approve of the IDEA of pets. As far as they're concerned, they're doing good by preventing adoptions of animals. Killing them is just the easiest way of taking that preventative step.
Re:hope he switches to PETA members (Score:4, Insightful)
They're against people having animals as pets but locking up thousands of animals in cages just to be euthanized is ok? PETA is an organization that depends on crazy PR stunts to raise funding; as long as killing thousands of animals is cheaper for them than the alternative they will continue to do so.
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He is a bit trollish. They did buy a $9370 freezer for their headquarters, but the purpose wasn't stated.
They could be using it for cruelty-free ice-cream substitute or medical supplies not derived from animals... um...
Hell, they only kill like 5 animals a day, they could just use a regular $600 freezer, unless it was all huskies or greyhounds.
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The problem with that is that they've admitted that the freezer was indeed for the purpose of storing dead animals. They euthanize larger animals on occasion which likely necessitates the use of a larger freezer. If I sounded "a bit trollish" it is because PETA's actions have been fairly despicable in my view. I don't think that they have done anything that merits anything less than making s
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Indeed, they do kill 85%+ of the animals they take in. I wasn't seriously trying to defend them, just amusing myself with what else they might use it for. It isn't like they need to stock up for an upcoming fundraiser cook-out:)
Although I suppose it could be for human bodies, I always suspected PETA had a cannibal cabal.
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Not OSU (Score:3, Informative)
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Did you go to okstate.edu [okstate.edu], Oklahoma State University's home page? They refer to themselves as "OSU" on multiple occasions, most notably the big "About OSU" link at the home. Just because Ohio State snatched the domain first doesn't mean they can't both be called "OSU". (You should try living in Iowa but close to Illinois and guess which "U [of] I" people are talking about.)
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Since the first world of the summary it Oklahama it isn't ambiguous. Sure someone might think the wrong place from the headline, but the headline also can't be ten pages long...
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While the headline should have explicitly stated "Oklahoma State University" rather than simply "OSU," I'm not sure how Ohio gets the right to the acronym. Growing up in Oklahoma and attending a Big 12 School, my assumption is that OSU refers to Oklahoma State.
And don't forget those kids in Oregon and their amusingly named mascot -- especially when playing USC.
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Funny, before I read TFS, I thought it was Oregon State University.
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Ohio State University ... excuse me, THE Ohio State University (does that piss anyone else off?) was founded in 1870. Oklahoma State University was founded in 1890. I'd say Ohio, err... THE Ohio State University has a 20 year head start if there's going to be a fight over the acronym.
Just sayin'...
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Is that the University of Southern California, or the University of Southern Colorado? You should be more specific.
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That's right, the "The" that the OSU people are so fond of was born of political grandstanding and obnoxious pretentiousness. Which is exactly how it's still looked at to this very day...
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You don't watch much NFL, do you?
Most Ohio State University grads emphasize the word "The" to the point of sarcasm during the introduction.
Trust me, none of us take it seriously. Anywhere except (perhaps) the trustees' boardroom "the" is a tongue-in-cheek joke.
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It's especially amusing because THE University of Cincinnati (another state school in Ohio) has a better football team this year -- and it seems that out of all the possible things a State University should be proud of, football is the biggest one in Ohio.
Lol, denied being influenced by Pickens (Score:5, Informative)
Look, you might as well be honest about it. T Boone owns your university at this point, everyone knows it. You may as well just rename it for him and get it over with.
Rename OSU for Pickens? (Score:5, Funny)
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I'll drink to that!
Re:Lol, denied being influenced by Pickens (Score:4, Funny)
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The poor county supervisors (feeling the rock and the hardplace) decided to rename it "Dead Indian Memorial Road". A reasonable solution, I guess, although it didn't really make anybody happy.
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You okay today? I don't recall you usually being this mirthless.
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Ah. I hadn't noticed before. Well, be careful of letting others' jokes get under your skin. They're usually just havin' a piss, as they say, so it would be sad to suffer some elevated blood pressure and cortisol needlessly. If you think the substance of their joke (jokes are often ultimately founded in truth or sincerity) deserves addressing — say you think it's a harmful idea and could be a bad influence if folks took it seriously — I might suggest coming at the matter a different way. May
What? Oh. (Score:3, Funny)
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Where do you thing he got the Anthrax from in the first place? ^^
Now they'll have to use students instead. (Score:3, Funny)
Too bad. It would be better to use something closer to humans.
Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
NIH should put OSU on a blacklist and not fund anything involving them until OSU provides a valid (as judged by NIH) explanation for why they wasted the time (and money) of NIH.
OSU is of course free to not do so and rely on non-NIH funding. Or there might be a perfectly valid reason that they don't want to disclose publicly that they can provide to NIH.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Informative)
NIH should put OSU on a blacklist and not fund anything involving them until OSU provides a valid (as judged by NIH) explanation for why they wasted the time (and money) of NIH.
OSU is of course free to not do so and rely on non-NIH funding. Or there might be a perfectly valid reason that they don't want to disclose publicly that they can provide to NIH.
It's actually a little worse than this. I have currently, and have had NIH funding in the past as well. They take things seriously. When you are awarded a grant, either you, the individual resaercher, or the university where you work, sign a contract stipulating that the work will be done as described. (Exactly who signs these contracts varies from grant to grant.) Sometimes there are serious penalty clauses. Naturally, each institution negotiates its own contracts, and I am not privvy to the ones that OSU has with the NIH, but if my home institution is a good indicator, OSU is screwed here. Pickens better have promised a heap of money in compensation.
Also, the heads of universities are, generally, not idiots. At least the ones I've met have been actual leaders, rather than just figureheads, and understand the potential fallout from a major decision like this: faculty revolt, potential lawsuits from post-docs and graduate students whose projects have been cancelled, blacklisting by the NIH (and possibly the Department of Defence who also fund anthrax research), loss of stature for the department, potential lawsuit from the NIH for breach of contract, etc. There must have been a very compelling reason (like a pledge of lots and lots of money; a standard NIH contract represents about $1.5 million, and if there were say 10 faculty members who now have NIH grants that have been placed at risk, the donation needs to be in the tens-to-hundreds of millions of dollars range). Their entire bioterrorism program has been put at risk.
I'm going to express an unfounded speculation: on the face of it, with all of the potential downsides, seems like it's a mistake, and a better solution could have been found (like curing the animals of anthrax once the study was over and then retiring them to an animal conservation range).
Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked at a Humane Society once. Animal Testing is not Animal Cruelty.
I wish that everyone who thinks we shouldn't do animal testing would volunteer to be have said tests run on themselves. Maybe then they would understand that Human Life is more valuable than Animal Life.
Just as it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer, so it is better that ten animals die in the name of science than one human being die because a vaccine was not properly tested, or, worse still, never brought to market because of a lack of testing.
IT's really not. (Score:2)
Just as it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer
It's really not better to let ten guilty men go free, though. That's the thing.
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Re:IT's really not. (Score:5, Insightful)
From a perfectly rational perspective, allowing, for instance, ten violent criminals to go free probably does more overall harm to society than imprisoning one innocent man. That doesn't mean that it's OK, but it's better than the alternative. You can argue what the threshold should be. Maybe you really think that it would be better to release every imprisoned person in the world, because there are bound to be innocent people among them, but I don't think you'd get much support for that idea.
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From a perfectly rational perspective, allowing, for instance, ten violent criminals to go free probably does more overall harm to society than imprisoning one innocent man. That doesn't mean that it's OK, but it's better than the alternative. You can argue what the threshold should be. Maybe you really think that it would be better to release every imprisoned person in the world, because there are bound to be innocent people among them, but I don't think you'd get much support for that idea.
Spoken like someone who failed history-101 and civics-101 (or perhaps more accurately, and no less sadly, one who was never taught these things).
Once you "rationalize" that some (usually ill-defined) collective good outweighs an individual's civil rights, it is a steep and slippery slope. History is littered with examples where "rational" thinking such as yours led, in astonishingly short order, to the most horrific examples of human rights abuses.
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So you're ok with putting innocent men in jail, just in case?
No, but the point is that the justice system serves a purpose to keep society safe. There is a probability that it will make mistakes and punish the innocent, and there is a social cost for that, and there is a cost to setting guilty men free. The most desirable outcome, logically, is the maximum of that system, and I highly doubt that the number is empirically 10.
Re:IT's really not. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a probability that it will make mistakes and punish the innocent, and there is a social cost for that, and there is a cost to setting guilty men free.
The cost of letting a guilty man go free is always less than the cost of punishing the innocent, since unless the crime was completely fabricated, a guilty man went free so that the innocent man could be punished.
Re:IT's really not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Picking "not guilty" for the guy who committed the crime in no way implies that there'll be a second trial involving some other poor schmuck.
Picking "guilty" for some other poor schmuck directly indicates that there will be no second trial involving the guy who committed the crime.
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Well then what is your threshhold? Is it better to let 5 innocent men suffer than let 10 guilty men go free? Is it better to let 10 innocent men suffer than let 10 guilty men go free?
Why don't we just imprison everybody, just to make sure a handful of guilty men don't get through the cracks?
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Well then what is your threshhold?
That's the real question. Whether it's 5, 10 , 100, or 1000, the only way to ensure you never imprison an innocent person is to refuse to imprison anyone.
Of course there's another threshold you need to consider. Is it better to let 10 innocent people be murdered than imprison one innocent person? Where do you draw the line? The families of those four policemen who were murdered by a paroled felon last month would like to hear your answer.
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Of course, everything is relative. I think the real meaning of the quote though, which the person to which I was responding seemed to be missing, is the importance of the presumption of innocence.
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There is no answer as long as asshole criminals are willing to break the law. And naturally they will use every trick in the book to get away with it, including getting society tangled up in moral debates.
In that respect they are like spammers.
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The families of those four policemen who were murdered by a paroled felon last month would like to hear your answer.
And you'll talk to the families of the little boys who were raped while Ricardo Rachell [blogspot.com] sat in prison for a crime he didn't commit?
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Doesn't it matter what the purpose of the testing is?
I'm all behind using primate models for antibiotic testing. I'm entirely against animal models for cosmetics research.
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I don't know about that. It would suck if the latest, untested mascara made my GF go blind. Though it might be nice if she didn't notice my sloppy housekeeping.
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Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Animal testing is certainly cruel to the animals involved. Whether that cruelty to animals is justified by the savings in cruelty to humans is a matter of debate.
The argument can also be made, though, that some human beings' lives are more valuable than others. Certainly every society practices this, no matter what beliefs they profess, as some members of every society (e.g., chieftans, priesthood, nobility, aristocrats, "party members") receive a disproportionate allocation of that society's resources. So, we could just go down that route. Already done that [wikipedia.org], of course.
A better argument against animal testing would be that a society that practices cruelty to animals is one step closer to practicing cruelty to its fellow humans. A society that respects animal life, on the other hand, is more likely to respect human life.
Finally, your oft-stated argument that "better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer" is specious. The ten guilty men will almost certainly victimize other innocents, which is why we incarcerate them in the first place. An argument of "better that a guilty man go free than an innocent man suffer" would carry more water.
No twithead, you missed it (Score:2)
Oddly, you make his point for him. We know they will victimize others and yet, we still hold "presumption of innocence" as one of the highest moral and legal values in our country.
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Ten free guilty men probably will cause more damage, and yet it's STILL TRUE that it would be better than jailing an innocent man. That's because it's not a purely pra
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Ok, let me hear your justification, why you think you are more valuable than someone else (e.g. a chimpanzee, or a raven, or a dolphin) and why you are the center of the universe.
Next thing I know, is you telling me about the “supremacy” of the “white man”.
I bet many animals are in many areas more intelligent, more valuable and more productive for our society. If only because they know the value of other individuals...
And yeah: I think animal tests should be replaced by human tests.
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Nice. There's nothing wrong with my argument, so bitch about semantics.
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Please see this [slashdot.org].
Then get the fuck off of /. and go to a website where Logic and Reason aren't part of rational debate. Maybe 4chan.
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Last time I checked, human life was animal life.
You are only human if you read and write American.
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I've watched a lot of animals die. A lot. In misery. I've held them in my arms. I've found them half-dead, with their intestines hanging out on the sides of roads. I've seen them left at the front door of a Humane Society in boxes on nights when it gets below freezing. I don't like watching animals suffer.
I hate watching people suffer even more.
The problem with the world is that people seem to care more about cute little animals than they do about living, breathing, thinking human beings.
Animal Cruelty is doing horrible things to animals because you enjoy it or you just don't care. Animal Cruelty is shooting a kitten with a twelve gauge. Animal Cruelty is keeping a dog in your back yard tied up to a tree, rarely feeding it, keeping it on such short line it has to sleep in its own filth. Animal Cruelty is torturing small animals for your own amusement.
Animal Testing is conducting experiments on animals that, while they may, and probably will, kill the animal, will save human lives, in part due to the fact that you don't have to do the same test on a human being.
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The problem with the world is that people seem to care more about cute little animals than they do about living, breathing, thinking human beings.
Animals are living, breathing, and thinking too. Certainly there are arguments for animal testing, but supposing some sort of human sanctity hardly wins the debate, nor is it a contradiction for humans to be on the side of non-humans. And while being cute and little does not imply that animals should be protected, it also does not imply that they should be stomped on.
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The problem with the world is that people seem to care more about cute little animals than they do about living, breathing, thinking human beings.
I don't think that many people really prioritize (cute little) animals over human beings. The people you refer to probably want to counterbalance the lack of respect for animal life in our society (i agree that some people are overly zealous in that).
Animal Testing is conducting experiments on animals that, while they may, and probably will, kill the animal, will save human lives, in part due to the fact that you don't have to do the same test on a human being.
I'm not so sure that animal testing invariably saves human lives. Have there been any studies on that?
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I find it ironic that you apply this argument to vaccines.
If you look at vaccines their quality over time has steadily risen. The most dangerous vaccines are the ones that were invented decades ago - many before there even was a profit motive behind them. Modern vaccines are much safer by almost any standard.
Sure, marketing can create conflicts of interest, and we do need regulatory bodies to provide oversight. However, almost ANY public health advocate is going to agree that vaccines today provide the B
They should "offshore" this. (Score:2)
I am certain that the Chinese would take this research money, and use political prisoners instead of primates for experimentation. They then can "euthanize" them after the experiment, and PETA would not complain. Besides, they would probably have "euthanized" them anyway.
Better yet, some US Pharma company can fund this on the cheap, then patent the resulting drug and make huge profits.
Works out all the way around, well, except for the subjects of the experiment.
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Big problem on various levels (Score:5, Interesting)
What a stupid move.
NIH study sections will now perceive Oklahoma State as an institution that isn't prepared to do research that they have been awarded a grant to do. There are plenty of other institutions willing keep their promises; why take a chance on this one?
They'll also have a harder time attracting good faculty who can win grants. Why would a good scientist go to an institution that will arbitrarily stop her research? And why would good scientists who get offers from other institutions choose to stay? That will impact their bottom line.
Not to mention competent biology students will want to go someplace where politics doesn't interfere in their education.
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As it should be. Perhaps the system does work.
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In the long run, it'll work out better for everyone else involved. The only loser here is Oklahoma State.
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the fault in your statement is that you assume that people in OK want science in their state to begin with...
http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/03/oklahoma_hates_richard_dawkins.php [scienceblogs.com]
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But NIH funding is earmarked and all that.
Can't furnish the President's office with it.
just like alot of modern arguments (Score:2, Interesting)
animal rights boils down to a simple statement. Is a (non-human) animals life worth less than a humans. If you say yes, then animal testing is a no brainer. If you say no, then its not. Of course you have sub-issues like behaving in a humane manner, but that is really not the root of the issue.
This same simplicity can also be put to things like abortion, guns, and even healthcare***. The problem in our country is that we dont actually try to answer the question at the root of the issue, we nip at the corner
Confidention matters? You're *working* for them! (Score:2)
Hargis has denied being influenced by Pickens and cited 'confidential factors' that he couldn't discuss
How is that even legal? He’s working for public research. The only reason he gets to decide things, is because the public allows him to do so, and pays everything around him, including himself.
Or am I wrong about this?
And the only reason they let him decide, is because he tells them the reasons and therefore is supposed to e trustworthy.
So Mr. Pickens, you better explain yourself, if you don’t want to get your ass kicked so hard, that you think you’re staked! ^^
Unless I’m seriously w
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Lol. I meant Mr Haggis. Must have been a Freudian slip, with them being “in bed” with each other...
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Lol. I meant Mr. Hargis. Must have been a Freudian slip, with me being nauseous from thinking about it...
Then again, when I think about “in bed” and “haggis” at the same time... <Colbert-style>*gags*</Colbert-style>
NIH approval is far too lax (Score:2)
I've seen the kind of monstrous experiments that have passed an IRB and gotten all kinds of funding. The problem is, so long as it's good research that can't be done any other way, generally these boards are willing to approve horrific things. Lopping off of the top of an ape skull for easy insertion of single cell recording devices, permanently affixing a cat's head into a cement frame to stop it from moving so they can do visual cortex experiments, they may be good science, but they're ethically unaccepta
The alternative must have been worse (Score:3, Insightful)
As one observer noted, most university presidents are not idiots. Any that were in there were Darwinned out during the 1960s and not replaced (my own was replaced at that time by a labor negotiator). Hence, we can assume the alternative was worse.
There's a likely scenario: Clarabelle Pickens drops her support. It's a huge chunk of change. The legislature, strapped, does not replace it. The NIH grants can't come close to covering it, not to mention the fact they're not growing anyway. Result: everything gets cut, including the athletic budget. At this point, for the first time, the alumni get PO'ed and cut their contributions, and all life on earth as we know it comes to an end.
At that point, losing NIH looks like the best of a bad lot, so the tap-dancing begins.
Re:Vaccine funding useless (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are thinking that anthrax is a virus then you'd be wrong. It's a bacterium and it isn't "impossible" to develop a vaccine for it. Viruses like Influenza tend to mutate and adapt faster than bacteria generally do and there are vaccines for Influenza so...
Re:Vaccine funding useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah of course, all of those PhDs and researchers at Oklahoma State University have been wasting their time. They should have just asked robinstar1574 on slashdot if it was possible.
Silly them.
Re:Vaccine funding useless (Score:5, Informative)
Anthrax is a becteria that lives in soil. It's usually not life-threatening unless inhaled. In fact, you may have had it -- it's usualy from falling down and skinning an elbow in the dirt, and will leave a black mark that heals slowly, but will heal. The anthrax that's dangerous is "weaponized" anthrax that's engineered to hang in the air, and if inhaled is indeed deadly.
A Vaccine would make infected sores less painful, and could possibly make weaponized anthrax less deadly.
It's apparently not what you think it is (Score:5, Informative)
There already is a vaccine for at least some strains of anthrax, first developed by Pasteur in 1881, which is why it's rare in domestic animals in modern times. Soldiers being deployed to areas where bioweapons attacks are possible are also vaccinated against it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax#First_vaccination [wikipedia.org]
It sounds like in this particular case they were trying to develop a vaccine that would be especially for use in humans (hence primary research subjects), and they were probably targeting some of the particularly virulent strains that were developed in bioweapons programs from World War II through Vietnam.
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Maybe maybe not. If they're really concerned about the animal testing, it is conceivable that they may try out alternative medicine before they actually use drugs that were developed using animal testing methods.
Re:huntsman T. Boone Pickens? (Score:4, Informative)
Try this url -
http://www.tboonepickensfoundation.org/pdf/PCQU%20Pickens%20FINAL.pdf
There are others as well.
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