Animal research is critical to the understanding of how and why diseases happen, and the development of safe and effective medicines. In fact, the American Medical Association acknowledges “virtually every advance in medical science in the 20th century, from antibiotics and vaccines to antidepressant drugs and organ transplants, has been achieved either directly or indirectly through the use of animals in laboratory experiments.” So, not just one or two things, or even a handful. Virtually everything.
But, despite that, animal research is not an easy topic to write about. It’s emotive. Animal rights organizations control the rhetoric, and the images they portray of animal research are horrific. And yet these are the images that people are most likely to see, because fear of personal and institutional attacks by animal activists has driven animal research to be hidden. The ”real” story is never shared. Researchers, institutions and companies inadvertently belittle the significant contribution of animals to scientific progress by trying to hide that they’re even involved in it.
So what’s the result, when the only view of animal research displayed to the general public is negative? The general public say they don’t support the use of animals in research. And it’s not surprising – they don’t hear about the positives, and the images they do see are courtesy of the animal rights organizations, and they seem to show animals being tortured. Who says “Yeah, that’s fine,” when they’re presented with images like that? Sociopaths, that’s who.
So why am I involved in this debate? Well, I am a toxicologic pathologist. I work in the pharmaceutical industry. I have a degree in veterinary medicine and worked as a veterinarian in clinical practice before I did a PhD and a specialist qualification in pathology. As a toxicologic pathologist, my job is to assess how safe new medicines are in animals before we give them to people. After we have given the animals a course of the medicine we are testing, the animals are humanely euthanized (in the same way your pet would be put to sleep by a veterinarian if it was very sick), and I examine samples of their organs to determine if there has been any damage from the medicine we are testing – a regulatory step imposed by governmental agencies worldwide to ensure that pharmaceutical companies are doing their job to bring safe and effective medicines to patients. From there, we can decide whether the new medicine is safe to test in human patients. I’m not talking about seeing if a new mascara will make your eyes water, I’m talking about medicines – medicines that will (hopefully) cure your cancer, prevent you from going blind, or treat your asthma.
Welcome to part 2 of our series on how to talk to your friends and family who hold anti-science views on vaccine safety. Click here for part 1, which covered the benefit/risk of childhood vaccines. Now on to part 2.
PART II. Conspiracy theories and trusting the wrong sources of vaccines safety data
In order to understand the risks involved in vaccinations, we need to understand the side effects that occur after vaccinations, and the rate at which thee side effects occur. We covered vaccine side effects in part 1, so where did we get our data? This is critical – much of the confusion and false information surrounding vaccine safety comes from people who try to research the topic, but choose unreliable sources for their data – incomplete data sets, self-serving summaries from people with an anti-vaccine agenda, or just plain poor science. So where can you access vaccine safety info? Here are the best non-biased options:
The CDC website has specific safety information for many of the most common childhood vaccines as well as some background data on common concerns, vaccine safety research, and the methods used to track vaccine safety. This is probably the best one-stop shop to learn about vaccine safety.
For specific vaccines, the drug label is required to contain all the pertinent safety data, including side effects and rates of side effects from the controlled clinical trials run in order to demonstrate an acceptable risk/benefit ratio for FDA approval. Just google the vaccine name and the word “label” and look for a .pdf file with “label” or “package insert” in the name. Keep in mind that these labels have to include all adverse side effects seen on the clinical trials – even those that were very rare or for which a direct link to the vaccine has not been established. These labels may require some background in medicine or science to read and interpret.
Welcome to Bad Science on the Internet! Here, we highlight some of the crazy and sometime dangerous stuff people post online, and then we give you the facts.
The Bad Science:
There have been a number of recent news stories about the possibility of coffee being listed as a human carcinogen in the state of California. A recent court decision ruled against several coffee sellers (including 7-Eleven and Starbucks), allowing a lawsuit to continue that may end with coffee being listed as containing potential carcinogens in California. How did this happen, and should we be worried about our morning brew? Let’s break down the science and find out.
Coffee does not cause cancer.
Let’s start here. There is absolutely zero data to suggest that drinking coffee increases your cancer risk. In fact, it is more likely to be protective against some cancers because of the antioxidants it contains. Coffee may also lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes, though the data supporting these potential positive health effects is weak. It is true that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified drinking very hot beverages of any kind as being linked to cancer, but this is not specific to coffee and is honestly kind of silly, because most people intuitively understand that scalding their esophagus and mouths with hot beverages day after day is probably not good for them. So to recap: coffee does not cause cancer, do not drink boiling water.
Consider the following scenario:
Dylan Dawson is a master’s student from a prestigious school majoring in industrial engineering. Besides academic responsibilities, he’s also involved in several extracurricular activities. His recent project is organizing a TEDx event on campus. Dylan Dawson is dealing with too many obligations right now, so he goes to his doctor and asks for a prescription of Vyvanse, a stimulant in the amphetamine class prescribed to treat mostly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dylan receives a temporary prescription for Vyvanse, so he can stay focused and motivated while juggling with classes, course work, working out, and organizing the TEDx event.
Dylan isn’t diagnosed with any pathological disease that would require him to take Vyvanse. The purpose of him taking this prescription drug is to ace all his exams, stick to his workout routine, and organize a successful TEDx event.
There is even a term describing Dylan’s situation: cosmetic psychopharmacology, coined by Peter Kramer, a psychiatrist and faculty member at Brown Medical School. Kramer defines cosmetic pharmacology as “using medications to induce desirable and socially rewarding personality traits in healthy individuals.” In case of Dylan Dawson, he used Vyvanse to enhance his cognitive performance to power through a challenging time even though he was perfectly healthy.Continue reading…
We at UYBFS like a good joke. In that spirit, we posted a cartoon poking fun at Jenny McCarthy, D-list actress and notable anti-vaccine advocate, to a Facebook page called Science Humor. It’s a funny page, if you’re in to science puns and jokes you need an advanced degree to understand, which we totally are.
People liked the cartoon, but we were very surprised by a vocal minority of people who responded to the post with very vehement anti-vaccine views. Our surprise stems from the fact that the name of the page is “Science Humor”, which we assumed would narrow down the active readers to people with a strong background in science, of which we know exactly zero who oppose the use of vaccines or believe (as Jenny McCarthy does) that vaccines cause autism.
Our assumptions were wrong. Some of the anti-vaccine supporters clearly had some background in science. They posted articles supporting their views and seemed to be looking for debate. Meanwhile, some of those who took the pro-vaccine side just resorted to name calling rather than engage in scientific debate. (In all fairness, there was name calling on both sides).
We stayed out of the debate. In part, we wanted to see where the discussion went, but mainly, we are of the mind that the comments section in a Facebook post is not a good place hold detailed scientific discussions. However, we need to acknowledge that there are people out there with very strong anti-vaccine views . Making fun of them or dismissing them as “nuts” is not productive. Our goal should be to educate, to bring them along and lay out the facts. We won’t convince those who are not open to impartially weighing the scientific evidence, but if we do our job right, we may just change a few minds for the better.
But how? Some of these people were VERY passionate about their anti-vaccine posts – can we actually change their minds? Should we go point-by-point, refuting each reference they posted? This last approach would be the most thorough, but it would also be BORING, and we actually want people to read this blog. So instead, we will focus on the major pillars of “evidence” used to support anti-vaccine views. For those aligned with science, think of this as a guide for speaking to others with opposing views. For those who hold anti-vaccine views, we hope this may bring some clarity to the science behind vaccine safety. There is a lot to unpack here, so this we’ll break our discussion into 3 parts. When possible, we’ll use some examples from the Facebook page thread, with all names redacted.
Just in case you’ve been getting too much sleep, you may be interested to know that researchers have uncovered a new potential danger: the effects of climate change on deadly, disease-causing microbes. There are millions of different types of microbes. Most are harmless to humans, or even helpful to us, but many are pathogenic. Pathogenic microbes can be bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, or protists (an amoeba is an example of a protist) and they are responsible for some of the most terrifying illnesses on the planet, like cholera, salmonella, malaria, and anthrax. While each species has specific requirements for the environment they like to live in, many pathogens like warm, humid climates, especially in places with poor sanitation and drinking water. They can live in water, food, soil, fecal matter – pretty much anything moist and warm.
For example, you may have heard of Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera, a diarrheal disease.
A cholera bacterium. Cute little guy, no?
Cholera kills you via dehydration, but before you go, you will expel vast amounts of liquid poop. Cholera killed at least 143 million people per year during a 26-year period. But what about a viral disease that causes diarrhea? Perhaps you have heard of Norovirus, a virus that spreads when you ingest fecal matter – most people hear about outbreaks on cruise ships. Yeah, I mean that you get Norovirus by eating food or drinking water contaminated with infected poo.
Definitely not.
Many of these kinds of pathogens are spread in contaminated food or water. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that in developing nations, more than 50% of the people who live in urban areas are eventually affected by diseases related to unsafe drinking water. Poor sanitation, unsafe drinking water, and a warm moist environment, will make many of these buggers super happy and any humans that encounter them super… likely to poop.
Enter climate change. As the planet warms, we can expect that the warm parts of the planet are going to expand outward from the equator, meaning that the climate that our microbe friends enjoy is going to be moving more northerly and southerly. If you were a pathogenic microbe, and you were suddenly able to migrate into new areas – you know, find new stompin’ grounds – wouldn’t you? Especially if your old territory became much too hot for you to survive there. Diseases, like cholera and malaria, that typically live in warm, developing nations could be moving into Europe and the lower part of the United States. However, that doesn’t mean we will all die of dysentery, like in The Oregon Trail.
Oh no!
One important reason we don’t see these diseases in industrialized countries is because we have modern water treatment and sanitation facilities. Industrialized nations also have treatment plans for critters that carry diseases, like ticks or mosquitos.
Moving day.
Water treatment doesn’t always get every pathogenic microbe, but our climate is inhospitable to most of them which helps keep them under control. For now. If that isn’t enough to save us, we have modern medicine. Antibiotics and anti-viral medicines that may not be readily available in poorer nations, but they can be prescribed by your doctor in industrialized nations.
Now let’s head to the icy north. The second of those potential new climate change/pathogenic microbe threats I mentioned at the beginning is the possibility of emerging zombie pathogens. Pathogenic microbes that were frozen in soil and water (or in long-dead carcasses) thousands of years ago could become viable again if the conditions are right. Temperatures are warming at an alarming rate, from one perspective, but from a microbe’s perspective, the temperatures are warming just slowly enough for a gentle thaw. That’s exactly what most pathogenic buggers need to become viable again once exposed to the environment. When an infected human or animal dies and is buried in a cold climate, the ground freezes and layers of sediments, snow and ice are deposited on top of the grave. As the climate warms, the ice and permafrost thaw, releasing any microbes that survived.
In an article from National Public Radio, Zac Peterson described his research, which involved working with perfectly frozen seal carcasses in northern Alaska. The seals thawed into a gooey mess and Zac spent time kneeling in that goo. The knee that was in contact with the goo became red and inflamed. He had contracted a case of seal finger disease, a bacterial infection known to infect seal hunters. Zac had only been working with 800 year old, previously frozen seals. There have also been cases of frozen reindeer dying from anthrax in Siberia and becoming buried in the permafrost. 70 years later, the ice thawed during a heat wave in 2016. The infected reindeer were also able to thaw, decompose, and release the Anthrax spores into the environment. Lot’s of people got sick and one young boy died from the infection.
It sounds pretty dire, but don’t worry! The wonders of modern science and medicine will save us again! Or at least they should. Modern drugs and medical techniques should be able to contain any of pathogens that are viable. Couple that with good hygiene and modern water and sanitation facilities and those nasty buggers don’t stand a chance! Unless the emerging pathogen is something we don’t have an available vaccine or a current treatment for….
Variola Virus – The cause of smallpox
For example, one pathogen known to be in the Siberian tundra is smallpox. Smallpox is caused by the highly contagious variola virus. It hasn’t infected a human since 1979, when the World Health Organization listed it as an eradiated disease. There is worry that, should a viable variola virus find its way from its thawing grave into a warm host, we may not have any defense against it at first. We have not needed to vaccinate people against smallpox in decades, so young populations in many parts of the world don’t have any immunity. People still die from the flu and we distribute vaccines for that virus. If smallpox found its way into a human host, millions of people could die before we are able to get enough people vaccinated to slow the spread.
The possibility of disease-causing microbes migrating into new territory or emerging from their graves in the frozen tundra may sound like a premise of a new outbreak movie, but given that the probable (and currently observable) effects of climate change are dramatic enough on their own, this new problem is sort of like throwing a diseased match on a burning planet. There is cause for concern, but we also have science and human ingenuity on our side. And since we know the threat, there is yet time to defeat it!
References
Climate change and infectious diseases. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2018, from http://www.who.int/globalchange/climate/summary/en/index5.html
Doucleff, M. (2018, January 24). Are There Zombie Viruses In The Thawing Permafrost? Retrieved January 30, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575974220/are-there-zombie-viruses-in-the-thawing-permafrost
Frequently asked questions and answers on smallpox. (n.d.). Retrieved February 22, 2018, from http://www.who.int/csr/disease/smallpox/faq/en/
Meyer, R. (2017, November 06). The Zombie Diseases of Climate Change. Retrieved January 30, 2018, from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/the-zombie-diseases-of-climate-change/544274/
University of Liverpool. (2017, August 2). Europe’s most dangerous pathogens: Climate change increasing risks. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 30, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170802082915.htm
Unsafe drinking-water, sanitation and waste management. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from http://www.who.int/sustainable-development/cities/health-risks/water-sanitation/en/
Deep in the Gombe National Park in Tanzania two famous primatologists, Richard Wrangham from Harvard University and Toshisada Nishida from Kyoto University, noticed an unusual dietary pattern among the local chimpanzees. The animals would dine on leaves of a plant from the daisy family called Aspilia. Instead of chewing on the leaves, the chimpanzees would put the leaves under their tongues for a stretch of time and then swallow the entire leaves. The chimps would frown while holding the leaves under their tongues for a good reason – Aspilia is known for its bitter taste. This means that the chimps were not eating these leaves because they tasted good but for another unknown reason that intrigued the scientists.
Fascinated by this observation, Drs. Wragham and Nishida sent samples of the Aspilia plant to a chemist, Eloy Rodriquez at the University of California in Irvine. After a thorough biochemical analysis, Dr. Rodriquez identified an abundant phytochemical in those leaves called Thiarubrine A, which acts as a potent antibacterial and antiparasitic agent. The chimpanzees consumed just enough of Thiarubrine A to kill up to 80% of parasites in their intestines.Continue reading…
Welcome to Ask a Scientist, where we answer questions from our readers on a wide range of scientific topics. Got a scientific question? Drop us a line.
Q: Are humans still evolving? B.N. Bernalillo, NM
This is a fantastic question, B.N! A solid argument can be made that humans are no longer evolving because of our advanced healthcare and medicine. Sir David Attenburough, who has done more for science then UYBFS ever will, and has been knighted for his efforts, has suggested that he thinks humans are no longer evolving based on this reasoning, saying:
“We stopped natural selection as soon as we started being able to rear 95–99 per cent of our babies that are born.”
Say a child is stricken with juvenile diabetes on his 10th birthday. Prior to the invention of modern medicine, this was a death sentence – the child would have died from hyperglycemia and diabetic ketoacidosis within a short period of time, effectively eliminating his genes from the population. However, scientists were able to determine that a loss of insulin production in the pancreas is the cause of this form of diabetes, and since 1922, insulin (first from animals, now produced in bacteria) has been available to treat these children. Today, while the effects of juvenile diabetes can still be quite severe, if the child can maintain his blood glucose levels appropriately, he or she can expect to live a relatively normal life, certainly one that will be long enough to reproduce if that is their desire.
So in this case, science and modern medicine has enabled the spread of genes responsible for (or predisposing people to) juvenile diabetes. The successful treatment of any life-threatening childhood disease with a genetic component (cancer, cystic fibrosis, severe asthma) will have the same effect. On top of this, our ability to successfully treat or prevent potentially deadly infectious diseases in children (measles, rubella, pneumonia, diphtheria, etc) will, in theory, lead to an increased number of people who are more susceptible to these diseases over time.
