Zombie Dogs

Zombie Dogs Research in Safar Center. 

Today's radar ping was a grueling line in an otherwise unrelated article on a comedy website, citing research involving the creation of "zombie dogs." The research, which is completely real, is being carried out by scientists at the Suffer Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh, who want to know whether to treat these injuries by reducing the metabolic status of mammals with traumatic injuries. It can help . The original article, as well as most of the news about it, dates from the end of 2005. The media briefly got excited about being able to use zombie dogs in professional interactions, but, because the science was (theoretically) valid and ( most) was fine to bring the reunited dogs back to life. Eventually everyone got a gallows and forgot about the zombie dogs.

Except, of course, the travel center. Research is still being done on the movement of animals (and humans) on the brink of death: intravenous hydrogen sulfide with a chilling title in a nearly ten-year-old article does not induce hypothermia or hemorrhagic shock in pigs and MRI. Improves survival of. Imaging evaluation of regional cerebral blood flow after cardiac arrest due to suffocation in immature mice. Reading their list of posts tells you that they are doing relevant experiments on humans when they can, but because no human capable of giving informed consent ever offers to suffer serious brain injury. Come on, when researchers can't find human models, they use mice, rats, dogs, pigs, and monkeys.

On the one hand, I fully understand the desire to find new ways to heal people who have suffered serious harm. Much of this research, obviously supporting our troops is a big goal and as you can see from the archives of the post, there is a lot of research going on to help children. I have absolutely nothing against these goals, and the scientific part of me fully understands, to help some people who really need it, sometimes we have to do things that seem impossible to impossible. Hey? On the other hand, each of these experiments begins, essentially, by killing a dozen (unconscious) mice in the head to induce brain injury, or essentially stopping many (even unconscious) pigs from blood. Because pigs are motivated by cardiac arrest. (If you want to repair a traumatic injury, the first step in your experimental protocol is to create a traumatic injury.)

There is something about this that, to me, is accidentally twisted, but damn if I know the immediate solution. The research would be delayed using only human subjects revealed by random occasions, and if my son was hit by a car, I know I'd like to know how the whole research sewed up my baby's head. Do; On the other hand, if I was hit by a car, do I want to know that 2000 mice died so they could sew my head up? 20,000? Is there a minimum or maximum number of mice (/ pigs / dogs / monkeys) of my life value? I know it's worth a lot to me, but am I the ruling authority here? Temporarily, am I worth more or less than a rat? Ten mice? My contribution to society worth 2,000 lives rotting in a small plastic tub in a research lab? Would I like to meet those mice? Explain this to them. Would I like to explain it to the pigs? dogs?

There is no solution here, sadly, just a note to the world that these things are still happening. I don't know how to get it right, but somewhere this went very wrong.

Apparently, American scientists have found a way to repatriate dogs that have been clinically dead for three hours, a procedure for future human trials.

A new scientific approach was tested at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in Pittsburgh, which drains some of the animal's blood down the drains and replaces it with an ice-cold saline solution. Technically, the dog is considered dead with no heartbeat or brain waves; then three hours later, he is revived with a blood transfusion and an electric shock. The process, called "delayed rejuvenation suspended animation," is designed to ultimately help and resuscitate victims of emergencies such as war or car accidents who have otherwise experienced a fatal hemorrhage. .

But the animal rights community must have been bleeding from the Safar Center trials. Last week, it issued a statement clarifying its research strategy and outlining adherence to standards for the ethical treatment of animals.