[naturenews] from [nature.com]
[naturenews]
Published online 21 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.929
News: Q&A
The once-quiet scientist
A former animal researcher decides to speak out.
By Richard Monastersky
In 2006, concern over the welfare of his family caused Dario Ringach to stop using animals in his research. A neuroscientist at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), Ringach had been receiving threats from animal-rights extremists over his experiments involving primates. Then, an undetonated firebomb was left next door to the house of a colleague, apparently because the activists had the wrong address.
After three years of keeping a low profile, Ringach is now trying to raise public support for the use of animals in research. This month, he published a commentary on the subject in the Journal of Neuroscience1 and a letter to the editor in the Journal of Neurophysiology2 in which he calls on scientists to publicly support such research. His coauthor on both was David Jentsch, a neuropsychopharmacologist at UCLA whose work involves primates and whose car was firebombed earlier this year. Nature spoke with Ringach about his concerns.
You say that animal-rights extremists are winning. Why?
You can see this in a recent Pew research survey on public opinion on science. Only 52% of the broad public supports biomedical research involving animals. And over the years, this has consistently declined.
What is behind this trend?
A lot of organizations at different levels have had a tremendous impact — from work that the Humane Society of the United States [based in Washington DC] has been doing in exposing failures in the food industry, to work that PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, based in London] is doing in trying to reach out to children very early.
Hollywood and many celebrities support their causes, at the same time as they support biomedical research. But they do not appear in public saying we need to support biomedical research and the use of animals.
What can scientists do to combat this trend?
They should explain to the public why their work is important, what kind of procedures we take to minimize the suffering of animals in the lab, and what the consequence is of stopping the use of animals in research.
I think it is a good idea to invite the public into the lab to show what's going on. Over the years, universities have been reluctant to open their labs, but that has created a lot of suspicion. I think that's wrong.
Universities and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been criticized for not doing enough to protect researchers. What should they be doing?
They should offer the protection that investigators and their families need to do their research. The NIH should probably demand that institutions that accept their grants must be aware of this situation and that they might need to provide security for particular types of researchers.
Both institutions and the NIH should also engage with the public and not just leave it to the investigators.
After being quiet for so long, what made you speak up?
What's changed is I think we're getting awfully close to the situation where somebody may be killed. There is a general trend toward polarization in our society, from the debates on health care to abortion; we had an abortion doctor killed not too long ago. I think all these events are catalysing the possibility that a scientist might be killed.
The situation has changed a lot since my decision. At the time, it was me and a handful of investigators facing these groups alone. Things have changed, and universities such as UCLA are doing more to make sure these investigators are safe.
The take-home message from my own personal experience is: don't leave people alone to confront these issues. They need the support of their institutions and their colleagues. I hope that nobody else will have to face this decision. That's why I have decided to speak up.
I thought I had to start speaking up in the hope that first, these attacks will stop, and second, that the public will understand we are open to dialogue but we can only do so in an environment where we know that we will not be attacked when we go back home.
References
1. Ringach, D. L. & Jentsch, J. D. J. Neurosci. 29, 11417-11418 (202. 09).
Ringach, D. L. & Jentsch, J. D. J. Neurophysiol. 102, 2007 (2009).
[naturenews]
Published online 21 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.932
News
Nuclear test ban back on the table
United States delegation to international summit reignites hope.
By Geoff Brumfiel
For the first time in a decade, a worldwide ban on nuclear testing could be within reach. The combination of a strong commitment from US President Barack Obama, along with new data on nuclear materials and the successful completion of a global nuclear-monitoring network, means that momentum is once again swinging in favour of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would ban all nuclear explosions for military or civilian purposes.
At the end of this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a delegation to the United Nations in New York City to discuss the treaty. The delegation will be the first from the United States in a decade, and scientists and other non-proliferation advocates hope that it will reinvigorate the negotiation process. "This will be a different kind of event with the [United States] back at the table," says Oliver Meier, a Berlin-based representative of the Arms Control Association, a non-profit group that provides analysis of arms-control measures. "I think we're as close to entry into force as we've ever been."
Described by former US president Bill Clinton as the "the longest sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control", the CTBT is seen as the next major step in reducing the threat from nuclear weapons. Proponents argue that a global ban on nuclear testing will prevent nations from obtaining nuclear capabilities and halt the further development of warheads in those countries that have them. A total of 149 nations have already ratified the treaty, but several countries — including China, Israel, Iran, North Korea and the United States — are holding out. Until these and other key states ratify the pact, it is not binding.
Key tests
The United States is seen as a linchpin in the process, according to Meier; if it ratifies the CTBT, then other nations such as China, India and Pakistan may feel more pressure to do so. Clinton signed the treaty in 1996, but three years later, it fell well short of the 67 votes needed to ratify it in the Senate. The failure was in large part political, according to Jenifer Mackby, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington DC. Clinton was embroiled in a scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and opponents including Senators Jon Kyl (Republican, Arizona) and Trent Lott (Republican, Mississippi) spread doubt about whether the treaty would work.
{“I think we're as close to entry into force as we've ever been.”
Oliver Meier
Arms Control Association}
Politics may have felled the treaty, but the arguments of opponents were technical. Doubters warned that the United States might need to return to nuclear testing in order to verify its ageing stockpile of weapons. They also claimed that it would be possible for nations to cheat by hiding the seismic signatures of a nuclear blast from a global monitoring network. At the time, scientists had little more than calculations to rebut these criticisms: a voluntary moratorium on US nuclear testing was only seven years old, and a global monitoring network had not yet been built.
"The process of monitoring has notably improved in the past ten years," says Paul G. Richards, a seismologist at Columbia University in New York, who helped carry out a review of the CTBT monitoring network for the US National Academy of Sciences in 2002. Perhaps most importantly, this network successfully detected two small nuclear tests from North Korea that occurred in October 2006 and in May of this year. In both cases, the seismic network picked up evidence of the explosion within minutes.
Ageing bombs
The scientific understanding of the US nuclear stockpile has also improved dramatically. Studies of ageing nuclear materials and computer simulations have shown that the stockpile is reliable and can remain so for decades to come without testing, according to Sidney Drell, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center of the National Accelerator Laboratory in California.
That doesn't mean that technical objections won't be raised this time around. Some US weapons scientists are already objecting to the treaty, warning that it could hurt the country's nuclear readiness in the long term. "Scientists are going to do what scientists do, they're going to raise their own individual concerns, and I welcome that," says Thomas D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the independent agency that oversees the US nuclear stockpile.
D'Agostino says that the Obama administration recently asked the National Academy of Sciences to update its largely positive 2002 assessment of the CTBT (see 'Test-ban treaty 'scientifically sound''). That assessment should be ready early next year, when the Senate debate on the treaty is expected to heat up.
[naturenews]
Published online 21 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.929
News: Q&A
The once-quiet scientist
A former animal researcher decides to speak out.
By Richard Monastersky
In 2006, concern over the welfare of his family caused Dario Ringach to stop using animals in his research. A neuroscientist at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), Ringach had been receiving threats from animal-rights extremists over his experiments involving primates. Then, an undetonated firebomb was left next door to the house of a colleague, apparently because the activists had the wrong address.
After three years of keeping a low profile, Ringach is now trying to raise public support for the use of animals in research. This month, he published a commentary on the subject in the Journal of Neuroscience1 and a letter to the editor in the Journal of Neurophysiology2 in which he calls on scientists to publicly support such research. His coauthor on both was David Jentsch, a neuropsychopharmacologist at UCLA whose work involves primates and whose car was firebombed earlier this year. Nature spoke with Ringach about his concerns.
You say that animal-rights extremists are winning. Why?
You can see this in a recent Pew research survey on public opinion on science. Only 52% of the broad public supports biomedical research involving animals. And over the years, this has consistently declined.
What is behind this trend?
A lot of organizations at different levels have had a tremendous impact — from work that the Humane Society of the United States [based in Washington DC] has been doing in exposing failures in the food industry, to work that PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, based in London] is doing in trying to reach out to children very early.
Hollywood and many celebrities support their causes, at the same time as they support biomedical research. But they do not appear in public saying we need to support biomedical research and the use of animals.
What can scientists do to combat this trend?
They should explain to the public why their work is important, what kind of procedures we take to minimize the suffering of animals in the lab, and what the consequence is of stopping the use of animals in research.
I think it is a good idea to invite the public into the lab to show what's going on. Over the years, universities have been reluctant to open their labs, but that has created a lot of suspicion. I think that's wrong.
Universities and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been criticized for not doing enough to protect researchers. What should they be doing?
They should offer the protection that investigators and their families need to do their research. The NIH should probably demand that institutions that accept their grants must be aware of this situation and that they might need to provide security for particular types of researchers.
Both institutions and the NIH should also engage with the public and not just leave it to the investigators.
After being quiet for so long, what made you speak up?
What's changed is I think we're getting awfully close to the situation where somebody may be killed. There is a general trend toward polarization in our society, from the debates on health care to abortion; we had an abortion doctor killed not too long ago. I think all these events are catalysing the possibility that a scientist might be killed.
The situation has changed a lot since my decision. At the time, it was me and a handful of investigators facing these groups alone. Things have changed, and universities such as UCLA are doing more to make sure these investigators are safe.
The take-home message from my own personal experience is: don't leave people alone to confront these issues. They need the support of their institutions and their colleagues. I hope that nobody else will have to face this decision. That's why I have decided to speak up.
I thought I had to start speaking up in the hope that first, these attacks will stop, and second, that the public will understand we are open to dialogue but we can only do so in an environment where we know that we will not be attacked when we go back home.
References
1. Ringach, D. L. & Jentsch, J. D. J. Neurosci. 29, 11417-11418 (202. 09).
Ringach, D. L. & Jentsch, J. D. J. Neurophysiol. 102, 2007 (2009).
[naturenews]
Published online 21 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.932
News
Nuclear test ban back on the table
United States delegation to international summit reignites hope.
By Geoff Brumfiel
For the first time in a decade, a worldwide ban on nuclear testing could be within reach. The combination of a strong commitment from US President Barack Obama, along with new data on nuclear materials and the successful completion of a global nuclear-monitoring network, means that momentum is once again swinging in favour of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would ban all nuclear explosions for military or civilian purposes.
At the end of this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a delegation to the United Nations in New York City to discuss the treaty. The delegation will be the first from the United States in a decade, and scientists and other non-proliferation advocates hope that it will reinvigorate the negotiation process. "This will be a different kind of event with the [United States] back at the table," says Oliver Meier, a Berlin-based representative of the Arms Control Association, a non-profit group that provides analysis of arms-control measures. "I think we're as close to entry into force as we've ever been."
Described by former US president Bill Clinton as the "the longest sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control", the CTBT is seen as the next major step in reducing the threat from nuclear weapons. Proponents argue that a global ban on nuclear testing will prevent nations from obtaining nuclear capabilities and halt the further development of warheads in those countries that have them. A total of 149 nations have already ratified the treaty, but several countries — including China, Israel, Iran, North Korea and the United States — are holding out. Until these and other key states ratify the pact, it is not binding.
Key tests
The United States is seen as a linchpin in the process, according to Meier; if it ratifies the CTBT, then other nations such as China, India and Pakistan may feel more pressure to do so. Clinton signed the treaty in 1996, but three years later, it fell well short of the 67 votes needed to ratify it in the Senate. The failure was in large part political, according to Jenifer Mackby, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington DC. Clinton was embroiled in a scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and opponents including Senators Jon Kyl (Republican, Arizona) and Trent Lott (Republican, Mississippi) spread doubt about whether the treaty would work.
{“I think we're as close to entry into force as we've ever been.”
Oliver Meier
Arms Control Association}
Politics may have felled the treaty, but the arguments of opponents were technical. Doubters warned that the United States might need to return to nuclear testing in order to verify its ageing stockpile of weapons. They also claimed that it would be possible for nations to cheat by hiding the seismic signatures of a nuclear blast from a global monitoring network. At the time, scientists had little more than calculations to rebut these criticisms: a voluntary moratorium on US nuclear testing was only seven years old, and a global monitoring network had not yet been built.
"The process of monitoring has notably improved in the past ten years," says Paul G. Richards, a seismologist at Columbia University in New York, who helped carry out a review of the CTBT monitoring network for the US National Academy of Sciences in 2002. Perhaps most importantly, this network successfully detected two small nuclear tests from North Korea that occurred in October 2006 and in May of this year. In both cases, the seismic network picked up evidence of the explosion within minutes.
Ageing bombs
The scientific understanding of the US nuclear stockpile has also improved dramatically. Studies of ageing nuclear materials and computer simulations have shown that the stockpile is reliable and can remain so for decades to come without testing, according to Sidney Drell, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center of the National Accelerator Laboratory in California.
That doesn't mean that technical objections won't be raised this time around. Some US weapons scientists are already objecting to the treaty, warning that it could hurt the country's nuclear readiness in the long term. "Scientists are going to do what scientists do, they're going to raise their own individual concerns, and I welcome that," says Thomas D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the independent agency that oversees the US nuclear stockpile.
D'Agostino says that the Obama administration recently asked the National Academy of Sciences to update its largely positive 2002 assessment of the CTBT (see 'Test-ban treaty 'scientifically sound''). That assessment should be ready early next year, when the Senate debate on the treaty is expected to heat up.
※コメント投稿者のブログIDはブログ作成者のみに通知されます