Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
AT: “Extending Rights to Apes Kills AIDS Research”
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- AT: “Extending Rights to Apes Kills AIDS Research”
AT: “Extending Rights to Apes Kills AIDS Research”CHIMPS BAD FOR AIDS RESEARCH—THEY DON’T REACT TO THE VIRUS THE SAME WAY AS HUMANS Wendy Thatcher, Veterinarian, visited site on July 24, 2005, Chimpanzees: Test results that Don’t Apply to Humans, http://www.pcrm.org/resch/anexp/chimps.html Experimenters have been infecting chimps with the HIV virus since 1984. None have become clinically ill, in spite of being infected with several different strains of the virus, having their immune systems altered with drugs, having treatments designed to specifically destroy the cells which are thought to be most active in protecting the body from HIV infection, and being co-infected with other viruses which were presumed to help HIV gain a foothold. Experimenters have even injected human HIV-infected brain tissue directly into chimpanzee brains, but to no avail.5 HIV does not reproduce well in the infected chimp. This is apparently due to the higher baseline numbers5 and greater proliferative response6 of chimp T8 lymphocytes, as well as the lower ratio of T4 to T8 cells,7 when compared to human blood cells. T4 cells are central actors in most immune responses, including both cell- and antibody-mediated defenses. T4 cells are preferentially attacked by HIV in infected human patients.8 T8 cells are thought to suppress the replication of T4 cells.5 T-lymphocytes play a crucial role in defending the body against disease organisms, through the cell-mediated immune response. While some individual chimps may demonstrate a reduction of T4 lymphocytes after HIV infection,9 they do not show the dramatic depletion characteristic of the human infection.10 This depletion may have an autoimmune cause in humans, since blood from HIV patients contains T-lymphocytes which kill uninfected T4 lymphocytes in culture. These killer cells are not found in HIV-infected chimps.11 The antibody response to HIV is also more powerful in chimps. B-lymphocytes in the HIV-infected chimp produce greater amounts of antibodies than in most human patients, destroying infected cells early in the course of disease. This antibody-mediated cell-killing ability is not found in HIV-infected humans at any stage of illness.6 Also, humans show a drop in antibodies just before becoming clinically ill—this drop has not been seen in chimps.12 Perhaps due to the chimp’s immune system, HIV is found only in their blood cells, with very few exceptions,5 whereas in humans, it is found free in the blood plasma. The differences in the chimpanzee and the human immune system are dramatic, and highlight the impracticality of using these animals as a model for human AIDS. Also, above and beyond the intrinsic cellular differences, some authors have noted that the stresses associated with captivity can alter enzyme levels, thus invalidating experimental data.13 USE OF ANIMALS HAS BEEN USELESS IN AIDS RESEARCH Christopher Anderegg et al, Medical Research Modernization Committee, Europeans for Medical Progress, 2002, A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation, http://www.mrmcmed.org/critcv.html Despite extensive use, animal models have not contributed significantly to AIDS research. While monkeys, rabbits, and mice born with severe combined immunodeficiency can be infected with HIV, none develops the human AIDS syndrome.39 Of over 100 chimpanzees infected with HIV over a ten year period, only a few have become sick.40 Even AIDS researchers acknowledge that chimpanzees, as members of an endangered species who rarely develop an AIDS-like syndrome, are unlikely to prove useful as animal models for understanding the mechanism of infection or means of treatment.41 Other virus-induced immunodeficiency syndromes in non-human animals have been touted as valuable models of AIDS, but they differ markedly from AIDS in viral structure, disease symptoms, and disease progression.42 Animal researcher Michael Wyand, discussing anti-AIDS therapy, has acknowledged: “Candidate antivirals have been screened using in vitro systems and those with acceptable safety profiles have gone directly into humans with little supportive efficacy data in any in vivo [animal] system. The reasons for this are complex but certainly include . . . the persistent view held by many that there is no predictive animal model for HIV infection in humans.”43 AIDS researcher Margaret Johnston has concurred, "HIV/AIDS [animal] models have not yielded a clear correlate of immunity nor given consistent results on the potential efficacy of various vaccine approaches."44
Charles Siebert, Freelance Writer and Director, July 24, 2005, New York Times Magazine, p. 62 Many scientists now say that the use of the DNA database and human tissue samples will do away with the need for research on chimps or any other animal, the results of which, they argue, are often misleading and inapplicable to humans. The recently appointed scientific director of Europeans for Medical Progress, Jarrod Bailey, is now leading a campaign to end research on animals, not on the basis of animal rights, but rather on the grounds that such methods are by and large archaic and have prevented scientists from making the best use of new technologies. “We are a very technological species,” Carole Noon said to me at Save the Chimps in Alamogordo. “We can come up with something better. Something less cruel.” TURN - USING CHIMPANZEES FOR AIDS RESEARCH IS SLAVERY Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 13 Some readers may shift uncomfortably at comparisons between human and nonhuman slavery. I began Rattling the Cage by recalling the brutish life and lingering death of Jerom, a chimpanzee whom biomedical researchers imprisoned for life inside a small, dim, often chilly cell that lay within a large windowless grey concrete box at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Without mercy, and from the time he was a baby, they repeatedly infected Jerom with HIV viruses. After a hellish decade, he died. In a February 2000 speech in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe said, “Clearly, Jerom was enslaved.”
Wendy Thatcher, Veterinarian, visited site on July 24, 2005, Chimpanzees: Test results that Don’t Apply to Humans, http://www.pcrm.org/resch/anexp/chimps.html There are many physiologic and anatomical differences between chimpanzees and humans. These differences make them a poor “model” for humans. Data obtained on chimpanzees cannot be extrapolated safely to the human situation Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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