[baarn] Experiments on Monkeys at UCSF

August 30, 2004

Thank you for this god-awful listing, Michelle.

For those writing letters of protest, here're several quotations I've

collected over the years for ammo:

" Vivisection is the blackest of all the black crimes that man is at

present commiting against God and His fair creation. It ill becomes us

to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate,

if we in turn will not practise elementary compassion towards our fellow

creatures. "

-- Mohandas Ghandi (1869-1948)

" Whoever doesn't hesitate to vivisect will hardly hesitate to lie about it. "

--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

" Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it

does so at the expense of human character. "

--Shaw again

That said, a major weakness to attack UCSF on, I think, is the fact that

the Animal Care and Use Committee there (and at other UC schools) is

exempt from public scrutiny. These meetings are open to the public in

Florida by law, reportedly, but not here in California. Since these are

taxpayer-supported institutions, it seems that we have a right (and

duty) to be there, to at least bear witness. Anybody considered a

lawsuit to bring these bodies into the democratic process?

Cheers,

Eric Mills, coordinator

ACTION FOR ANIMALS

Michelle Tsai wrote:

> *THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENTS ON NON-HUMAN PRIMATES (FUNDED BY YOUR TAX

> DOLLARS) WERE STILL BEING CONDUCTED AT UCSF BY VARIOUS " RESEARCHERS "

> AS OF THE YEAR 2003:*

>

> _Project #10000094_ *Title: *Functional Organization of the Central

> Auditory and Somatosensory Systems *(10 owl monkeys, 10 marmoset

> monkeys, 120 mice and 586 rats used.) * *Purpose: *To study learning

> disabilities, schizophrenia, depression, repetitive strain injury,

> stroke injury, etc. *Procedures: *The monkeys are restrained around

> the neck and waste in a chair that prevents their hands from reaching

> their heads. They are restrained up to five hours each day, five days

> per week. They undergo several surgeries to implant electrodes to

> record brain activity. Fluid and food restriction/reward is used to

> make them perform repetitive tasks beyond the point of injury. The

> researchers also put microphone-headphones on the monkeys to see how

> they would react to a distorted play-back of their own vocalizations.

>

> _Project #96012538_ *Title: *Functional Organization of the Auditory

> Forebrain *(18 squirrel monkeys used.)* *Purpose:* To study brain

> circuits in the auditory forebrain and other brain areas.

> *Procedures:* The monkeys are made to lose their hearing in various

> ways. They are bombarded with hours of painful loud noise to cause

> partial to serious deafness. The monkeys undergo open-skull brain

> recordings that last continuously for days on end until they are

> killed. (Please visit http://www.ippl.org/deafen.html for more

> information.)

>

> _Project #89005007_ *Title: *Structural Basis of Amblyopia and

> Strabismus *(15 squirrel monkeys, 5 cats and 30 rats used.)*

> *Purpose:* To study lazy eye and imbalance of eye muscles.

> *Procedures: *One eyelid is sutured shut soon after birth. Eye muscles

> are severed. Animals are restrained and paralyzed in brain-mapping

> experiments that last 24 hours a day for up to five days non-stop.

>

> _Project #01018525_ *Title:* Gene Transfer Approach in Experimental

> Model of Parkinson’s Disease in Monkeys *(30 rhesus monkeys used*.*)*

> *Purpose:* To " compare vector mediated gene delivery to the dopamine

> perikarya in the substantia nigra versus to the dopamine terminals in

> the striatum. " *Procedures:* To cause Parkinson-like symptoms, monkeys

> are injected with a neurotoxin to destroy their dopamine neurons.

> Their behavior is then tested by observing how much trouble they have

> using their arms to reach for rewards from a covered plate that has a

> right opening and a left opening.

>

> _Project #01019759_ *Title:* Deep Brain Stimulation and Motor Cortical

> Function in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease *(8 rhesus monkeys

> used*.*)* *Purpose: *To " determine the relationship between neuronal

> activity in the cortex and symptom relief in response to Deep Brain

> Stimulation for each of the four motor areas. " Also, to determine if

> " different symptoms have different neuroanatomic or physiologic

> substrates in the cortex. " *Procedures:* Two capture poles are used to

> force the monkeys from the cage to the restraint chair. Food

> restriction/reward is used to make the monkey grasp a joystick to

> control a visible cursor on a computer monitor. The monkey is made to

> use this cursor to capture a succession of visual targets on the

> screen. Successful capture will be rewarded with a drop of food

> through a tube. On weekdays, the monkeys will receive food only during

> and immediately following a behavioral session. Only on weekends do

> the monkeys have free access to food. Holes are made in their skulls

> to insert recording chambers, connectors and bolts. Wires are inserted

> to wind under the skin all the way from their head to the 12 muscles

> of their right or left arm. They will undergo single-cell brain

> recording sessions for one year. During the sessions, the monkey’s

> head is locked in place with the head bolt and the non-working arm

> restrained while the monkey is made to perform the computer task

> continuously for up to four hours each weekday. After collecting

> pre-lesion data, the monkeys will be injected with a neurotoxin to

> cause Parkinson-like symptoms, and more recordings will be taken. Then

> deep brain stimulations will be administered to see if the monkeys

> will improve.

>

> _Project #10000538_. *Title:* Morphophysiology of Thalamic

> Nociceptive (Pain-sensing) Neurons *(4 macaque monkeys and 5 rats

> used.)* *Purpose:* To " study the somatosensory thalamus of the monkey

> and how thalamic neural circuitry is changed following partial

> deafferentation, such as occurs with spinal cord injury. "

> *Procedures:* Experimenters surgically damage parts of the monkeys'

> spinal cord to see what happens to their brains as a result.

>

> _Project #02021902_. *Title:* Neural Correlates of Sensorimotor

> Adaptation in Macaque Cortex (UC-wide program, other private and

> department funds used.) *(4 macaque monkeys used.)* *Purpose:* To " map

> out the flow of information from vision to the act of reaching in the

> primate cortex, and to obtain a unique view of the network dynamics

> underlying the planning and control of reaching. " *Procedures:* The

> monkeys are restricted from food or liquid and then made to reach to

> visual targets in a Virtual Reality environment for liquid or

> semi-solid food rewards administered through a tube. A bolt, used to

> immobilize the head during single-brain-cell electrical recordings, is

> implanted onto the skull. If an implant does not remain secure due to

> bone erosion, more bolts are placed and dental acrylic applied. A

> recording chamber is also implanted. Wires are inserted to wind under

> the skin from the head down to the muscles of the arms to record

> muscle activity. Experiments last up to five hours a day, four days a

> week, for three or more years. As the activity of single brain cells

> are recorded one at a time, electrodes are poked through various sites

> of the brain numerous times while the monkeys are awake. Various sites

> of the brain are also shocked to see how the monkeys would respond.

>

> _Project #00018211._ *Title:* Basal Ganglia Physiology *(3 rhesus

> monkeys used.)* *Purpose:* " To determine the roles of the basal

> ganglia in the development of dystonia, a condition in which muscles

> are overactive, producing abnormal postures and/or twisting, writhing

> movements. " *Procedures:* The monkeys are made to develop hand

> dystonia by a repetitive motion task. They are forced from the cage to

> the restraint chair using two capture poles. Two recording chambers

> and three head fixation bolts are surgically screwed to the skull.

> Wires are inserted to wind under the skin from the head to the muscles

> of the left and right arm. Recording sessions last up to 4 hours every

> weekday for 18 months. The monkey are forced to repetitively open and

> close their hands to receive a semi-solid food reward through a tube

> by squeezing a computer-controlled hand grip. They will also be timed

> on a fruit-picking task. After 12-25 weeks of this, with 200-400

> trials per day, the monkeys will develop hand dystonia characterized

> by posturing of the hand, and reduced ability to perform motor tasks.

> The experimenters then surgically destroy a part of the monkeys'

> brains (their basal ganglia) to see if the monkeys would improve.

>

> LASTLY, THE INFAMOUS EXPERIMENT OF STEPHEN LISBERGER CONTINUES TO THIS

> DAY:

>

> _Project #01018790_ *Title: *Neural Control of Eye Movement; Cortical

> Plasticity System *(14 rhesus monkeys used.)* *Purpose:* To " discover

> the mechanisms of basic brain functions such as learning, memory, and

> the generation of motor activity " of the eye.

>

> The following material is from an IDA website:

>

> http://www.vivisectioninfo.org/ucsf/lisbergerindex.html

>

> On his web site <http://keck.ucsf.edu/%7Esgl/>,

> http://keck.ucsf.edu/~sgl/ <http://keck.ucsf.edu/%7Esgl/>, UCSF animal

> researcher Stephen Lisberger boasts of " the good life " - lunchtime

> workouts at the local gym, surfing the web to keep up with the stock

> market and his favorite sports teams, dining at chic Bay Area

> restaurants, and spending weekend afternoons at wine-tastings and

> softball games.

>

> */If only " his " monkeys were so lucky./*

>

> Chained on leashes inside their cages, " his " monkeys sit totally

> alone, metal coils in their eyes, bolts, metal plates, steel cylinders

> and electrodes drilled and cemented in their skulls. Eyeglasses that

> distort their vision are cemented to their faces for up to 12 weeks at

> a time. They are denied free access to fluids in order to keep them

> thirsty and motivate them to " perform " for juice rewards.

>

> *Prolonged Suffering & Death*

>

> Clinical records from Lisberger's lab reveal a gruesome cycle of

> sedations, invasive surgical procedures, infections, and medical

> interventions.Swollen eyes, seeping pus, bleeding surgical wounds,

> infected brains and depressed behavior are the norm.

>

> To prepare monkeys for his experiments, Lisberger starts by slicing

> their eyes open with scalpels so that wire coils can be placed inside.

>

> Screws are then drilled into their skulls, and a metal plate is placed

> under the scalp. Bolts that protrude from the plate through the scalp

> will later be used to screw monkeys by the head into restraining chairs.

>

> Next, Lisberger drills holes into the monkeys' skulls and inserts

> stainless steel recording cylinders. Electrodes are driven through the

> cylinders directly into their brains.

>

> After a series of surgical procedures, a neurosurgeon drills into the

> skull, exposes the brain and removes a part of it with suction. After

> this, the monkeys cannot sit or stand for several days, and must be

> handfed food and drink.

>

> Some of these surgical procedures are carried out many times, as bone

> erodes around the various bolts and implants and the eye coils cause

> such irritation that they must be removed and placed in the other eye.

> In addition, scar tissue must be peeled from the lining of the brain

> " dozens of times " for each monkey.

>

> In experiments Lisberger calls " running the monkeys, " the primates are

> strapped into restraining chairs, heads bolted into place so they are

> unable to move, and placed inside a plastic box. The chair is placed

> on a turntable that rotates them periodically.

>

> The monkeys are forced to sit in these chairs for up to 8 hours a day,

> while electrodes implanted in their brains record neurological

> activity as they move their eyes in a certain pattern for juice

> rewards. If a monkey doesn't perform, he or she is denied fluids

> entirely until the next day when the animal is placed on the

> experiment again.

>

> For some of these unfortunate animals, the daily horror can last three

> years or longer.

>

> *Science from the Dark Ages*

>

> Lisberger has been conducting virtually the same experiments for over

> 21 years. In that time, tremendous progress in research technology has

> rendered Lisberger's gruesome and archaic methods obsolete. Functional

> scanning technology, for example, now provides scientists to study the

> brain non-invasively, and new methods now allow scientists to record

> cellular brain activity in real human patients, making monkey data

> unnecessary and irrelevant. Of one such technology, fast MRI, a brain

> researcher from the University of Pittsburgh told the New York Times,

> " We have, in a single afternoon, been able to replicate in humans what

> took 20 years to do in nonhuman primates.'

>

> *Gruesome Experiments Violate Federal Law*

>

> In recent years, Lisberger has run afoul of federal law and has been

> found by the USDA to: a) not be following the experimental procedure

> approved by UCSF’s animal research oversight committee; b) not

> searching for alternatives to his archaic training techniques using

> water deprivation; c) not giving monkeys enough fluids; d) not

> ensuring that monkeys are getting enough food; e) not providing

> monkeys with adequate veterinary care; and e) using sick animals in

> experiments.

>

> In addition the Animal Welfare Act violations, Lisberger’s experiments

> violate other federal guidelines including those calling for social

> housing of primates (Lisberger keeps his monkeys housed alone) and

> against multiple surgical procedures (Lisberger subjects the monkeys

> to as many as nine survival brain surgeries.)

>

> Despite all of these problems, UCSF’s Committee on Animal Research

> continues to rubberstamp Lisberger’s experiments, making only slight

> modifications to his water deprivation procedures following the USDA

> findings. Appallingly, even those modifications continue to violate

> the Animal Welfare Act, according to the most recent USDA inspection

> report dated January 2002.

>

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August 30, 2004

Michele (Part the Second) -

I assume everyone interested in this issue is aware of the frequent

actions coordinated by Vigil for Animals at UCSF? If not, call Bob

O'Brien at 415/751-3756. He could really use your help/ideas/bodies.

And here's an idea: Why not run examples of the different experiments as

a series of paid advertisements in the local press? (The S.F.

Independent and Examiner would be far cheaper than the Chronicle. A

full-page ad in the Bay Guardian runs about $2200, I think.) The general

public is completely unaware of what goes on in the animal labs, and

information is a dangerous weapon. Won't be cheap, but worth doing, I

think. I'd donate a couple hundred bucks toward this project, but I

don't have the time to orchestrate. Anyone else? IDA? ALDF? A

jointly-funded effort?

Eric Mills