Laudenslager's entire reason for existing seems to be to abuse animals for profit. His pretending that these worthless and abusive experiments are somehow to better mankind is ludicrous and painfully transparent. The only way to make a man without a conscience in an industry without a conscience stop his psychotic experiments on helpless animals is to have the very people who give him money to do these things take it away. That's you and me in our tax dollars and the CU students in their bloated, exceedingly high tuition costs. Please stand up and make this stop.
November, 2004
A NEW EXPERIMENT INVOLVING THE MONKEYS AT CU IS NOW UNDERWAY
Although we previously reported that none of the CU 34 monkeys was being used
in experiments, it was recently learned that Mark Laudenslager has begun yet
another questionable project. He will be studying mother monkeys and their babies
to determine which mothers give the best care. The babies will later be presented
with alcohol to determine if those with less attentive mothers are prone to
ingest more alcohol.
Laudenslager's abstract states, "Differences in early maternal care are
suggested as one basis for differences in relative risk for consuming higher
quantities of ethanol. . . We hypothesize that monkeys experiencing poor quality
maternal care during development will demonstrate increased risk for the _expression
of aggressive and impulsive behavior patterns as adolescents. We hypothesize
that these behavior patterns will be present in monkeys that voluntarily consume
greater quantities of ethanol."
Questions that immediately come to mind:
Can bonnet macaque monkeys in the controlled, unnatural environment of a cage
be compared to adolescent humans who are subjected to a myriad of varying circumstances
in their lives, including peer pressure and other social pressures to drink?
How will this save human lives?
Why are clinical studies involving humans not conducted to get realistic statistics?
Why was this experiment approved by the University of Colorado and funded by
the National Institutes of Health?
The entire abstract of this 5-year experiment follows:
Project Title: Early experience and low 5-HT markers in alcohol abuseAbstract:
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescents of middle school and high school
age are at high risk for alcohol consumption. Nonhuman primates living in social
groups provide an excellent model for the study of social influences on biobehavioral
development in general and alcohol abuse problem more specifically. The National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) is interested in encouraging
investigators with expertise in primate developmental biology and behavior to
seek collaborations with established alcohol researchers to elucidate the neurobiological
mechanisms of adolescent alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Herein we submit a revision
of a model of biobehavioral development that focuses on the origins of individual
differences in voluntary alcohol consumption in young socially housed bonnet
macaque monkeys. Differences in early maternal care are suggested as one basis
for differences in relative risk for consuming higher quantities of ethanol.
Biomarkers of the activity of the serotonergic system (CSF 5HIAA and the prolactin
response to fenfluramine) will be evaluated. Subjects will be selected on the
basis of a polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter
protein gene that modulates serotonergic activity. Maternal care will be determined
through observation of mother infant interactions during early development in
social group reared macaque monkeys. We hypothesize that monkeys experiencing
poor quality maternal care during development will demonstrate increased risk
for the _expression of aggressive and impulsive behavior patterns as adolescents.
We hypothesize that these behavior patterns will be present in monkeys that
voluntarily consume greater quantities of ethanol. Low serotonin will have an
additive effect with low quality maternal care on levels of aggression, impulsivity,
and alcohol consumption. We predict that adolescent monkeys evidencing higher
aggressive and impulsive behavior patterns and low serotonin will show 1) increased
rates of ethanol consumption under social conditions, 2) a greater increase
in ethanol intake in response to a stressor, 3) higher probability that ethanol
consumption will be associated with increased aggression when housed socially,
and 4) attenuated soporific effects. Finally, involvement of the HPA axis in
these relationships will be investigated as an exploratory goal.