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I'm pretty desensitized to stuff, but this study is a horrifying. They basically mutiliated a rat by connecting it to another rat's circulatory system, implante

I'm pretty desensitized to stuff, but this study is a horrifying. They basically mutiliated a rat by connecting it to another rat's circulatory system, implanted a uterus and then impregnanted it. It feels like this has crossed some boundaries of ethics. It's like that Russian experiment that decapitated a dog, connected it so that blood was recirculating through its brain, and then let it wake up. It's horrifying to think we can allow this in the name of science.

rblatz 5y ago
I just can’t imagine how this made it past IRB approval. It doesn’t really prove anything and it seems unnecessarily cruel.
kibwen 5y ago
I don't want to belittle your response, but this does not seem especially beyond the pale for the sort of thing rats get subjected to. I've done programming work for some world-class academic neuroscience/biology labs, I've taken the mandatory animal ethics trainings, and I've seen how the sausage is made. For the most part I'm actually pretty impressed at the ethical oversight that is exercised on behalf of animals, this particular university going well beyond the mandatory legal requirements imposed by the government. But rats, or at least one specific breed of rats, are fair game, and it gets pretty horrific.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  As I recall, there are some lab animals that are regulated, and some are not. And I don't remember exactly which, but it seemed kind of arbitrary.
  - sploitable 5y ago
    According to the pre-print, these researchers are based at "Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China" - a country with a terrible record of human rights violations and an even worse record when it comes to animal rights. Of 3,000 people surveyed in China, approximately 2,000 hadn't heard of the concept of "animal welfare". I'd be surprised if regulation on non-human animal experiements even existed in their jurisdiction.
    - skissane 5y ago
      Sometimes I wonder if Chinese scientists are going to make scientific advances that Western scientists won't, due to weaker ethical constraints enabling them to perform experiments that Western scientists can't, or lesser regulations enabling them to get the same experiments done faster and cheaper.
      - haihaibye 5y ago
        If only they had accelarated a COVID-19 vaccine by a few months via human challenge trials.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      Yes, I'm saying, in the US, where we may pride ourselves on having standards, there are some lab animals that are exempt, and so I think there's a blind spot, where nobody (in the sense of the lay public) thinks about what's happening to them.
- Fezzik 5y ago
  Is there any evidence that this type of -entirely inhumane- testing has ever yielded results that a person could argue justifies the cruelty? I feel like all I ever hear is that rat/mice testing is effectively inapplicable to humans… I don’t even know where the line is, but I feel like we’re nowhere near it, if it even exists at all. edit, for clarity: I think be have gone well beyond wherever the ethical line is, not below/beneath… for the first time I was confused by the downvotes, maybe that explains it?
  - sploitable 5y ago
    In fact there are many counter examples. Thalidomide had no negative effects on non-human animals, but created notoriously deformed children in humans. Similary, I think it was paracetamol which when tested on some non-human animal is 100% lethal, and had they tested on those species then this common, essential medicine would never have progressed to the human trial stage. A classic case is the link between lung cancer and smoking. Millions of dollars of public money went to the big tobacco companies in the name of "cancer research". Dispite being able to induce lung cancer in dogs by restraining them and forcing the to chain smoke for hours on end, these were not the results they wanted. IIIRC, it took research with human volunteers before the scientific consensus that we have today came about because the "animal models" did not represent human physiology.
    - skissane 5y ago
      > Thalidomide had no negative effects on non-human animals, but created notoriously deformed children in humans That's not actually true; it causes birth defects in animals as well. Only limited animal testing was performed before it was approved for use in humans; more extensive animal testing, which did demonstrate birth defects, was performed only after it had been withdrawn due to causing human birth defects. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12677202/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12677202/
    - wombatpm 5y ago
      I believe the studies were done with a single isomer, which was safe and is still available. The racemic mixture was sold commercially but never tested until later. IIRC the bench top process produced a single isomer, but the scaled up process messed with the chirality producing the racemic mixture.
DangitBobby 5y ago
The most troublesome part of the article is that any mention of ethics focuses on how this will affect humans and little is mentioned about the cruelty of treating the rats this way. I don't understand how people can be so calloused. I guess they are all fairly confident that karma is not real.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  It's not that at all. The question is whether the cruelty can be justified in service of a greater good, or if it's just plain cruelty to satisfy aimless curiosity.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Why would that reasoning apply only to certain animals and not others? If it's okay to be cruel to rats for the service of the greater good, then why not dogs, apes or dolphins? Why not humans? Where and how do you draw the line?
    - cm2187 5y ago
      Well there is a line. I don't think twice using insecticide when confronted to a mosquito.
      - paopoi 5y ago
        Killing a mosquito is an act of self preservation, as valid now as it was 10.000 years ago. Many of us live an existence pretty removed from the threats of the wild, but we we’re not totally detached from the need to “protect” ourselves. :)
    - throwaway675309 5y ago
      I'm not going to defend this study, but we already have a line between humans and nonhumans, particularly when legally speaking. For example, the sentences handed down for killing another human are far more severe than killing an animal. These lines already exist.
BoiledCabbage 5y ago
> It's like that Russian experiment that decapitated a dog, connected it so that blood was recirculating through its brain, and then let it wake up. A side point, but that Russian dog experimentation is so creepy. I remember watching a video of it on youtube I think, and even while knowing it was all genuine footage, was in absolute stunned disbelief at what I was watching - thinking that it had to be fake.
heavyset_go 5y ago
I think if more people knew about the realities of animal testing and experimentation, they would be slightly less barbaric.

rblatz 5y ago

I just can’t imagine how this made it past IRB approval. It doesn’t really prove anything and it seems unnecessarily cruel.

kibwen 5y ago

I don't want to belittle your response, but this does not seem especially beyond the pale for the sort of thing rats get subjected to. I've done programming work for some world-class academic neuroscience/biology labs, I've taken the mandatory animal ethics trainings, and I've seen how the sausage is made. For the most part I'm actually pretty impressed at the ethical oversight that is exercised on behalf of animals, this particular university going well beyond the mandatory legal requirements imposed by the government. But rats, or at least one specific breed of rats, are fair game, and it gets pretty horrific.

perl4ever 5y ago
As I recall, there are some lab animals that are regulated, and some are not. And I don't remember exactly which, but it seemed kind of arbitrary.
- sploitable 5y ago
  According to the pre-print, these researchers are based at "Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China" - a country with a terrible record of human rights violations and an even worse record when it comes to animal rights. Of 3,000 people surveyed in China, approximately 2,000 hadn't heard of the concept of "animal welfare". I'd be surprised if regulation on non-human animal experiements even existed in their jurisdiction.
  - skissane 5y ago
    Sometimes I wonder if Chinese scientists are going to make scientific advances that Western scientists won't, due to weaker ethical constraints enabling them to perform experiments that Western scientists can't, or lesser regulations enabling them to get the same experiments done faster and cheaper.
    - haihaibye 5y ago
      If only they had accelarated a COVID-19 vaccine by a few months via human challenge trials.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    Yes, I'm saying, in the US, where we may pride ourselves on having standards, there are some lab animals that are exempt, and so I think there's a blind spot, where nobody (in the sense of the lay public) thinks about what's happening to them.
Fezzik 5y ago
Is there any evidence that this type of -entirely inhumane- testing has ever yielded results that a person could argue justifies the cruelty? I feel like all I ever hear is that rat/mice testing is effectively inapplicable to humans… I don’t even know where the line is, but I feel like we’re nowhere near it, if it even exists at all. edit, for clarity: I think be have gone well beyond wherever the ethical line is, not below/beneath… for the first time I was confused by the downvotes, maybe that explains it?
- sploitable 5y ago
  In fact there are many counter examples. Thalidomide had no negative effects on non-human animals, but created notoriously deformed children in humans. Similary, I think it was paracetamol which when tested on some non-human animal is 100% lethal, and had they tested on those species then this common, essential medicine would never have progressed to the human trial stage. A classic case is the link between lung cancer and smoking. Millions of dollars of public money went to the big tobacco companies in the name of "cancer research". Dispite being able to induce lung cancer in dogs by restraining them and forcing the to chain smoke for hours on end, these were not the results they wanted. IIIRC, it took research with human volunteers before the scientific consensus that we have today came about because the "animal models" did not represent human physiology.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > Thalidomide had no negative effects on non-human animals, but created notoriously deformed children in humans That's not actually true; it causes birth defects in animals as well. Only limited animal testing was performed before it was approved for use in humans; more extensive animal testing, which did demonstrate birth defects, was performed only after it had been withdrawn due to causing human birth defects. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12677202/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12677202/
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    I believe the studies were done with a single isomer, which was safe and is still available. The racemic mixture was sold commercially but never tested until later. IIRC the bench top process produced a single isomer, but the scaled up process messed with the chirality producing the racemic mixture.

DangitBobby 5y ago

The most troublesome part of the article is that any mention of ethics focuses on how this will affect humans and little is mentioned about the cruelty of treating the rats this way. I don't understand how people can be so calloused. I guess they are all fairly confident that karma is not real.

nerdponx 5y ago
It's not that at all. The question is whether the cruelty can be justified in service of a greater good, or if it's just plain cruelty to satisfy aimless curiosity.
- goatlover 5y ago
  Why would that reasoning apply only to certain animals and not others? If it's okay to be cruel to rats for the service of the greater good, then why not dogs, apes or dolphins? Why not humans? Where and how do you draw the line?
  - cm2187 5y ago
    Well there is a line. I don't think twice using insecticide when confronted to a mosquito.
    - paopoi 5y ago
      Killing a mosquito is an act of self preservation, as valid now as it was 10.000 years ago. Many of us live an existence pretty removed from the threats of the wild, but we we’re not totally detached from the need to “protect” ourselves. :)
  - throwaway675309 5y ago
    I'm not going to defend this study, but we already have a line between humans and nonhumans, particularly when legally speaking. For example, the sentences handed down for killing another human are far more severe than killing an animal. These lines already exist.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago

> It's like that Russian experiment that decapitated a dog, connected it so that blood was recirculating through its brain, and then let it wake up. A side point, but that Russian dog experimentation is so creepy. I remember watching a video of it on youtube I think, and even while knowing it was all genuine footage, was in absolute stunned disbelief at what I was watching - thinking that it had to be fake.

heavyset_go 5y ago

I think if more people knew about the realities of animal testing and experimentation, they would be slightly less barbaric.