Saving lives, causing controversy

Okay, well this topic is bound to be a hot debate item. How do you feel about animals being used to further life-saving research?

My own opinion is that I feel it is necessary and I sanction such study. That doesn't mean, however, that I would want to see any animal suffer needlessly or cruelly.

Saving lives, causing controversy
Researchers study thousands of animals at UI

By Kristen Schorsch
Iowa City Press-Citizen

Tucked in labs and buildings around campus, University of Iowa researchers are hunting for cures and treatments for deadly diseases, mental illnesses and other ailments hindering peoples' lives.

Aiding the research is $91.3 million in private and federal funds and more than 40,000 animals, mainly mice, but also pigs and frogs.

"We wouldn't know nearly as much as we know now" without animals, said George Weiner, director of the UI Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. "We're just on the front cusp of making a big difference in medicine."

However, animal activists say the use of these animals is unethical and wrong. Last fall, a group called the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for a break-in at Seashore Hall and Spence Laboratories in which scores of computers were damaged and more than 300 animals were removed. Damage estimates totaled about $450,000.

"I think there's a place for some (animal research), but again we're living in a society with finite resources and we have a lot of disease, a lot of suffering going on," said Troy Seidle, director of science policy for the Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA.

"The question is, what is the fundamental way to look at the issue?" Seidle said.

The new terrorists?

The sensitive topic has reached new controversial heights nationwide. Violence from animal rights extremists prompted the FBI in May to name them as one of today's most serious domestic terrorism threats.

In the wake of the attack at UI, which is still being investigated, officials formed a committee to review security campuswide. Members meet about once a month.

"(The events), I think, have put us in a position where we have to step back and say how are we doing this, how should we be doing this," Bill Decker, UI senior associate vice president for research, said about security.

On the floor of Josh Rodefer's Seashore Hall office is a reminder of the break-in. Eroded tile shows the effects of hydrochloric acid that activists spilled on a pile of Rodefer's work and a picture of his son.

"I was teaching fall semester and my sections suddenly had nowhere to meet," said Rodefer, a research scientist.

Despite the attack, his work continues. Using up to 50 rats at a time in two-month-long studies, Rodefer is mimicking in rats the cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia, a mental disorder that afflicts some two million Americans 18 and older. Deficits include everyday activities, such as not being able to remember a to-do list or keeping a job.

"We're treating the symptoms so that people can continue to function on a day-to-day basis and live their lives as you and I would like to live our lives," Rodefer said.

Rodefer said that, hopefully, his research will lead to identifying medications to treat the deficits.

Research by the books

Animal research at UI is highly regulated, guided by federal and internal standards for the thousands of animals involved in faculty and staff experiments. About 40,000 mice as well as about 2,000 other animals were used for research in the year that ended Sept. 30, 2004, records show.

Also used in research that same year were 523 rabbits, 279 pigs and two small monkeys, according to UI's annual report required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"In the last decade, the emphasis has been on ethics," said David Wynes, UI associate vice president for research. "Our program is really looking at the health and welfare of animals used in research."

Many of the animals are bought from companies, mainly international, that bred them specifically for research, said UI veterinarian Paul Cooper. Pigs and sheep are bought from local farms. UI's animals are housed in facilities at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and on the Oakdale campus, Cooper said.

That includes animals in the transgenic mice lab, where mice are bred and sent to researchers at UI and worldwide, said Jim Hynes, the facility's supervisor.

Animals and animal supplies cost about $2.8 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, said Twila Fisher Reighley, UI assistant vice president for research and director of the Division of Sponsored Programs.

Before researchers are allowed to use animals in their work, they must take an online training course and submit a proposal for research. That includes giving evidence that their research is not redundant. They also must provide alternatives to using animals and prove that animals are needed, said UI professor emeritus Richard Sjolund, who is chairman of the UI Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Many times, computer models just won't do, he said.

"The reality is living systems are so complex that alternatives are not that frequent," Sjolund said.

And computers don't have emotions, said Hugh Price, president of the Tennessee-based American Association for Laboratory Animal Science. Machines don't have the same reactions as a living organism, he said.

"If you want to continue seeing advances in medical sciences and the treatment of disease, you have to use animals," Price said.

UI's 15-member committee is in charge of overseeing anyone who wants to use live vertebrate animals, or those with a backbone. Members enforce rules such as reducing pain in the animals as much as possible, using anesthetics and euthanizing animals once research is complete.

In 2004, the committee reviewed an average of 286 applications from researchers to use animals in their research, Cooper said.

Known as the three R's -- reduction, replacement, refinement -- the committee strives to spare animals when necessary, Sjolund said. That includes using more mice, which have a life span of about two years, and fewer dogs and cats. Twenty-five years ago, researchers each year used about 2,000 dogs, about 1,000 cats and about 1,000 mice, Cooper said. Last year, UI used about 40,000 mice, two dogs and 26 cats, records show.

"Where we used to use mice, now we use flasks," Sjolund said.

Common sense can lead to cures, too

Despite researchers' ideas about the importance of animals to further science, one animal rights advocate said the cause and cures for human diseases can be found by monitoring people's lifestyles and habits.

Why should researchers continue using animals to determine that tobacco leads to lung cancer when autopsies and people getting sick has led to the same conclusion? That's a question posed by Elliott Katz, a veterinarian and president and founder of In Defense of Animals, a California-based animal advocacy group with about 85,000 members nationwide.

People are more likely to believe information that is published, which is proven by animal research, he said. As a veterinarian, when Katz wanted to know what was wrong with a horse, he experimented on horses, not other animals, he said.

"Universities are using biomedical research as a means to bring in federal dollars," Katz said. "It has nothing to do with science or anything.

"The biomedical community and our federal government has not put enough energy into funding of research and testing technologies that don't involve the harming and killing of animals."

UI received $83.3 million in federal dollars for research involving an animal in the fiscal year that ended June 30, Reighley said.

Future of animal research

Without the use of animals, researchers say science would not be nearly as advanced.

Take Tim Ratliff, a UI professor who is looking to cure prostate cancer. So far, clinical trials are under way, meaning researchers are running tests on people.

"We use animals to allow us to get there," Ratliff said. "It would be impossible if researchers wanted people to step up and take the chance with an untested treatment. That's not realistic."

Contrary to what animal rights activists say, researchers treat their animals humanely, said UI's Rodefer. If researchers didn't, their animals would be stressed and not cooperate, he said.

Researchers equate animals with humans, Price said.

"Those of us in research believe animals have a right to be treated humanely," Price said. "Their lives have to be given for a purpose. We -- all in this industry -- work under those laws. We don't take the sacrifice of an animal lightly."

But critics remain concerned.

"Now that genetic engineering is really popular, the question is now what do each of the genes do and how do they interact?" said Seidle of PETA. "Each one of those is another animal experiment.

"I see (animal research) increasing just because we're in a society where there's just so much drive to increase basic knowledge and so much competition between countries just for scientific premise. Everything from biological weapons to basic medical knowledge."

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By the numbers

• Number of animals used in University of Iowa research for the year that ended Sept. 30, 2004:
Dogs 2
Cats 26
Guinea pigs 35
Hamsters 100
Rabbits 523
Small monkeys 2
Sheep 93
Pigs 279
Chickens 31
Pigeons 69
Frogs 513
Ferrets 361
Source: UI Annual Report of Research Facility
• Report does not include mice, rats
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