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Honesty at WNPRC an Oxymoron...
The Fall 2001 issue of the university alumni magazine, On Wisconsin,
arrived in the mail of UW alumni and UW supporters recently. On
page 28, readers found the article, "Getting Emotional"
by Dian Land. "Getting Emotional" continues the long and practiced
tradition at UW of misleading the public. The article focuses on
the work of UW researcher Ned Kalin. Kalin is presented as compassionate,
benign and a national leader in emotional health care. Land's article begins with a deceptive description of what Kalin's
research aims: "Picture Kalin's dream. Children entering first
grade will undergo physical examinations before their first days
at school, just as they do today. But those visits to family physicians
will include tests to determine whether the children have emotional
propensities that, if left unattended, could later become problems.
Physicians will administer discrete questionnaires to tease out,
for example, if a child is excessively shy." Land quotes Kalin: "Maybe we'll be able to just keep an eye
on some of the kids at risk, or help make sure their home environments
keep them healthy.... For those at highest risk, I fully expect
we'll have some kind of therapy that specifically regulates activity
in key brain structures to make sure they don't go off course during
development." Land points out that the Dalai Lama has shown an interest in the
W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior.
The laboratory houses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
and positron emission tomography PET) machines that allow scientists
to observe a living person's brain in action. The article almost begins discussing the truth: "Kalin learned
that in monkeys... some chemical circuits in the brain control responses
associated with affection and affiliation." And, if the reader is naïve, or has forgotten the past bald-faced
and repeated public lies by the UW, they might finish the article
with a warm feeling in their stomach and think about sending the
alumni foundation a nice big donation. But to the informed and critical
reader the feeling in their gut will be a bit different. Land points out that Kalin studies free-ranging monkeys at Cayo
Santiago. She fails to note that he has done so for years. This
would hardly be a point to bring up but for the fact that Cayo Santiago
is part of the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Puerto Rico,
a large federally funded primate research center. The United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) has found chronic problems at the
facility related to animal care. As a visiting scientist familiar
with the operation of a primate center, Kalin had a responsibility
to report the inadequate hosing of the monkeys there, the lack of
an adequate number of veterinarians, the poor sanitation, and general
dilapidation of the facility. Land failed to explain just what Kalin does in his lab when she
wrote, "Kalin learned that in monkeys... some chemical circuits
in the brain control responses associated with affection and affiliation."
She mentions nothing of the endless stream of repeated experimental
brain surgeries intended to destroy the emotion centers of monkeys'
brains. For instance: "Effects of amygdala lesions on sleep in rhesus monkeys."
Benca RM, Obermeyer WH, Shelton SE, Droster J, Kalin NH. Department
of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 6001 Research
Park Blvd., Madison, WI 53719-1176, USA. Brain Research 2000 Oct
6; 879 (1-2):130-8 "The amygdala is important in processing emotion and in the
acquisition and expression of fear and anxiety. It also appears
to be involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness. The purpose
of this study was to assess the effects of, fiber-sparing lesions
of the amygdala on sleep in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). We
recorded sleep from 18 age-matched male rhesus monkeys, 11 of which
had previously received ibotenic acid lesions of the amygdala and
seven of which were normal controls. Surface electrodes for sleep
recording were attached and the subjects were seated in a restraint
chair (to which they had been adapted) for the nocturnal sleep period.
Despite adaptation, control animals had sleep patterns characterized
by frequent arousals. Sleep was least disrupted in animals with
large bilateral lesions of the amygdala. They had more sleep and
a higher proportion of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep than did either
animals with smaller lesions or control animals. Based on these
results, it seems likely that, in the primate, the amygdala plays
a role in sleep regulation and may be important in mediating the
effects of emotions/stress on sleep. These findings may also be
relevant to understanding sleep disturbances associated with psychopathology." Land writes enthusiastically regarding the Dalai Lama's interest
in the brain imaging capabilities of the UW labs, but fails to mention
that the office of His Holiness has admitted that he was unaware
of Kalin's history of cruelty. Tenzin Geyche Tethong, of the Office of His Holiness the Dalai
notes, "His Holiness was not aware that Dr. Kalin was involved
in conducting tests on animals that were painful and extremely cruel...
His Holiness has always been against such tests on animals." The University of Wisconsin has a long and dark history of lying
to the public regarding anything having to do with its experimental
use of monkeys: June 15, 1989 Dr. David Hall More than a few of the monkeys housed at this facility have lived
their entire lives there, and animals are removed from their natal
groups only to prevent overcrowding. The groups have been established
for the principal purpose of studying social organization and social
dynamics in stable primate societies. Accordingly, on those infrequent occasions when animals are removed
from a group, the removal is guided by procedures aimed at ensuring
the least disruption of the group and at preserving social stability.
The research performed on troops housed at the zoo is purely observational
in nature. As a matter of policy, no invasive physiological studies
are carried out on these animals. In addition, the Center's policy
regarding animals removed from these established groups ensures
that they will not be used in studies at our facility involving
invasive experimental procedures. Such animals will be assigned
to the Center's non-experimental breeding colony, where they are
exempt from experimental use. This policy on the uses of monkeys at the WRPRC Vilas Park Zoo
facility has the endorsement of my administrative council as well
as the staff veterinarians and animal care supervisors responsible
for the care and humane use of all Center animals. As evidence of
this, their signatures are also affixed. Let me take this opportunity to point out that the Center has long
taken a leadership role in the humane treatment of research animals.
Our housing meets or exceeds all applicable standards. Our 12-person
animal care staff has an average length of nearly 20 years of dedicated
service to the Center and its animals. In addition, our chief veterinarian
is one of just a handful of veterinarians in the state to be certified
as a Diplomat of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine,
and our assistant veterinarian has developed a highly regarded program
of pairing caged monkeys to enhance their psychological well-being.
[signed] In the summer of 1997, a whistle blower came forward with documentation
that monkeys had been secretly removed from the zoo over a nine-year
period -- throughout the time UW was asserting through correspondence
with the zoo that the monkeys were off limits for invasive research. At first the university officials denied the facts, but eventually,
as details and documents were made public demonstrating that over
200 monkeys had been secretly taken, they were forced to admit that
they had been lying all along. The instances of lying to the public are far too many to detail
here. No observer of the University of Wisconsin can be anything
other than skeptical regarding any comment made by the authorities
there regarding monkeys or and of its coven of primate researchers,
or by those who write the university's propaganda. The University
of Wisconsin has lied, and continues to lie and deceive the public.
A culture of public deceit flourishes. The Fall 2001 issue of On
Wisconsin makes this perfectly clear. We can only wonder about administrators and researchers there like Ned Kalin, who so obviously, and so profoundly, got off track during their early development. We should look into their dark and sickly brains in an effort to tease out the causes of such callousness, cruelty, and absence of honesty.
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