Anti-Science @ the NIH

Everyone likes science except when they don't. Bush had objections to stem cell research. Now the Obama Administration seems to be about to close off a different avenue of research. From the New York Times:

The National Institutes of Health on Thursday suspended all new grants for biomedical and behavioral research on chimpanzees and accepted the first uniform criteria for assessing the necessity of such research. Those guidelines require that the research be necessary for human health, and that there be no other way to accomplish it.

In making the announcement, Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the N.I.H., said that chimps, as the closest human relatives, deserve "special consideration and respect" and that the agency was accepting the recommendations released earlier in the day by an expert committee of the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that most research on chimpanzees was unnecessary.

This may be the right policy or not, but it is surly a case of the triumph of politics over science. Concern for chimpanzees as our closest relatives is not a scientific principle. Dr. Francis Collins may think that most chimpanzee research is unnecessary, but the scientist applying for grants most likely have scientific reasons for believing otherwise.

I think this policy may be another example of a bridge too far. A case can be made for ending biomedical research on chimpanzees. These animals are our closest relatives. Look at a chimpanzee and you are looking at a very distant cousin. Somewhere in the dim past, there was two-legged animal who was the pater familias of both of you. Of course, the same is true of you and pretty much any other living organism, from house cats to house plants. How close a relative does an animal have to be to qualify for special consideration and respect?

I do not know how valuable biomedical research on chimpanzees might be, but I understand that it is very expensive. They don't breed like rabbits and they eat a lot more. Maybe this is a good place to draw the line and say we won't use chimps for biomedical research unless we really think we need to, which is what the NIH seems to be saying.

Behavioral research is another barrel of apes. Experiments employing chimpanzees in problem solving contexts have been vital to our understanding of human and other primate behavior. I have posted on this recently. Here is what the NIH proposes:

For behavioral and genomic experiments, the report recommended that the research should be done on chimps only if the animals are cooperative, and in a way that minimizes pain and distress. It also said that the studies should "provide otherwise unattainable insight into comparative genomics, normal and abnormal behavior, mental health, emotion or cognition."

The report also recommended that chimpanzees be housed in conditions that are behaviorally, socially and physically appropriate. All United States primate research centers are already accredited by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, and Dr. Kahn said that this accreditation meets the committee's recommendation.

Now I am all for minimizing pain and distress for chimpanzees under human supervision, and I might be in favor of housing them in "conditions that are behaviorally, socially and physically appropriate" if, and this is a big if, those terms mean something. But what could it possible mean to say that "research should be done on chimps only if the animals are cooperative"? Do the chimps have to sign a waiver?

This is a nutty standard. Experiments with primates are useful only if the context can be tightly controlled by the researchers. Chimpanzee behavioral research has been vital precisely because the chimp is our closest relative. Determining how much they are like us and how much they are not tells us a lot about what kind of creatures we are. This kind of research is not aimed at human health, it is aimed at understanding. The NIH standard threatens to close off one of the most basic avenues of research into human nature.

If you thought that Bush's stem cell policy was anti-science, you would be right. It was humanitarian. The NIH policy is no less anti-science, without any pretense of being humanitarian. It subordinates science to political concerns and technological agendas. It has no time for the human desire to know.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

Oh brother. Humanitarian? Please.

At the stem cell scale the organism in question is about as human as an amoeba. It's only function is to make copies of itself. I don't see how you think it's okay to talk about evolution on the one hand, then turn around and deny it on the other. It makes it difficult to take your — otherwise fairly convincing — argument seriously.

[Bill Fleming]

I just had a nice evening with my good friend/writer/novelist/biologist Dan O'Brien and we discussed several things related to your recent posts here, KB. Among them the sad passing of Christopher Hitchens, and the scientific method of species classification. Dan confirmed what most biologists understand which is that speciation is a somewhat arbitrary exercise (he used the word "fuzzy"), and that we "humans" perhaps do ourselves a distinct disservice when we attempt to distance ourselves from the "animals."

It's not much of a stretch to imagine ourselves one day being "classified" by future generations as being "almost sentient." In that context I think it behooves us to be somewhat more introspective and compassionate in regard to how we would like the next iteration of conscious life forms to consider our "species" when contemplating scientific experimentation, if for no other reason than our own self-interest.

[duggersd]

If that organism in question only replicates itself, we would never see a human form. We would only see a whole bunch of single cell organisms. Interestingly, the adult stem cell research has had positive results unlike embryonic stem cell.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell Since there is a question among reasonable people as to when life begins, why use the embryonic?

[Bill Fleming]

Scientists have now developed a method of extracting stem cells from embryos without destroying the embryo. At the stem cell scale its only function is to make copies of itself. The reason to use one's own tissue therapeutically is to make sure one's own body doesn't reject the "foreign" tissue.

[larry kurtz]

Chimpanzees are patriarchal, bonobos, matriarchal. Heard on public radio:

http://ttbook.org/book/going-ape

[Jimi]

Larry is the "Missing Link"

[Bill Fleming]

Kind of a tangent, but what about this deal: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/feds-issue-warning-to-unconventional-sperm-donor/article_5751b32c-2a88-11e1-89e1-0019bb2963f4.html

[larry kurtz]

Inter-species relationships went out with Bianca and Mick Jagger, Bill. Get a grip.

[larry kurtz]

get a grip...please.

[larry kurtz]

In that consenting adults don't always make choices inscribed in law, right? ie. we make stuff up as we go along...it's the beauty of liberal democracy.

[Donald Pay]

The NIH guidelines are the result of a consideration of ethical issues of nonhuman primate research undertaken by the scientific community. These appear to be reasonable, and were recommended by the scientific community. I don't see how that could be considered "anti-science."

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: there was no scientific reason for cutting chimpanzee research. It was done for moral reasons. Is that anti-science? It sure would have been if it had been a Republican Administration! As for reasonable standards, that may true of the guidelines for biomedical research. As for behavioral research, you really think it reasonable to require that chimpanzees cooperate?

[Ken Blanchard]

Larry: I am not sure what the terms "patriarchal and matriarchal" mean when applied to the two species. Males are dominant in chimpanzee groups, to be sure. Among bonobos, female coalitions prevent male dominance but do not enforce female dominance.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: I won't take time out to correct your quaint biology. I will only point out that the stem cell controversy concerned embryos, not cells. The Bush Administration wanted to foreclose the creations of embryos for the purpose of harvesting cells. The policy was measured, allowing federal funding for existing stem cell lines but not for new lines. As it seems to have turned out, the promise of embryonic stem cells was exaggerated.

At any rate, the motives of the Administration were humanitarian because they believed that the research they opposed represented a threat to human dignity. Did that make Bush's policy "anti-science"? No, and I don't really think the NIH guidelines on chimpanzee research are "anti-science". I just like to see policies judged by the same standard regardless of which party initiates the policy.

[Donald Pay]

Your assumption is that science does not factor in morality. Wrong. The Bush Administration tried to impose its anti-science morality onto science from the top down. and against the advise of scientific ethicistss. This particular decision involved a scientific body suggesting ethical standards for experiments on chimpanzees, which were subsequently adopted by a governmental body to apply to government funded research.

[Bill Fleming]

There are therapies for MS, spinal cord injuries and diabetes all ready to go based on embryonic stem cell research. Many of the projects are being pulled for lack of funding. Saying "the promise of embryonic stem cells was exaggerated" is an instance of self-fulfilling prophecy not unlike some clients I've had in the past who had us make advertising messages for them and then wouldn't come with the money to buy the media to run them. Then they tell people "oh, we tried doing ads, it doesn't work for us."

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2011/11/17/stem-cell-research-shelved/

[Dave]

"surly"

1. Sullenly ill-humored; gruff.
2. Threatening, as of weather conditions; ominous: surly clouds filled the sky.
3. Obsolete Arrogant; domineering.

"This may be the right policy or not, but it is surly a case of the triumph of politics over science."

[Dave]

"Surely"

1. With confidence; unhesitatingly.
2. Undoubtedly; certainly: You surely can't be serious.
3. Without fail: Slowly but surely spring returns.

...

[Ken Blanchard]

Dave: are you really fourteen years old?

Donald: I don't know what "factor in morality" means, but a moral concern for chimpanzees is neither more nor less "anti-science" than a moral concern for unborn human beings. The fact that a team of scientists endorsed a moral concern does not change this fact.