Weekend notes
Sep. 17th, 2001 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonwiseFirst note: never play the soundtrack to "Chocolat" while you are making sweets or you will want to make every sweet in the whole world. Meanwhile, you make a mess of the kitchen.
Second note: Saturday, I went out to the market to get some light and dark brown sugar and flour. I'd dressed (as usual) like a complete schlepp in jeans, t-shirt, and sandals. The T-shirt was one of my favorites, a green Cook College number from the Animal Science Department that says "We Stand Behind Our Animals" on the front. My cousin bought it for me a few years ago at a fair, and I like it.
So I'm going into the A&P, and a large woman stops me and looks at me with dewy, stricken eyes and says, "What does your shirt mean?" My reaction: "Huh?" After a minute of pointless questioning, she finally gets to her point and says, "Do they do...Animal Testing... there?" I said no, Cook Animal Science doesn't do "animal testing" the way she was undoubtedly thinking of it (I think they research better health care for farm animals and such; it wasn't my department.) The large woman looks relieved and I depart into the grocery store.
While I was carrying my basket of baking supplies all over the store, I got madder and madder at that foolish woman and her judgements. Now, I'm a scientist. NO SCIENTIST likes animal testing. We deplore it. But... one of the first things you learn is that there is NO substitute for a living system. Computer modeling can't even come close. I'll say that there are times when testing on animals is unnecessary, such as for cosmetics - the formulations of eye shadow and lipstick have hardly changed recently and everyone knows not to get soap in your eyes. But when there's a new drug in the pipeline, you haven't got a choice.
Most drugs don't make it to animal trials. The compound has to show significant and outstanding activity in cell trials before it goes to a living system. Animal testing is extremely expensive and difficult, so when a company takes it to mice and rats, the compound had better be good.
Does my large woman friend like having Celebrex or Vioxx for the arthritis in her knees that might have been caused by her largeness? Does she want to have heart medication? Treatment for a stroke? Diabetes? She'd better get used to the idea that lab animals were treated and sacrificed for the cause, because that's the way it happens. There is no other way. And when a compound is not thoroughly tested because people are screaming for it, such as with the Phen-Fen debacle, the consequences can be enormous.
The depth of knee-jerk ignorance and espousing of a cause because it's "cute" or "trendy" makes me ill. The amount of pure and unadulterated misinformation that travels like wildfire because it makes good news or a story to tell or twists the heartstrings is staggering. Urban legend replaces fact, and those of us who do know better are ignored and reviled. Try to tell someone that something isn't true, and watch them sputter.
Third: We did see the family this weekend at an impromptu birthday celebration for my second cousin Matty. Most of the kids were there, and all the cousins that could get there did. That is... except for two who were too damn busy with their golf game to do more than send their son over to my aunt and uncle's to play with his cousins. We just came through a frightening week where we might have very easily lost two members of our family. The party on Sunday was a party for Matt, but it was really an excuse to get the family together to remind ourselves that we're still alive. And to think that it was eschewed for a stupid fucking game where you try to get a little ball into a little hole? Do you think you could put down your clubs and come visit?
Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I got so mad.
We went off to Twin Lights in Atlantic Highlands to see the NY skyline, also. Everyone and their mother was up there having a look. We brought up the binoculars and looked long and hard at the smouldering wreck. You could still see a haze and smoke collecting in the atmosphere over the ruins. Through it was the Empire State Building, restored to its previous prominence as the tallest building in NY. It was sobering and sad.
Too bad none of the capital ships were visible. That would have been worth seeing...
Second note: Saturday, I went out to the market to get some light and dark brown sugar and flour. I'd dressed (as usual) like a complete schlepp in jeans, t-shirt, and sandals. The T-shirt was one of my favorites, a green Cook College number from the Animal Science Department that says "We Stand Behind Our Animals" on the front. My cousin bought it for me a few years ago at a fair, and I like it.
So I'm going into the A&P, and a large woman stops me and looks at me with dewy, stricken eyes and says, "What does your shirt mean?" My reaction: "Huh?" After a minute of pointless questioning, she finally gets to her point and says, "Do they do...Animal Testing... there?" I said no, Cook Animal Science doesn't do "animal testing" the way she was undoubtedly thinking of it (I think they research better health care for farm animals and such; it wasn't my department.) The large woman looks relieved and I depart into the grocery store.
While I was carrying my basket of baking supplies all over the store, I got madder and madder at that foolish woman and her judgements. Now, I'm a scientist. NO SCIENTIST likes animal testing. We deplore it. But... one of the first things you learn is that there is NO substitute for a living system. Computer modeling can't even come close. I'll say that there are times when testing on animals is unnecessary, such as for cosmetics - the formulations of eye shadow and lipstick have hardly changed recently and everyone knows not to get soap in your eyes. But when there's a new drug in the pipeline, you haven't got a choice.
Most drugs don't make it to animal trials. The compound has to show significant and outstanding activity in cell trials before it goes to a living system. Animal testing is extremely expensive and difficult, so when a company takes it to mice and rats, the compound had better be good.
Does my large woman friend like having Celebrex or Vioxx for the arthritis in her knees that might have been caused by her largeness? Does she want to have heart medication? Treatment for a stroke? Diabetes? She'd better get used to the idea that lab animals were treated and sacrificed for the cause, because that's the way it happens. There is no other way. And when a compound is not thoroughly tested because people are screaming for it, such as with the Phen-Fen debacle, the consequences can be enormous.
The depth of knee-jerk ignorance and espousing of a cause because it's "cute" or "trendy" makes me ill. The amount of pure and unadulterated misinformation that travels like wildfire because it makes good news or a story to tell or twists the heartstrings is staggering. Urban legend replaces fact, and those of us who do know better are ignored and reviled. Try to tell someone that something isn't true, and watch them sputter.
Third: We did see the family this weekend at an impromptu birthday celebration for my second cousin Matty. Most of the kids were there, and all the cousins that could get there did. That is... except for two who were too damn busy with their golf game to do more than send their son over to my aunt and uncle's to play with his cousins. We just came through a frightening week where we might have very easily lost two members of our family. The party on Sunday was a party for Matt, but it was really an excuse to get the family together to remind ourselves that we're still alive. And to think that it was eschewed for a stupid fucking game where you try to get a little ball into a little hole? Do you think you could put down your clubs and come visit?
Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I got so mad.
We went off to Twin Lights in Atlantic Highlands to see the NY skyline, also. Everyone and their mother was up there having a look. We brought up the binoculars and looked long and hard at the smouldering wreck. You could still see a haze and smoke collecting in the atmosphere over the ruins. Through it was the Empire State Building, restored to its previous prominence as the tallest building in NY. It was sobering and sad.
Too bad none of the capital ships were visible. That would have been worth seeing...
