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06-07-2004, 09:17 AM | #1 |
YT 6000 Club Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 6,238
| [News] Animal Research Benefits Dogs Too Good story, if your Yorkie ever needs tracheal collapse surgery, you can thank animal research! Itsy Bitsy is a neat name for a Yorkie! --- I'm not sure what I expected to talk about, over lunch, with America's most-honored, nearly 96-year-old physician, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. Maybe what it felt like to perform the first dozen heart transplants in the United States? The excitement of developing the roller pump as a mere med student, which, 20 years later, helped make possible the first successful open-heart surgery? The satisfaction of performing the first successful coronary bypass? Or developing the first M.A.S.H. units way back in the '40s? I did not think one of our topics would be his beloved Yorkshire terrier, Itsy Bitsy DeBakey, and the fact that, thanks to animal research, a tracheal operation and a hysterectomy bought the little fur ball six more years of romping in the dandelions. But the fact that animal research helps save both human beings AND other Itsy Bitsies is too often overlooked, DeBakey said. And that fact was pressing on the sharp mind of this decorated medical statesman when we met a week ago in Washington, D.C. With passion, he spoke about what he sees as the costly and troubling toll taken on research and on the lives and families of researchers by the most radical animal activists who target them. "They're really terrorists in this regard," DeBakey said. And the very day I arrived back in Seattle, the FBI's domestic terrorism squad had arrested another animal activist right here at home. Joshua Harper was one of seven people arrested across the country last week on charges including torching researchers' cars, vandalizing homes and making threats against families. Much to Harper's satisfaction, no doubt, such tactics have had an enormous effect on research according to the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research. Money for life-saving research goes, instead, to security systems and crime prevention. In England, animal research virtually has been shut down. But, when I asked two local leaders in the field about the pressure exerted by animal activists, they said the effect has not been all bad, after all. "I jump on both sides of this issue," Mel Dennis told me. He's the chairman of the Department of Comparative Medicine at the University of Washington. He agrees with DeBakey "100 percent" that there comes a point when a surgeon-in-training must lay hands on a live, anesthetized animal. "And I worry about the competence of people who may go out into the practice of veterinary medicine who have not had the experience of working on live animals," he said. In vet schools today, a small but vocal number of veterinary students is refusing to work on live animals. Some won't work on animal cadavers. And some will not perform euthanasia even when it is the only humane response to an injured animal's suffering. Still, partly under pressure from animal activists, some exciting alternatives, such as computer programs and plastic models, have been developed that make learning far better now than when he was in vet school, Dennis said. And sometimes those "inanimate trainers" are better than live animals because they allow students to repeat things over and over until they get it right. Charlie Powell, public information officer for Washington State University's college of veterinary medicine, and a 30-year animal sciences veteran, agrees. He says his school tries to meet the "philosophical needs" of animal rights activists who are also veterinary students. And that's OK with him so long as it doesn't go too far. Powell is happy that, thanks to models, fewer and fewer live, anesthetized animals must go under the knife in the cause of human and animal health. But, while activists would like to stop all animals from going to a teaching facility like WSU, the truth is that 70,000 unwanted and "unplaced" dogs and cats are born in the United States every single day. Animals that will die and be dumped into landfills, he said. About 100 of those animals come to WSU each year, alive. These are animals that would be destroyed anyway, Powell said. Euthanasia is performed and then they are embalmed and used to teach veterinary students how to save the lives of other animals. Even animals like Itsy Bitsy DeBakey. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynte...paynter07.html |
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06-07-2004, 10:10 AM | #2 |
YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Florida
Posts: 852
| I really liked this story! I have always had a balanced approach to animal rights and get very fed up with the activist/terrorist types and much of PETA's propaganda. I don't hunt, for instance, but I am not anti-hunting when someone practices lawful, safe and careful hunting, having practiced shooting at a target so they are not like to just maim animals. Wildlife MUST be managed if we are to have healthy herds. Deer overran Connecticut so badly, that they were eating everyone's foundation plantings and many, many starved to death. Have you ever seen a starving deer? I have, and it's not pretty. I would much rather see these activists invest time and money in promoting neutering of animals. But if people simply won't or can't afford to have their pet neutered, then the shelters will be filled to over-capacity. WHY have these animals go to "waste" indeed, when they can help man and their fellow animals live longer and better lives. I'm an organ donor. And I would donate my beloved Higgins body if it meant some other little Yorkie could live. And why can't we do stem cell research with the "waste" of aborted fetuses? I know I'm opening a can of worms here, but suffering and death are a part of life and we MUST deal with these issues to the benefit of all as best we can. And to not euthanize animals when they are clearly in terrible pain? It is something that are going to have to carefully consider for ourselves, too, you know. Hooray for Itsy Bitsy DeBakey and her wonderful "dad." Hugs, Mary Ellen |
06-07-2004, 12:05 PM | #3 |
YT 6000 Club Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 6,238
| Yes, I am totally anti-PETA. Some of their antics are just as bad as terrorism (much like some extreme anti-abortion activists). I'm worried about the next generation of vets if they won't perform euthanasia and won't even perform on animal cadavers. How are they supposed to be a vet? But, yes, good for Itsy Bitsy, another 6 years of life for a Yorkie is precious. |
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