On the use of NHP's in research: People who do the research do not like to hurt animals, probably as much as do members of PETA. The reality is that for many branches of research, there is no choice but to use a primate model, as other species (mice, rabbits, pigs) don't work. Decades ago, I assisted in renal transplants in cynomolgus monkeys, part of the development of new methods for immunosuppression (hugely important in the stream of work that resulted in immunomodulation, such as Cellcept). Working with cynos is actually somewhat dangerous at times, and it is certainly unpleasant for all involved. These days, the IRB rules and protections for all animals are hugely strict in the US. Primate research is hugely expensive and time consuming, so it is done only for really necessary reasons. For RFK and his minions to shutter primate research is really part of a larger huge misunderstanding leading to destruction of the preventive and public health/anti-communicable diseases system in the US. People can debate the development of whole classes of medications, especially biologicals that our system increasingly cannot afford. The labs that research the wholesale killers, viruses, toxins, bacteria like tuberculosis, parasites like schistosomiasis, are the bulwark that keeps our country safe. I am continually amazed that covid seems not to have taught the likes of Trump and RFK about the realities of death and social destruction that will occur with epidemics.
It is beyond bizarre that "driven by profit" has become a slur on the right, but here it is, with respect to the breeding of monkeys. And, of course, that is one of the bizarre slams against COVID and other vaccines: that they are made "for profit" by drug companies. How shocking! The radical irrationality of the right must at some point throw off the business and tech bro branches of the Republican Party, if not its controlling MAGA faction.
Either we humans are cognitively and morally superior to monkeys, in which case we should be able to find ways to test new medicines/therapies without torturing others, or we are equal to all sentient beings, in which case it is grotesque to torture others.
I think what makes me nauseous is that sentient creatures are treated like inventory in a car yard, to be traded and profited from while the animals are caged and cut and poisoned.
What is especially disturbing is how we in the west are so upset about dogs and cats being treated this way but our concern evaporates when it is other animals that are treated in this manner.
I understand the importance of trials for human safety but to argue that there are too many rules protecting the animals welfare is wrong
"...the real possibility of a historic European surrender." Trump has made it clear that he views NATO as it is as a bad partnership where the partners aren't making money for the US even as they aspire to make real policy. A restructuring of NATO as an organization where the US gives orders and the NATO members obey no matter what seems to be exactly the sort of NATO Trump wants.
I wonder if the Capucin monkeys will get one as well. Laboratory animals don't have it easy, very true, but I find it hypocritical all the bruhaha about the issue of lab monkeys when with slaughter animals by millions every day to eat them...
I am still puzzled how very, very smart people like Professor Tooze can be sooo stupid at times. The MAGA movement, a Frankenstein Monster?! I think the "monstruosity" aspect can be applied to the rampant neoliberalism and greed that caused the birth of this movement which started after the great financial crisis if I remember correctly. And the stopping of illegal immigrants and eviction of those already in the country is not a heinous act. It can be tragic for the many that tried to find a place and work honestly. It is made heinouse by the way it is imposed. And the hole purpose? Hitting two birds with a stone: political - pacifiying the base & economic - scaring the illegals who hide and leave and if they want to return will be under a visa program that will make them indentured workers with no rights: no right to associate and demand better working conditions and wages...
MAGA seems to be nationalistic, populist (left on economic issues and right on social issues) and non-interventionist (including economic aid) when it comes to foreign affairs. And would like to have their jobs back, thank you very much as well as a manageable cost of living while the government keeps corporations in check. Am I wrong with this assessment? I am not. So why is this movement a monstruosity in the eyes of Prof Tooze? Likely because he rubs shoulders with the wrong crowd when he visits the US... And because MAGA supports Trump. Why isn't believable that Trump conned them very badly?
As for Greenland and Europe. In 2016, Cameron Leckie, an active officer with the Australian Military Forces, has submitted the following article for publication to various outlets in Australia: https://substack.com/home/post/p-184066105 titled "The Most Dangerous Nation in the World". But nobody published it because it was deemed to controversial.
It is clear to everyone that didn't get the Snow Queen's magic mirror's shards in their eyes (Col. Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to the former US Foreign Secretary Colin Powell has disclosed that after the 2003 fiasco with the Iraqi invasion, when the US did not get full support from most of the western allies, the US has invested untold billions in coopting the political elites of these countries, by hook or by crook). Of course then that they (the coopted elites) will not see what security entails for Europe: putting the Ukrainian ethnonationalist genie back in a dungeon, and making peace with Russia (which is not expansionist and just wants to develop and improve the lives of its people and be let be - at least for one or two or three generations, to see how that feels, the "gentrification", and the sweet taste of the wealth brought by the Russian natural resources) and turn Russia into a very solid and very predictable, and very reliable security and economic partner against the US monster. Looking back at history, my statements are backed all the way to Peter the Great. With such a backing, Europe can turn its back to the US and clean its act and fix its problems, especially the illegal immigration problem that was 100% caused by the US wars in Western Asia and North Africa. And maybe, maybe also put Israel in its place...
Such an action would definitely cut the Americans to size - unfortunately the wrath would fully fall on Latin America and Canada...
I don't think analyses like this should be taken seriously any more. First of all MAGA doesn't seem to have any real content besides support for Trump. Second, MAGA cannot plausibly be portrayed as economically left. Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. What Trump, who is MAGA, does is, Liberation Day and the One Big Beautiful Bill. No one who pretends this is economically left need be listened to any more, I think.
Liberation Day?! Which only taxed the US consumer? I don't think the base was actually happy about that. Yes, the policy was not of the "left", but this doesn't mean the base liked it, no matter what Trump is saying.
Someone becomes a revolutionary before they adopt an ideology. Maga are revolutionaries who have been captured by a demagogue who uses their support to pilfer from the nation. Some of their complaints are valid, but the results of the movement are incoherent and non-constructive.
they said the same thing about chinese trains 15 years ago. there is nothing inherent about them as a nation that would stop them learning from past mistakes and improving
Decades ago in college we were taught models of cyclical and co-dependent predator prey populations (rabbit and fox). I think I heard these models have been invalidated over the years, but I imagine the „hog cycle“ in monkey prices is inherent, and not simply a function of research activity. No question, though, that Chinese biomedical research has reached a kind of critical mass over the past ten years or so. Seems likely biotech will take a similar path as the green energy transition in the near future.
On the use of NHP's in research: People who do the research do not like to hurt animals, probably as much as do members of PETA. The reality is that for many branches of research, there is no choice but to use a primate model, as other species (mice, rabbits, pigs) don't work. Decades ago, I assisted in renal transplants in cynomolgus monkeys, part of the development of new methods for immunosuppression (hugely important in the stream of work that resulted in immunomodulation, such as Cellcept). Working with cynos is actually somewhat dangerous at times, and it is certainly unpleasant for all involved. These days, the IRB rules and protections for all animals are hugely strict in the US. Primate research is hugely expensive and time consuming, so it is done only for really necessary reasons. For RFK and his minions to shutter primate research is really part of a larger huge misunderstanding leading to destruction of the preventive and public health/anti-communicable diseases system in the US. People can debate the development of whole classes of medications, especially biologicals that our system increasingly cannot afford. The labs that research the wholesale killers, viruses, toxins, bacteria like tuberculosis, parasites like schistosomiasis, are the bulwark that keeps our country safe. I am continually amazed that covid seems not to have taught the likes of Trump and RFK about the realities of death and social destruction that will occur with epidemics.
Don't Kennedy eat meat?
Don't Kennedy eat meat?
Looking at Palestine today, one can rightly concludes that America cares more about animal welfare than it cares about human rights.
It is beyond bizarre that "driven by profit" has become a slur on the right, but here it is, with respect to the breeding of monkeys. And, of course, that is one of the bizarre slams against COVID and other vaccines: that they are made "for profit" by drug companies. How shocking! The radical irrationality of the right must at some point throw off the business and tech bro branches of the Republican Party, if not its controlling MAGA faction.
Either we humans are cognitively and morally superior to monkeys, in which case we should be able to find ways to test new medicines/therapies without torturing others, or we are equal to all sentient beings, in which case it is grotesque to torture others.
I think what makes me nauseous is that sentient creatures are treated like inventory in a car yard, to be traded and profited from while the animals are caged and cut and poisoned.
What is especially disturbing is how we in the west are so upset about dogs and cats being treated this way but our concern evaporates when it is other animals that are treated in this manner.
I understand the importance of trials for human safety but to argue that there are too many rules protecting the animals welfare is wrong
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/10/the-runaway-monkeys-upending-the-animal-rights-movement
Further reading...
Fascinating. Much more enlightening to read about lab monkey prices than trying to get inside the mind of trump. Thank you.
"...the real possibility of a historic European surrender." Trump has made it clear that he views NATO as it is as a bad partnership where the partners aren't making money for the US even as they aspire to make real policy. A restructuring of NATO as an organization where the US gives orders and the NATO members obey no matter what seems to be exactly the sort of NATO Trump wants.
The Soviets made a statue for the lab mouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_laboratory_mouse
I wonder if the Capucin monkeys will get one as well. Laboratory animals don't have it easy, very true, but I find it hypocritical all the bruhaha about the issue of lab monkeys when with slaughter animals by millions every day to eat them...
I am still puzzled how very, very smart people like Professor Tooze can be sooo stupid at times. The MAGA movement, a Frankenstein Monster?! I think the "monstruosity" aspect can be applied to the rampant neoliberalism and greed that caused the birth of this movement which started after the great financial crisis if I remember correctly. And the stopping of illegal immigrants and eviction of those already in the country is not a heinous act. It can be tragic for the many that tried to find a place and work honestly. It is made heinouse by the way it is imposed. And the hole purpose? Hitting two birds with a stone: political - pacifiying the base & economic - scaring the illegals who hide and leave and if they want to return will be under a visa program that will make them indentured workers with no rights: no right to associate and demand better working conditions and wages...
MAGA seems to be nationalistic, populist (left on economic issues and right on social issues) and non-interventionist (including economic aid) when it comes to foreign affairs. And would like to have their jobs back, thank you very much as well as a manageable cost of living while the government keeps corporations in check. Am I wrong with this assessment? I am not. So why is this movement a monstruosity in the eyes of Prof Tooze? Likely because he rubs shoulders with the wrong crowd when he visits the US... And because MAGA supports Trump. Why isn't believable that Trump conned them very badly?
As for Greenland and Europe. In 2016, Cameron Leckie, an active officer with the Australian Military Forces, has submitted the following article for publication to various outlets in Australia: https://substack.com/home/post/p-184066105 titled "The Most Dangerous Nation in the World". But nobody published it because it was deemed to controversial.
It is clear to everyone that didn't get the Snow Queen's magic mirror's shards in their eyes (Col. Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to the former US Foreign Secretary Colin Powell has disclosed that after the 2003 fiasco with the Iraqi invasion, when the US did not get full support from most of the western allies, the US has invested untold billions in coopting the political elites of these countries, by hook or by crook). Of course then that they (the coopted elites) will not see what security entails for Europe: putting the Ukrainian ethnonationalist genie back in a dungeon, and making peace with Russia (which is not expansionist and just wants to develop and improve the lives of its people and be let be - at least for one or two or three generations, to see how that feels, the "gentrification", and the sweet taste of the wealth brought by the Russian natural resources) and turn Russia into a very solid and very predictable, and very reliable security and economic partner against the US monster. Looking back at history, my statements are backed all the way to Peter the Great. With such a backing, Europe can turn its back to the US and clean its act and fix its problems, especially the illegal immigration problem that was 100% caused by the US wars in Western Asia and North Africa. And maybe, maybe also put Israel in its place...
Such an action would definitely cut the Americans to size - unfortunately the wrath would fully fall on Latin America and Canada...
I don't think analyses like this should be taken seriously any more. First of all MAGA doesn't seem to have any real content besides support for Trump. Second, MAGA cannot plausibly be portrayed as economically left. Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. What Trump, who is MAGA, does is, Liberation Day and the One Big Beautiful Bill. No one who pretends this is economically left need be listened to any more, I think.
Liberation Day?! Which only taxed the US consumer? I don't think the base was actually happy about that. Yes, the policy was not of the "left", but this doesn't mean the base liked it, no matter what Trump is saying.
Someone becomes a revolutionary before they adopt an ideology. Maga are revolutionaries who have been captured by a demagogue who uses their support to pilfer from the nation. Some of their complaints are valid, but the results of the movement are incoherent and non-constructive.
Fascinating!
However, Chinese science is notoriously poor quality, with their journals replacing genuine peer review with mass research output count.
they said the same thing about chinese trains 15 years ago. there is nothing inherent about them as a nation that would stop them learning from past mistakes and improving
Poor monkeys. But it is a necessity until we find better ways of testing…
Decades ago in college we were taught models of cyclical and co-dependent predator prey populations (rabbit and fox). I think I heard these models have been invalidated over the years, but I imagine the „hog cycle“ in monkey prices is inherent, and not simply a function of research activity. No question, though, that Chinese biomedical research has reached a kind of critical mass over the past ten years or so. Seems likely biotech will take a similar path as the green energy transition in the near future.
Thanks, interesting topic.
Perhaps retain an article's original paragraph breaks? ...
Fascinating! Thank you!