WORTHY RESEARCHIn his interview with Liz Pelly ("PETA on Primates," Back Talk, August 5), PETA's Justin Goodman mixes up a stew of half-truths and misstatements and then slops the results all over biomedical research with animals. His goal is not to enlighten but to confuse.
Goodman says he has tried to get in touch with Harvard and MIT but no one will talk to him. Is he surprised? Does he expect to convince actual Nobel laureates that they don't know their science? He is irked that he cannot review their facilities. And yet inspectors from USDA, state agencies, and accrediting organizations get access. Maybe working for PETA does not qualify him to go into labs just because he wants to.
He states that 100 million animals are used in biomedical research in the United States and only about one million are covered by the Animal Welfare Act. There's almost a grain of truth there. But he also says that the vast majority of research in the US is publicly funded. What he slyly omits is that federal rules require all publicly funded researchers to follow the AWA rules even for non-covered species. So in his own words, the "overwhelming majority" of animals are treated just like the covered animals.
Goodman says that profit is the main motive for animal research. It actually turns out to be rather expensive to do animal research: organizations invest those funds because it is a valid, crucial component in preclinical research, essential to lifesaving outcomes.
He claims that non-human primate research has led to HIV drugs that were safe and effective in monkeys but that failed Phase 1 human trials. He forgets that animal research screened out hundreds, or maybe thousands, of compounds before those trials. If he is trying to suggest that animal research has somehow impeded HIV drugs, he has the story backward — it has made the search more efficient.
ALAN DITTRICH
MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH
NORTH CHELMSFORD
Related:
Letters to the Boston editors, August 26, 2011, A jolly good biomass mess, PETA on primates, More 
- Letters to the Boston editors, August 26, 2011
The use of the term "minority" is outdated and now a bit offensive.
- A jolly good biomass mess
This is corporate pork on steroids, for energy we don't even need.
- PETA on primates
We spoke with Justin Goodman, associate director of PETA's laboratory investigations, about the use of primates for experimentation in schools and labs around Boston, the US, and the world.
- Carry on
I wanted to tell you how much I admired your cover article in the October 21 Boston Phoenix ("Voices Carry").
- Whoop whoop
WhooZat JuggaloZ are busy organizing a local Occupy Juggalos movement in the 315 of Watertown, NY, and we have to come back to catch up on all the articles of interest we scoop throughout the day and read them.
- Art appreciation
The recent Phoenix editorial on state-government funding for arts and culture highlighted many of the challenges we face as we try to meet our aspirations as a community amidst a very difficult economic environment.
- Letters to the Portland Editor: July 10, 2009
A recent EqualityMaine campaign letter claimed that gay marriage is "the fight for our lives." I wonder whose lives they are talking about, when AIDS service organizations and community health/reproductive clinics across the state have been tightening their belts and desperately trying to crunch numbers.
- How's Obama doing?
Politics, an old cliché holds, is the art of the possible. Achieving the possible is a matter of power. And in a media-saturated democracy, power flows to those with good poll numbers.
- Sympathy for Palin, advice for Gates
I found your article on Sarah Palin ("Sarah, Inc." July 17) to be surprisingly informative and balanced. Usually when there are media articles about Palin, they are loaded with personal attacks against both her and her daughters — something we Republicans call "PDS," or Palin Derangement Syndrome.
- Letters to the Portland Editor - August 14, 2009
Letters to the editor
- Letters to the Portland Editor: August 21, 2009
Regarding Lance Tapley's latest effort on the Maine State Prison Board of Visitors (see "Secret, Unaccountable, and Co-opted," August 14), what he sometimes refers to as advocacy journalism might be more appropriately termed agenda journalism.
- Less
Topics:
Letters
, PETA, letters, editorial, More
, PETA, letters, editorial, boston phoenix letters, Justin Goodman, Less
