(Circulation. 2000;102:e9032.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.
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Cardiovascular News
1 Circulation Newswriter
US Department of Agriculture and Animal Rights Group Settle Suit Over Mice, Rats, and Birds; Congress May Intervene
In a move that drew considerable criticism from the research community, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to settle a suit brought by the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation (ARDF), which is the research arm of the Anti-Vivisection Society; In Vitro International; and various individuals. Both sides agreed to dismiss the suit as long as the USDA agrees to initiate rulemaking on the regulation of the welfare of birds, rats, and mice within a reasonable amount of time. Currently, those animals are excluded from coverage of the USDA’s animal welfare act.
As part of the settlement, the federal agency also agreed to keep the ARDF informed of its progress in the rulemaking process and to give the group a copy of its proposed rules at the same time they are published in the Federal Register. The USDA also agreed to pay the $18 000 in attorneys’ fees that the ARDF had accumulated in its suit.
In a countermeasure, the US House and Senate conferees meeting to hammer out an agriculture appropriations bill included an amendment in the bill that would prohibit the USDA from issuing the proposed rules and would require notice of proposed rulemaking or changing the definition of an animal.
The suit by the ARDF was filed on March 9, 1998 and claimed that excluding rats, mice, and birds from the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act was both arbitrary and capricious. More than 90% of such animals—the backbone of laboratory research—are covered by voluntary accreditation programs and rules from the US Food and Drug Administration and the Public Health Service Policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Research advocacy groups such as the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) wanted the USDA to fight the suit in court because the proposed change in the regulations would create burdensome compliance costs and threaten to overwhelm researchers in paperwork.
In response to the settlement, Mary J.C. Hendrix, PhD, FASEB president, wrote in a letter to Daniel R. Glickman, USDA secretary, "The outcomes of a settlement could jeopardize the welfare of research animals, result in exorbitant compliance costs, increase the regulatory burden for scientists and institutions, and set a precedent for exceeding Congressional intent of the Animal Welfare Act."
In response to the settlement, Jordan J. Cohen, MD, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) said, "The AAMC is disappointed that the USDA has settled the litigation instigated by the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation. Unfortunately, the settlement now opens the door to an increased regulatory and paperwork burden on the scientists and the institutions that use rats, mice, and birds to conduct vital biomedical research. Settling this suit without taking into account the deep concerns of the research community is a serious mistake."
Dr Cohen further noted, "The battle will now be joined in the regulatory and legislative arenas. The AAMC will continue working on behalf of researchers and patients to ensure that vital resources intended to find cures and treatments for human disease are not frittered away on senseless and duplicative bureaucratic hoops that are driven by ideology and not reality."
Animal rights advocates hailed the measure as providing new protections for laboratory mammals. Martin Stephens, PhD, vice president of animal research issues for the Humane Society of the United States said, "Thirty years after Congress amended the Animal Welfare Act to include all warm-blooded animals, it looks as if 9 out of 10 laboratory animals will finally begin to receive the legal protection they deserve."
One concern of the research community is that new rules could impose such burdensome paperwork that many smaller research institutions would be unable to pursue any experiments involving animals. However, the USDA has yet to issue its rules, and its latitude in those rules is fairly wide, according to sources in the research community. However, if its rules do not meet the demands of the ADRF, that group is free to sue again.
No Long-Term Benefits for Garlic
Although the use of garlic may lower some kinds of cholesterol in the short term, it offers no long-term protection against cardiovascular disease, according to a report from the Evidence-based Practice Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the Veterans Evidence-based Research, Dissemination, and Implementation Center. The report’s findings were made public by officials at the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which commissioned the study.
Researchers found that garlic may reduce low-density lipids (LDL) and triglycerides, but that the effects are short-lived. Levels of high density lipoproteins (HDL), the "good" cholesterol, were not affected by garlic. After 6 months, any decrease in LDL or triglycerides ended. The researchers also found that garlic had no helpful effects on blood pressure or diabetes. The AHRQ review of clinical literature was requested by the national Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health. A summary of the report can be found at http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/garlicsum.htm
NHLBI Awards $37 Million to Establish Programs to Advance the Use of Genomic Research in Health, Lung, Blood, and Sleep Disorders
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has launched a major initiative to encourage research into finding genomic solutions for disorders of the heart, lung, blood, and sleep. On September 30, 2000, the institute issued $37 million to establish 11 Programs for Genomic Applications (PGA).
The programs will take advantage of information coming out of the Human Genome Project and take it further to applications that will help in the understanding and treatment of diseases. "The PGA initiative is one of the NHLBI’s most ambitious, wide-ranging efforts to date," said NHLBI director Claude Lenfant, MD. "Our challenge is to clearly identify the subsets of genes linked to heart, lung, blood, and sleep function, then build on this knowledge to develop better methods for prevention, diagnosis, and therapy."
Pew Commission Advocates Tracking Chronic Disease and Environmental Factors to Protect US Health
The United States needs a health tracking network to provide critical information on the incidence, prevalence, and location of chronic disease in the country, said the Pew Environmental Health Commission at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in a report issued in September. The group called on Congress and the White House to set up the system to enable epidemiologists to locate health problems and the possible environmental factors involved in their clustering.
Without such a network, the commission warned that the United States will be unable to prevent asthma, birth defects, developmental disorders, cancers, and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as other, more common chronic diseases.
"We responded quickly to the threat of West Nile virus, tracking and monitoring every report of infected birds and people, but 20 years into the asthma epidemic this country is still unable to track where and when attacks occur and what environmental links may trigger them," said Lowell Weicker, Jr, the Commission chairman and former US senator and Connecticut governor. The recommendations of his commission include the following:
- Nationwide baseline tracking of asthma and chronic respiratory
diseases, birth defects, developmental disorders, cancers, and
neurological diseases (such as Alzheimer’s, multiple
sclerosis, and Parkinson’s) and tracking priority exposures to
carcinogens like polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxin, heavy metals
such as mercury and lead, pesticides, and water and air
contaminants
- Monitoring immediate health crises such as heavy metal and pesticide poisonings to serve as an early warning system
- Establishing 20 state pilot tracking programs to address regional environmental health concerns
- Developing federal, state, and local rapid response capability to investigate clusters, outbreaks, and emerging threats
- Supporting community interests and scientific research to further health tracking efforts
- Monitoring immediate health crises such as heavy metal and pesticide poisonings to serve as an early warning system
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