Primate study halted by US university
Officials fear violent reprisals from a reinvigorated animal-rights movement.
Brendan Borrell
Nature Magazine
December 7, 2009
Administrators at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in Stillwater have abruptly cancelled an anthrax vaccine study that would have killed dozens of baboons.
The project, funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and led by Shinichiro Kurosawa of Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts, had been approved by the OSU animal-care committee in September and was awaiting review by the biosafety committee when OSU president Burns Hargis vetoed it in October, calling the study "controversial".
Kurosawa had hoped to use the OSU animal facility because it has the required level of biosafety containment for anthrax. "As guest scientists at OSU, we are obliged to follow their policies, and it is unfortunate that we cannot fully complete our research there at this time," Kurosawa says. Along with collaborators at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City, the University of Oklahoma in Norman and the University of Chicago in Illinois, he planned to investigate the biochemical pathways that lead to death following anthrax infection, and to test an anthrax vaccine.
Some faculty members have suggested that the decision to cancel the study might be linked to pressure from Madeleine Pickens, the wife of oil magnate and OSU benefactor T. Boone Pickens. Madeleine Pickens had previously expressed disapproval of surgical training procedures involving animals in the university's veterinary school. Spokespeople for both Pickens and the university deny the suggestion.
Hargis defended his decision in the Tulsa World newspaper, empha sizing that 124 animals could have been killed on campus. "There are regrettably some violent acts committed by animal-rights groups," says OSU vice-presi dent of research Stephen McKeever, "and the president felt we should take our breath here and not do this project just yet." McKeever says the decision does not indicate a change in institutional policy, but that future proposals for primate studies will be considered in consultation with researchers, the OSU animal-care committee and his administrators.
Indeed, for several faculty members, the biggest upset is not the decision itself but the fact that it was made without consulting them. Veterinary researcher Richard Eberle, who was an administrative liaison for the study, believes that the affair might give the impression that the university is no longer a reliable research partner. He notes that two major proposals for OSU-based primate research, involving some of the same institutions, are pending at the NIH. The NIH Office of the Director said in a statement that institutions are expected "to complete NIH supported projects as requested, approved and funded".
The dispute comes during a time of heightened activity by animal-rights activists, including firebombings at two University of California campuses. Although few institutions have policies that prohibit primate research, not many are keen to establish new primate programmes, says Dario Ringach, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who stopped working on primates because of pressure from activists. "It is changing the kind of work people will do in the future," he says. "If students come to me interested in primate research, I would tell them to think about other things."
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I think you may have accidently misrepresented Dario Ringach's situation somewhat. Although he did give up working with primates for a while in response to animal rights threats he has since resumed primate work, a good thing too given its importance, and was a founding member of the scientific advocacy group Pro-Test for Science. I suspect that any responsible researcher would tell a student to think long and hard about a career in primate research, it may be crucial to progress in several fields on medicine but it is tough work and the number of positions will always be relatively small compared to other areas (was it ever anything else?).
I hope that the OSU administration realizes what a serious mistake it has made in appearing to give in to extremist pressure, and how their handling of what was always going to be a controversial decision has further alienated many OSU faculty members. The scientists at OSU are clearly willing to stand up to animal rights extremism, the administration ought to support them and allow this study to continue.
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Paul Browne
its not ok to abuse animals in the name of science, but its ok to abuse animals in the name of food?
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Jms rndll
I am minded of a remark attributed to Marx (Karl, not Groucho), that just because a man is a non smoking, teetotal vegetarian doesn't stop him being Adolf Hitler.
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Bob Sunman
How many activists have volunteered to participate in this study so far?
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Alex Cranson
Rather than preventing OSU from becoming a target of animal extremists, its two recent policy decisions (changing its veterinary medical training procedures and halting a study of anthrax in nonhuman primates) are likely to invite further pressure from animal research opponents. Whatever rationale the university administration invokes now, OSU appears vulnerable to threats and unprepared to stand behind humane, responsible science. To achieve their goal of ending all use of animals in research animal rights extremists are known to exploit such weaknesses, whether real or imagined. OSU should be ready for the next demand.
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Barbara Rich
To the researcher who asked how many "activists" volunteered to be killed by anthrax in a laboratory: How many researchers volunteered?
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Renzo Bruni
To clarify: I am not presently conducting any animal research, although as Paul Browne correctly noted, I fully support and defend the use of animals (including primates) in responsible biomedical research.
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Dario Ringach
Dr. Bruni, The point is that researchers believe that using animal models is the best way to conduct the science BECAUSE there needs to be a reasonable expectation that it will work. Is it perfect? No, of course not. However, if the animal rights activists are so against animal testing then it should be they, not the people who believe animal research is vital,that should be volunteering.
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: David Bienus
The limited information about the postponed experiments have allowed this discussion to be frame-shifted from important bioethical issues resulting in a missed opportunity. I am not opposed to animal experimentation, but experiments should only be done when necessary and only when all efforts are made to limit pain and suffering of the animals--particularly when the subject specie is one having what animal rights advocates might call "high practical autonomy". First necessary question not addressed in this article and string of comments: Is this experiment necessary? Do we need an anthrax vaccine? For whom--curers of animal hides or soldiers exposed to weaponized anthrax spores? I suspect the intent is to protect the latter, and not any portion of the civilian poplulation. It will never be practical or feasible to vaccinate civilians against what is at best a terror weapon. More in a second post...
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Michael Horowitz
Second point. Why is it necessary in this experiment to allow the anthrax to kill the baboons? Article doesn't say, but presumably unvaccinated control group would get anthrax. Article doesn't say if cutaneous or lung? Wouldn't vaccine protect from cutaneous which is easier to treat? If so, give baboons cutaneous and then treat and cure control group with antibiotics. Even if necessary to test vaccine against lung form, there seems no purpose to allowing infected baboons to die without trying to treat with antibiotics once it is clear disease has been contracted...It is really unclear why the experiment required the sacrifice of the animals.
08 Dec, 2009Posted by: Michael Horowitz
Sorry about the confusion Dario, I see I got a little mixed up with which author contributed what to some of your recent papers. Michael, I'm sure that the scientists involved in this study would be happy to talk about it, but that hasn't been the focus of the discussion so far. It would certainly be good to learn more about it, though I would assume that some of it may be confidential for security reasons. My understanding from what I have heard about this study from various statements is that it is intended not to just evaluate new vaccines but also to study the pathopsyiology of different strains of anthrax and evaluate treatments, including the nastier strains that are not so frequently studied in labs but a problem in the real world (hence also the need for BSL-3 facilities). Highly virulant strains need to be treated early to have a hope of curing the disease (one of the motivating factors for the study), so it may well be the case that it will be too late for treatment by the time some of the studies are completed. In this situation euthanasia would be the only option.
09 Dec, 2009Posted by: Paul Browne
A small pedantic point to Bob Sunman: Karl Marx died in the 1880s so I guess it may have been Groucho after all. In the UK, universities like my alma mater Oxford have had considerable problems with animal-rights protesters, but it seems to have died down lately. In Oxford, this may be related to the completion of the new animal facility, which they were trying to halt. In general, 'Islamist' terrorism seems to have taken over the 'terrorist' slot in the media, and perhaps the animal rights movement has been so successfully labelled as 'terrorist' by its opponents that public support has waned — that's an idea, not a theory though!
10 Dec, 2009Posted by: Kay Taylor
First of all, animal right activists planting fire bombs and threatening people are not activists but terrorists. They should be treated as such and since they left the path of democratic legitimate actions they require to be treated not as responsible citizen but delusional criminals. Assuming good intentions, I guess Burns Hargis had the security of his colleagues and co-workers in mind, when he cancelled the primate experiments, when threatened by animal right terrorists. However, giving in to terrorist threats and demands will only fuel further demands and threats in the future, as this methodolgy unfortunately seems to work. These terrorists have an ideologic agenda and they will be only happy and satisfied when ALL animal research and breeding of animals for food consumption will have been abandoned. Are you all prepared to become vegetarians without any perspective on new tretments for lethal diseases?
10 Dec, 2009Posted by: Alexander Henke
Dear David Bienus, I'm afraid your argument is flawed. If researchers propose to conduct an unethical experiment, then it's their moral duty to volunteer first to be the subjects. This is a similar situation to a commander sending his troops to the line of fire while he stays behind in safety... However, this is besides the point. The point is that while most researchers see animals as nothing more than a tool, no different than any other lab equipment (despite claims to the contrary), all animals have intrinsic rights. This probably sound "extreme" to most people, but so did similar claims re other groups throught history. In addition, as long as animals will be available for research, progress will be halted due to the physiological differences between them and humans (if I remember correctly, comparative studies found only 5-10% agreement). This is simply bad science. Humanity would have benefited if biomedical researchers put their minds to develop good and relevant methods in this field. The argument that animals are necessary for progress is wrong. After all, humans would be the best subjects. But they are not being experimented on (in they same way that animals are being) for ethical reasons. The same should be true for animals. OSU may have canceled the experiment for the wrong reason, but in doing so, it did the ethically right thing.
11 Dec, 2009Posted by: Yoav Kashiv
