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University primate research funding comes under scrutiny by Beth Mueller A national watchdog group that opposes animal research accused the
Wisconsin Primate Research Center of “wasting tens of millions in
federal tax grants” Tuesday. Federal funding related to the WPRC has more than doubled in the last
eight years, according to Stop Animal Exploitation Now, while the number
of animals has increased by only 24 percent. “If the funding has increased that much and the number of primates
has not increased in any amount that correlates, then you have to wonder
where the money is going,” said Michael Budkie, executive director of
SAEN. Eric Sandgren, director of Animal Care and Use at the University of
Wisconsin, said there are two main reasons the increase in funding
doesn’t directly correlate to more animals. “There’s been a dramatic increase in the expenditures for protective
equipment, which protects both the animals from disease from humans, and
humans from the potential of getting any disease from the animals,”
Sandgren said. “When we learn about these things, we address them, and
that costs more money.” Funding has also been increasingly used for enrichment, including a
new program with its own coordinator, according to Sandgren. This
enrichment of animal living conditions includes things like puzzle
feeders and other more interesting elements in animal environments, he
added. “Yes, we believe the research is justified, but we are committed to
making the lives of these animals more interesting,” Sandgren said. SAEN said much of UW’s primate research was in “highly duplicated”
areas including neural information processing and the Simeon
Immunodeficiency Virus. Budkie said SIV can affect humans, but Rhesus monkeys cannot be
infected with HIV, so studying AIDS in Rhesus monkeys is “nonsensical.”
“The reason that they do SIV research in monkeys is because they
can’t study HIV — the real AIDS virus — in monkeys,” Budkie said. “A lot
of federal funding goes to AIDS, and they’re just trying to get their
cut of it.” Thomas Friedrich, an assistant researcher in the UW AIDS Vaccine
Research Laboratory, said the accusations of research being duplicated
were often inaccurate. “Unless they can offer examples of exactly how it’s duplicated,
they’re making an accusation without real evidence,” Friedrich said,
adding the National Institutes of Health, which funds the primate
center, mandates a certain amount of research at each primate center
focused on HIV. Friedrich added one of the criteria for receiving NIH funding is that
the research be innovative, and therefore not duplicated or copied. “It’s a serious fault that they find with your research if they find
that it’s lacking in innovation,” he said. Friedrich also defended the use of SIV to study HIV. “The DNA sequences of these viruses are very similar, the cells that
the infection affect are essentially the same, the immune response from
monkeys and people are essentially the same,” Friedrich said. “In fact,
the genetic ability of some individuals to control HIV seems to be
reflected in monkeys’ ability to control SIV.” But Budkie said money for animal research should instead be spent on
clinical research that “could provide information that actually applies
to humans.” “The only people that are really benefiting from the animal
experimentation that’s going on at the PRCs are the people that are
being paid to do it,” Budkie said. However, Friedrich said animal research is vital to directing
clinical research. “One common criticism of animal research is that we should just spend
money on clinical research. But the two really complement each other,”
Friedrich said. “There are so many different ideas about how to make an
AIDS vaccine that we can’t possibly test them all in people.”
http://badgerherald.com/news/2007/12/05/university_primate_r.php
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