by Scott Lustig
For more than 30 years at the State University of New
York (SUNY) Health Science Center in Brooklyn, Professor Leonard
Rosenblum has been tearing baby monkeys away from their mothers to study
the effects of maternal deprivation on the development of panic and
other anxiety disorders in children, and to investigate the workings of
these disorders. But 50 years of research from clinical (human) studies
have already demonstrated that children raised in stressful conditions
and denied their mother's attention are more likely to develop anxiety
disorders in later life. Still, the monkey experiments continue at huge
public expense. Since 1990, Rosenblum has collected more than $2.5
million in taxpayers' money, mostly in the form of National Institutes
of Health grants.
In his most common experiments on monkey “models,”
Rosenblum forces macaque mothers and infants to live with unpredictable
access to food. At first, the mothers find food easily. Then, the food
is hidden and dispersed, making it hard to gather. The mother monkeys
must repeatedly endure this alternating access. Unable to feed their
infants regularly, the mothers suffer constant anxiety. The babies,
deprived of their mothers, become isolated and withdrawn. These normally
playful and curious infants sit hunched over, crying, shaking, and
clasping themselves. When the infants' mother returns, they cling to her
desperately, never knowing when she will unpredictably be forced away
from them again.
MENTAL MADNESS
Rosenblum's experiments began in the 1960s when it was thought that
monkey experimentation would shed light on the association between
maternal deprivation and psychological distress in humans, first
identified by researchers in the 1940s and ’50s. Since then, infant
monkeys have been subjected to numerous cruelties in the name of
"research," all varying in the nature of the deprivation and isolation
forced upon them. Infant monkeys have been given artificial "puppet"
mothers that are manipulated by researchers. In some experiments, the
puppets’ body temperatures are made ice cold, preventing the infants
from clinging to them. Other artificial "mothers" have been constructed
of sandpaper or other uncomfortable materials, and some mechanical
"mothers" even dislodged the clinging infants with hidden spikes,
catapults, compressed air, or vigorous shaking.
Researchers have also placed mother-deprived infants
with a series of foster mothers, preventing the infant monkeys from ever
experiencing any real bonding or maternal care. In one of the most
egregious of maternal deprivation experiments, during the early 1970s,
the University of Wisconsin's Harry Harlow confined infant monkeys alone
for weeks in metal isolation chambers. Harlow himself referred to these
chambers as "a modified form of sadism."
At Emory University in Georgia, Charles Nemeroff, Paul
Plotsky, Charlotte Ladd, and others are studying the mechanisms of
certain brain chemicals involved in producing the distress reaction to
maternal deprivation. These experiments have included subjecting monkeys
to the same model of
unpredictable food access "perfected" by Rosenblum. At the University of
Wisconsin, Gary Kraemer deprives female infant marmoset monkeys of
maternal attention in order to study the neurochemical reasons why girls
who are raised abusively and neglectfully tend to become abusive and
neglectful themselves as mothers.
CONFLICT AND INCONSISTENCY
Animal advocates and a growing number of scientists have criticized such
experiments. According to Stephen Suomi, Ph.D, a maternal deprivation
researcher at the National Institute for Child Health and Development,
"Most monkey data...have only verified principles that have already been
formulated from previous human data. To date the monkey data have added
little to knowledge of mother-infant interactions." Murry Cohen, M.D., a
psychiatrist and director of the Medical Research Modernization
Committee, says that "Rosenblum knows that the diagnostic symptoms of
panic disorder (e.g., palpitations, sensation of respiratory distress,
feeling of choking, chest pain...feeling of loss of control, fear of
dying, numbness) simply cannot be assessed in monkeys because these
symptoms must be subjectively experienced and reported by the patient
rather than observed by the clinician. The diagnosis, then, cannot, by
definition, be given to non-human primates."
Among Cohen's other arguments are that monkeys differ in
reactions to maternal deprivation depending on their species, making it
impossible to determine which species is the closest “model” for humans.
Moreover, Cohen argues that in addition to the stress they suffer from
deprivation experiments, the monkeys suffer further from the injections,
restraining jackets, and other devices and tests they are forced to
undergo. Laboratory stressors such as transport and handling, artificial
lighting, caging, noise levels, and chemical sterilizers also influence
the monkeys' behavior and physiology, distorting the research results.
The gamut of maternal deprivation experiments, including
Rosenblum’s, are fraught with conflicting and inconsistent data,
according to Martin Stephens, Ph.D., vice president for animal research
issues at The Humane Society of the United States. Stephens writes in a
critique that in the majority of experiments, the monkeys' responses
have contrasted widely with what the researchers had expected based upon
information from previous experiments. He stated, “Skepticism of animal
models should remain firm. First, experiments have had very little
clinical impact. Second, they siphon money away from acceptable research
on the human condition. Third, they subject animals to harsh treatment.”
Neal Barnard, M.D., a psychiatrist and president of Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine, agrees. “The time is long past when such
experiments, which cause considerable distress in animals, are
tolerable,” he says. "These vaguely rationalized and obviously
distressing experiments should not have been done."
Even Rosenblum himself has cast doubt on his research,
writing in *a 1995 issue of Psychiatric Clinics of North America,
"Because of limitations imposed on the interpretation of behaviors
observed in nonverbal primate subjects, extrapolations of primate
findings to human panic and anxiety should be made with caution." The
British medical journal The Lancet stated succinctly in October 1998
that "animal models of anxiety cannot substitute for clinical [human]
studies."
MONEY WASTED, NEEDS UNMET
Currently, 16 million Americans suffer from panic and other anxiety
disorders. Thankfully, many are getting help through therapy and
medication -- treatments developed through clinical studies. But while
Rosenblum's research continues to attract large amounts of funding, the
needs of many human patients go unmet. Even though one of the stated
purposes of Rosenblum's research is to help children suffering from
anxiety disorders, the New York Times reported last December that nearly
400 severely mentally ill children in New York are on waiting lists to
enter residential treatment facilities, "but cannot be admitted because
the existing facilities are filled to capacity. They are languishing in
hospitals, foster care, or jail."
Funding shortages also hamper the provision of clinical
treatment services such as outpatient therapy, medication, mobile crisis
teams, and day treatment -- all increasing the risk that children with
anxiety disorders will experience suicide, school violence, juvenile
crime, and family breakup.
Criticism of animal models is further justified by the
availability of technologies in brain imaging, such as positron emission
tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), which are
providing more accurate data on human brain processes. As the mental
disorders research community has become more familiar with the
usefulness of these devices, it has become more outspoken in admitting
to the weakness of animal models, while at the same time advocating for
further study into the potential of other non-animal research tools.
According to an editorial in the May 1999 issue of the American Journal
of Psychiatry, "From reliance on animal models of psychopathology with
all of their shortcomings, the field has evolved to the use of
multidisciplinary techniques, of which functional brain imaging
represents one of the most promising."
The SUNY Health Science Center would do much more to
honor its "commitment to confront the health problems of urban
communities," as expressed in its mission statement, by terminating
Rosenblum's studies and further directing its resources and expertise to
current human mental health needs. Then, the macaque infants and mothers
who have spent so much of their lives in small, desolate cages can gain
their freedom, and the medical and governmental bodies charged with
responding to human needs can better promote public health.
Law student Scott Lustig works as a case manager for
people with developmental disabilities, and also is a co-leader with
Urban Action Engine, Inc. in a campaign against psychological
experiments on monkeys at SUNY.
Your Agenda:
Contact Dr. John C. LaRosa, President,
SUNY Health Science Center,
450 Clarkson Ave.,
Brooklyn, NY 11203;
(718) 270-2611; fax: (718) 270-4732;
and
John W. Ryan, Chancellor,
State University of New York,
SUNY Plaza,
Albany, NY 12246;
(518) 443-5157.
Tell them to end Rosenblum's cruel and wasteful
experiments and direct the resources of SUNY's Health Science Center to
services for and research with human anxiety disorder patients.
To read the abstracts to Rosenblum's studies online,
visit Medline at
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Pubmed. To read the
abstracts to Rosenblum's studies, use the Medline database on the
National Library of Medicine site at
www.nlm.nih.gov. Cohen's critique is available at
www.mrmcmed.org.
“Reprinted with permission from The Animals’ Agenda,
P.O. Box 25881,
Baltimore, MD 21224; (410) 675-4566;
www.animalsagenda.org.”
Email:
office@animalsagenda.org
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