-----
/ o o \
====OO=====OO===
http://pnews.org/
Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From: "James a. Mulick, PhD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I do clinical research with human children, some of it experimental and some
of it correlational. It is only able to answer some of the questions we need
to have answered in order to help people (or dogs, for that matter). It is
unethical, and prohibited for good reason, to do clinical research without a
thorough understanding of the preliminary animal research that supports your
hypothesis regarding the expected results in humans. Sometimes the data are
the accumulation of decades before you are ready for human experimentation.
Most of the "studies" you see cited below are correlational clinical
research, not experimental. It is only with experimental research that you
can prove a treatment has an effect. Correlational clinical studies can
never be much more than suggestive.
I guess scientific illiteracy is a problem in society, or we would not be
having this debate.
Note that Balcombe (the author below) is not an experimental scientist but
an ethnographer; one who works in a rather completely correlational
discipline (if he works outside of animal rights at all), in which stories
and folk-ways are collected and documented. Perhaps he listened to too many
myths from too many cultures before he considered or learned how to tell the
difference between what he knows and what he wants to believe; that sort of
thing is an occupational hazard for ethnographers, intelligence analysts,
and politicians (to name a few such groups). He just does not make any sense
at all with respect to the reality of making progress in biological science.
Of course, I guess progress isn't that important to everybody? Or at least
it isn't that important until, god forbid, it is. See what I mean? But
then, I suppose that is why I prefer working with parents of young children
as opposed to geriatric cardiac patients. Young parents most often still
retain a sense of urgency about life, a strong desire to protect their
children (as opposed to their pets and everybody else's pets, not to mention
pests they'd trap or kill if admitted to their homes or observed in their
streets or yards), and they still have a hunger and acceptance for the high
quality protein they need to grow healthy children. Things do change with
age, and that is not an accident. Wisdom, however, as this discussion
suggests, is not a guaranteed gift for people who manage to grow up, just as
the truth is not found where we want it to be but where is really is.
James A. Mulick, Ph.D.
Professor, Pediatrics & Psychology
The Ohio State University
<snip>
In all of these studies, the supposed aim was to improve human bone fracture
and repair. But there are many ways to study this without harming animals.
These include:
* clinical studies with human fracture patients (Suzuki et al. 2004,
Martinez et al. 2003)
* epidemiological studies (Tornetta et al. 2004)
* working with preserved human bones (Gollwitzer et al. 2004)
* clinical case reviews and reports (Jones & Duncan 2003, Nocini et al.
2004)
* imaging techniques (e.g., MRI, Takahashi et al. 2004)
* meta-analyses of published clinical studies (Hanson et al. 2004)
* animal cadaver studies (e.g., Halling et al. 2003)
* artificial bone studies (e.g., Sawbones) (Ali et al. 2003)
Human-based methods have several advantages: They involve natural fractures
(not artificial ones like those produced with a circular saw), they dont
require extrapolation between species, and patients can verbally report
their symptoms. And they inflict no injury on healthy patients.
With all the options available, one marvels that Institutional Animal Care
and Use Committees can approve animal experiments when the Animal Welfare
Act requires such approval come only if an IACUC determines that
alternatives were not available."
Jonathan Balcolmbe, Ph.D., is a PCRM research consultant with background in
ethology. <snip>
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
M A I L I N G L I S T S
(1) pnews-news - NEWS mailing list - (text only)
Send "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as subject
----> pnews-news-request(at)inyourface.info
=======================================================
(2) pnews-views - VIEWS mailing list- (text only)
OPEN discussion - "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as subj
Send to ------> pnews-views-request(at)inyourface.info
=======================================================
(3) fightback - articles and pointers distribution list
(html/text) - expert informed opin., credentialed authors
----> http://pnews.org/dada/
========================================================
(4) ATTN: WEBMASTERS - Link Exchange/improve site rank
----> links_only-subscribe(at)googlegroups.com - or, go to:
-----> http://groups.google.com/group/Links_Only
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
