This Friday (8th August) Speaking of Research will be involved in two events.
Firstly, at 12:00 noon, at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) Seminar Hall (part of UC Davis), Tom Holder will be speaking to students, researchers, and any members of the public wishing to come along (please RSVP to reception@ucdavis.edu). Some more details can be found here.
The talk will cover the benefits of research, Tom’s experiences in the UK, and why and how all of us in the US need to stand up and defend lifesaving biomedical research.
Secondly, between 2-3pm, Tom Holder will appear live on Capital Public Radio (90.9KXJC), to be interviewed by Jeffrey Callison on the program “Insight“. The interview will last 20 minutes at some point during the hour of 2-3pm.
Keep an eye on the Calendar page for updates.
Cheers
Tom
Tom,
From your description of the tour at UC Davis, I would suggest that perhaps you received the “white glove tour” that fails to represent the life for hundreds if not thousands of the monkeys there. I saw these types of tours over and over again at the lab I worked in at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, operated by the Oregon Health and Sciences University.
There were always excuses given as to why the public wasn’t allowed to see what really goes on behind locked doors e.g. you could bring a virus in and get the monkeys sick; TB was often cited as a possible risk. Funny, we had one technician who tested positive for TB and were so short handed, the lab allowed him to keep working; they just asked him to wear a slightly thicker paper filter mask than usually required.
Just what do they have to hide?
I also took a tour of that lab while I was a primate technician, and as an insider from another lab, I left with a quite different impression. I shadowed for a day the woman in charge of the psychological well being department. She was the only technician assigned to the behavior program, and in fact was only part-time, spending half of her 40 hours a week fulfilling other responsibilities.
She bent my ear all day about her ongoing frustrations with management’s lack of concern for the monkeys well being and the apathy of other primate technicians, who were constantly shirking their duty to contribute to the enrichment program.
Did you see the more than 1000 monkeys housed indoors, almost exclusively single-caged? The enrichment was pathetically inadequate. Twice a week the monkeys would get 1/4 of an apple, and they were supposed to have a bit of granola sprinkled on the plastic block attached to their cage during week days. The block, with holes drilled in it, was designed to increase the effort in retrieving the treat, and thus occupying the monkeys mind.
A couple of problems plaguing this plan: first, it wasn’t necessarily being done. It is much easier for a technician to simply initial that they had fed the granola than to actually do it, and she illustrated to me how she could tell walking into rooms still wet from cage cleaning that no granola was fed despite the signed task form checking off that it had been done.
And second, the “treat” program was woefully inadequate. What about the monkeys displaying atypical behaviors; hair pulling, feces smearing, urine drinking, stereotypic circling/pacing, and, at its worst, self injurious behavior? These monkeys were supposed to get, in addition to the granola sprinkles during the 5 week days, granola on the weekend as well. Suffice to say that anyone with common sense could agree that you are not going to mitigate acute dysfunctional behavior in intelligent, social complex primate species brought about by institutionalized isolation and maternal deprivation with a bit of extra granola on the weekend! Obviously this type of program has no genuine intention to rehabilitate these monkeys from their psychological suffering, but merely serves the purpose of meeting the requirements of a completely inadequate law.
What is enriching for non-human primates? The researchers own data shows clearly it is social interaction with others of their species. Why aren’t all monkeys housed socially? I would argue it is money. The researchers argue it would negatively effect their research but the reality is the opposite is true, it is the lack of social housing that is impacting their research–creating stressed, sometimes psychotic animals that in no way reflect a normal population.
Curious if they showed you their electro-ejaculation procedure? They did me, and it was literally shockingly cruel, and unfortunately, quite routine. This of course is where they “train” (or I would argue coerce) monkeys into complying with being immobilized in a stereotaxic chair while they strap conductive bands on their exposed penis and shock them to produce semen samples. Not something that makes for a pretty tour, but certainly something they do every day.
I would love to talk to you more about UC Davis. I visited there to get new ideas to help our failing program at the Oregon lab where I was struggling to help our behavior case monkeys. I left disillusioned that things were actually worse in their lab and all I could do was commiserate with an equally frustrated comrade.
I am curious if you will be willing to publish this reply. My impression after meeting you is that you are a thoughtful person with an open mind, and it would be a refection of your sincerity if you would let others comment on a dissenting view.
The tour at UC Davis wasn’t even the white glove tour. It was the “you’ve got a plane to catch, and also you haven’t had a TB vaccine” tour.
To let someone in who hasn’t had a TB test is irresponsible (and yes, if a technician has TB then that’s very irresponsible too). Monkeys do die from human TB, so for the sake of the animals they have to take precautions. As an animal lover I would have thought you could appreciate this.
There has been a shift across the US towards double-housed (or more) caging, as there have been for more other enrichment activities and treats. I might dare to say that much of your experiences are outdated.
Yes, technically (pun unintended) a technician could just mark down they did something – but most technicians go there because they like animals. What exactly do you want management to do? Take a granola bar stock count at the end of every day? One expects a technician to do his job, if he is not then that is his fault – he is causing problems for the animal, not the primate center.
With regards to atypical behavior – Matt, we’ve seen the video on the “AR conference – Part 2″ post which shows you **trying** to induce atypical behavior in monkeys. I have been inside the Oregon labs (Of course there are certain parts I can’t go in without training – this is the law), and the monkeys were not circling/pacing – Clearly it is not isolation/caging that causes this or else all the single housed monkeys would be doing so (whereas I looked in a few indoor monkey rooms and never saw this once).
Money stops them caging in pairs?! There’s a sliding door between cages these days where they can put two cages together – what is so expensive about removing the divider? I am well aware that they used to use many stand-alone cages, but they have been out of favour compared with the “sets” of cages.
I did not see EEJ – however the same technique is used in humans for those who are paralyzed, paraplegic, or otherwise unable to ejaculate:
http://www.sexualhealth.com/article/read/disability-illness/spinal-cord-injury/251/
I do believe that these days it is done under anaesthetic (which it wasn’t before – just another example of improving standards).
Tom
Jim Newman here from Oregon Health & Science University. I work in the communications office at OHSU. I have been at OHSU since 1999 so I am well aware of Mr. Rossell’s claims about our primate center in 2000. I am also aware of the 2 month federal investigation that cleared our center (a fact that Rossell rarely mentions.)
I do suggest readers view “Animal Rights Conference – Part 2″ at this web site which explains how Mr. Rossell has made a career out of taking jobs with the specific goal of gathering data to end animal studies. I think most readers would agree that this taints his claims. It’s also noteworthy that in other instances (specifically at Boys Town, in addition to OHSU) Rossell’s claims did not hold up under scrutiny.
I also need to correct a few more of the points made by Rossell. Firstly, we, don’t have anything to “hide” as he claims. At our center we have over 3,000 visitors a year. Can we show every visitor every single animal? No. That’s logistically impossible. Do they see the locations where most of our animals live? yes.
Additional points about our transparency: Just as is the case with every other center, our research is published and the public can read it for themselves. I regularly write press releases to inform the public about what we do.
Claiming that animal research is “conducted behind closed doors” or “secretive” is untrue. These claims are a long term established animal rights strategy with the goal of trying to make a highly transparent and important process (health research to help humans and animals) seem sinister.
As for housing monkeys, Mr. Rossell may not be aware of this, but the most expensive way to house them is singly in cages. It is much less expensive (and of course preferable whenever possible) to house monkeys in outdoor corrals. Therefore, his claim that scientists do this for the money…quite simply does not add up.
By the way, anyone who believes scientists conduct research for the money should take a look at federal health research funding trends and the tremendous work it requires to achieve funding.
As for Rossell’s TB claim. He fails to mention that false positives are common. I have seen them myself. There is no way to prove what Rossell says is true or false. But IF it were true, it is possible that the case he refers to (now approx 10 years ago) was one where a false positive was
determined to be the likely case so extra measures were taken. His story likely has much more to it…information that Rossell either doesn’t share or doesn’t have the information to share as he was not a veterinarian or physician with access to this data.