The Official OSU Response to the Cats-On-Meth Experiments with Comment
Your letter to President Gordon Gee was forwarded to me for
a response since I am the senior communications officer on campus
charged with research issues. Dr. Gee and I both appreciate the time and effort
you took to express your feelings on this matter and
wanted to offer the following information in hopes that you will better understand
the University's position.
Based on your message, I respectfully suggest that you have
been misinformed as to a number of relevant points involving this
research. While the animal rights community has continued to label this project,
and the previous work leading up to it, as
"cats-on-meth," that naming was specifically intended to pose inaccurate
emotional arguments against this research.
Let's address the title we gave to the experiments proposed. OSU did & will use cats and they did & will give cats meth. Actually the words taken from the OSU protocols and amendment describes the cat dosing of meth as "binges". So is our title accurate, yes i think so. Is there emotion attached to the title? Yes, because people need to realize what OSU is doing to the animals from the beginning of reviewing the experiments. OSU is binging cats on meth.
The current work, like the one before it, was initiated by a
request from the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) asking the
university's researchers to propose such a project. The goal of the research
is specifically to discover the mechanisms involved in the
ability of some viruses to resist antiviral medications and foster viral replication,
a serious and growing problem in treating
communicable diseases worldwide, especially AIDS.
OSU is fudging alittle bit here. The original work by Podell was included in an NIH grant, RFA: DA-00-005, that covered a variety of goals. The NIH grant was split into three proposals involving humans and three proposals, including Podell's, using animals.
Previous work by Dr. Mathes and his colleagues led to the discovery
that, in the presence of methamphetamine and similar drugs -- both
those of abuse and that are therapeutic -- feline immunosuppressive virus
(one of three animal surrogates for HIV, the cause of AIDS) was
able to replicate 15 times greater than normal, and that the virus mutated
to a form that further facilitated virus production. Those
findings have massive public health implications and led to the current project.
Talk about emotional words. "massive public health implications" - Okay what are they? Taking meth when you have AIDS is bad for you. Sorry but I have to say, DUH.
In the current project, researchers will use cell cultures and
tissue samples unravel the complex biochemical processes that enable the
virus to thwart normally successful therapies thrown against it. Only at the
end of the project -- and then only if the findings
warrant confirmation experiments -- will the researchers make use of a minimal
number of cats in the work.
Actually, OSU has already done part of this work. The submitted amendment says, "In addition, from previous in vivo studies, we have evidence that AZT resistance arises in FIV infected cats given a 12-week regimen of AZT at a dose of 15 mg.kg/day." So even without giving the cats meth OSU is seeing resistance. From our view, using one cat is too many.
Opponents of the work have argued that since tissue cultures
have yielded previous results, that the use of animals is
unnecessary. Nothing could be more wrong. Discoveries from cell culture work
absolutely must be reproduced in whole living animals to
confirm the research findings. Moreover, NIDA specifically required that an
animal model be used to confirm any and all findings for the
project.
And how many times has work been reproduced in animals and failed in humans? Hundreds. Just this week another AIDS vaccine tested in monkeys failed in humans, AIDS vaccine doesn't guard against virus. And actually appears to have it easier to contract AIDS. The fact that NIDA requires animals to be used is a fundamental problem and issue with disease investigations.
Opponents also have argued that alternatives to the use of animals
in such projects are available and should be used
instead. Unfortunately, that simply isn't true. There are no computer simulations
or other techniques that can yield the same
quality of data that are derived from the use of animals. If such were available,
we would rapidly adopt them.
That is why many times we say the experiment should not even be done. It is knowledge gained at the expense of an animal's life. And my view is that the animals life should not be taken for the sake of bringing dollars into OSU, keeping an animal researcher at OSU, or to answer the question being asked by Mathes.
I would also argue OSU does not rapidly adopt alternatives or their Wet Lab would no longer use animals in education.
You wrote, "Dr Gee, we strongly disagree with this protocol
and feel these experiments have no scientific value to improve human health.
More importantly, we firmly believe it is a wasteful use of a companion animal's
life." While we, of course, respect your right to
that opinion, it is wrong on two counts: First, this research has substantial
scientific merit, verified by the fact that it has
undergone several levels of peer review by experts in the field as to its
potential. Second, the animals -- if used -- are purpose-bred
for research -- they are not companion animals, nor do we use companion animals
in any such research.
Yes, that's why OSU employees a lobbyist in Washington to insure they continue to get a piece of the NIH pie. In a recent Dispatch article, Dr. Clay Marsh says, "his research couldn't continue without federal funding." The article is titled, Universities rely on lobby's golden touch.
Well again OSU is doing alittle fudging here when they say,"nor do we use companion animals in any such research." For a variety of experiments OSU does use cats donated to the university and does use dogs and sometimes cats obtained from USDA Class B dealers, well one, Robert Perry. The cats used in the cats-on-meth are purpose bred cats from Liberty Labs. But I had a lab cat from that facility and he was one of the most loving animals I have had. Yes, purpose bred means exactely what it implies but that doesn't imply the animals do want affection, touch, and to be able to walk freely outside their cage. I think those sentences show the lack of compassion OSU has for the animals they use in experimentation.
This project has been reviewed by the institution's oversight
committees, as well as federal authorities, and meets all criteria
required by authorizing agencies. Additional accurate information on this
research is available at
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/catsazt.htm.
Accurate as long as you don't read the amendment and the limitations noted by the investigator.
The OSU IACUC has rarely disapproved any protocol submitted to them in all the years, since the late 90's, that I have attended the meetings. Every protocol has been worth taking an animals life? I doubt it. I could go on and on about wasteful and worthless projects that OSU has approved, but I'll stick with cats-on-meth. These experiments should never have been approved and the fact that seven years later after the first cat was killed that we are again protesting this experiment and that OSU continues to justify the experiment is just disgusting.
Sincerely,
Earle M. Holland
Assistant Vice President for Research Communications