These Guinea Pigs Really Are Guinea Pigs
Although hearing loss researchers have ample opportunities to test
protective approaches in at-risk populations (factory workers, for
example), some scientists continue to subject animals to painful
experiments. Guinea pigs are the most often used species, then cats,
then monkeys. Unlike human patients, these animals can’t report
benefits to the researchers.
Source: “Beyond
Animal Research,” January 2005
Bacteria Bites Back…Again
 Hard-to-treat
urinary tract infections might have a dietary link. Researchers
at the University of California—Berkeley suspect that E. coli
from infected cows and other farmed animals may be causing antibiotic-resistant
UTIs. The growing problem of antibiotic resistance is caused in
part by widespread use of antibiotics in factory farms and on crowded
feedlots; the drugs are used to speed the animals’ growth
and to prevent infection.
Source: Science News Online, Week of January 15,
2005
 In
the Name of Science
After spending two weeks on the Atkins diet in a research
project funded by the British Heart Foundation, a team of scientists
from Oxford University reported that half the team felt “really
terrible.” Lead researcher and cardiologist Michaela Sheuermann-Freestone,
M.D., suffered an arrhythmia and warned of the diet’s long-term
effects.
Source: Oxford Student, January 20, 2005; and Cherwell
Online, January 21, 2005
 Give
Me Your Chocolate and No One Will Get Hurt
Researcher Gene-Jack Wang, M.D., is studying whether overeaters,
like drug addicts, suffer from a shortage of dopamine receptors.
Since Dr. Wang’s previous research proved that food affects
the release of dopamine in the brain, his new research could explain
why overeaters go back for seconds.
Source: http://www.nida.nih.gov/whatsnew/meetings/apa/obesity.html#wang
EPA Gives away the Farm
The Environmental Protection Agency is pushing a new program that
is supposed to help reduce factory farm pollution, but Environmental
Defense calls it a “sweetheart deal” for polluters.
Livestock producers worried about violating Clean Air Act emission
standards can receive a blanket waiver simply by making small payments
to an EPA fund set up to develop monitoring methods.
Source: Environmental Defense, news release, January 21, 2005
New Reason to Go Vegetarian
A Thai-language newspaper reports that the “gruesome task
of retrieving the bodies of tsunami victims has turned many Thai
rescue workers vegetarian.” One worker explained that vegetarian
food made his team’s job easier. A survivor was quoted as
saying that the smell of death made her lose her taste for meat.
Source: Reuters, January 14, 2005
 Butcher,
Baker, Toxicologist?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has added three
compounds found in grilled meats and eggs to its growing list of
cancer-causing agents. The heterocyclic amines MeIQ, MeIQx, and
PhIP form when meat and eggs are grilled or cooked at high temperatures.
They are also present in cigarette smoke.
Source: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,
news release, January 31, 2005
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