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."
Not OSU (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Re:hope he switches to PETA members (Score:3, Informative)
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 killing me.
___
* Egocentric, because those types don’t do it to help you. They do it, to compensate their self-hatred of being such an “evil human“ and guilt, that is a result of a fucked up childhood where they were treated just as cruely.
** Dogmatic, because they don’t care what the actual intent of their principle was, and just insist on it, even when the result is the opposite on the original intent.
Re:hope he switches to PETA members (Score:1, Informative)
If you really want to talk hypocrisy, note how PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has no problems about using medical techniques [blogs.com] developed from animal testing to help herself, or how PETA vice president Mary Beth Sweetland keeps herself alive with animal tested and derived insulin. [consumerfreedom.com]
Re:An animal-rights activist who hunts? (Score:2, Informative)
the wife of noted huntsman T. Boone Pickens, who had previously pressured the school over animal-rights issues.
If you are going to quote, you could at least include the parts of the sentence that give context and flow... like the part right before your "snip."
Also, just because I hunt, it doesn't mean my mom does. Nor do I give the deer I shoot a vaccine of anthrax to test out before I shoot them.