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“Research Ethics Reimagined” is a podcast created by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R), hosted by Ivy R. Tillman, PRIM&R's executive director. Here, we talk with scientists, researchers, bioethicists and some of the leading minds exploring new frontiers of science. This season, we are going examine research ethics in the 21st century -- and learn why it matters to you.
Welcome to Research Ethics Reimagined, a podcast created by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research or PRIMR. Here, we talk with scientists, researchers, bioethicists, and some of leading minds exploring the new frontiers of science. Join us to examine research ethics in the 21st century and learn why it matters to you. I'm your host, Ivy Thalmann. Let's dive in.
Ivy:Today, I'm very pleased to have with me doctor Allison Bennett, who is the professor and chair of the department of psychology at the University of Wisconsin. Throughout her career, doctor Bennett has focused on answering a central question, how aspects of physical and social environments affect biobehavioral development. Doctor Bennett describes her work as centering on how the interplay between early environments, experiences, and genes contribute to individual variation in psychological and physical health across the lifespan. She delivered a remarkable keynote address during PREMIER 23, our annual conference, which was held most recently in Washington DC. She spoke about the essential role nonhuman animal research and testing plays in scientific and medical advances and how our collective need to make those contributions clear to the public.
Ivy:Thanks again, Allison, for speaking with us all in December and for being with us today.
Allyson:Thank you, Ivy. It's absolutely my pleasure to speak with you today and to have joined the conference.
Ivy:So we'll get started. And before we do kinda dive into some of the the remarks from the conference, I wanted to start with your journey into this work. So, you know, what fascinated you about the work that you do, and how did you get started?
Allyson:I began research as an undergraduate psychology student, much like the students that I teach here at UW Madison. My story goes back, like many of my current students, to my undergraduate college research where I was interested in learning more about how individuals vary in their development. They vary in their behavior. They vary in their psychology. And really wanting to know what kinds of factors make that happen.
Allyson:So how do our experiences and our genes make for that kind of individual variation across the lifespan?
Ivy:During your remarks at PREMIER 23, you spoke about how too often research conducted with nonhuman animals is essentially invisible, that the vast majority of people do not know that major medical advances were only made possible through research with nonhuman animals, including insulin, the COVID 19 vaccine, polio vaccine, HIV, AIDS, spinal cord injury, and mental health research, which revealed the biochemical basis of psychosis. Why do you think so few people understand the value and necessity of scientific work of nonhuman animals?
Allyson:I think that is a question that we could apply to many technological, scientific, and other advances that benefit us. So we have cell phones. Do we know how they work? Do we know what it took to get to that technology? GPS would be the same kind of example.
Allyson:I think many times we benefit from and take for granted advances that took decades or a 100 years for people to put together, but we don't really know how that happened. I think in the case of animal research and medical advances, the problem can become that if people don't know what kind of work, what kinds of scientific discoveries it took to get there. So it's about being able to understand how anything we benefit from, any advance that we have, our cars, our cell phones, our computers actually work. In the case of animal research, we're often not talking about that. We're not connecting the dots.
Allyson:We're not saying, hey. The reason we know about the role of insulin in diabetes is somebody had to discover that. Somebody had to piece it together. Someone had to understand how hormones in the body contribute to our health. Those things weren't known.
Allyson:And we're now a 100 years away from them being discovered. So why would people necessarily know that at this point? If our voices aren't there telling the story, connecting the dots, and showing how future advances will also depend on careful scientific research conducted now.
Ivy:Yeah. That makes sense. And it's interesting because we actually had a conversation during our staff meeting today about this, and we were, considering it in the context of xenotransplantation. Right? So then we we began a discussion around, like, when is the best time to introduce these concepts?
Ivy:Is it at the k through 12 level? Is it college? Is it within the public discourse? Like, what are your thoughts around that? Where do we begin to help with connecting the dots of how of discovery?
Allyson:I see it at the very beginning. So as a classroom teacher, we're teaching about how science works. If we have a question, how do we go about finding the answer? What kinds of research do we do? What does it involve?
Allyson:What is the scientific process itself? And that that essentially begins in k through 12. I think treating biomedical or behavioral or animal research is something separate from the entire scientific process would be weird. So beginning very early on. And if you think about it, so my area of work is comparative and developmental psychobiology.
Allyson:So in my field, people have compared different animals and their behavior for well over a 100 years. We can easily see when we look at kids going to the zoo, kids interacting with their own animals, that observation of those animals provokes questions and curiosity. That's the scientific process. So how would we know whether our dog recognizes us? How would we know whether other animals, learn and remember in the way we do?
Allyson:Those are all part of scientific studies, and those are things we can teach very early on.
Ivy:That's a really good point. Just considering my journey in science and also having children in school. And you're right. It's almost as if the process is taught in isolation of, you know, the involvement of nonhuman animals and the involvement of humans in the scientific discovery process. Allison, you have suggested marking medicines that had nonhuman involvement, right, during the research or testing.
Ivy:Can you share what effect you think that would have? And even going beyond that, beyond just updating those labels, what other specific strategies or initiatives would you propose we would use to reach the general public with this information?
Allyson:So the drug labels, I think, in medical products, so there are also medical devices that depended upon animal research, both for their development and for assessing safety. I think those labels are critically important for two different reasons. One is a direct connection between everything it took to get to the point of that product or that medication and conveying that transparently to the people who are the consumers of that medicine, the beneficiaries of that medicine is important because it gives people the opportunity to make their own judgment about whether they want to benefit from that research. Being able to make a connection between the benefit and the work that it took to receive that benefit is important. I think it helps demystify the process.
Allyson:I think it can build public trust in medicine, being able to see how many steps were involved in making sure that medicine is effective, making sure that medicine is safe, emphasizing the systems we have in place to protect people and other animals when they're consuming a new medication or using a new medical device. A second piece of it is there are people who are opposed to the use of animals in research and drug testing, the use of animal products in drugs. And I think it's important for them to be able to have the information transparently to to live their values. So it's hard to live your values if you're opposed to the use of animals in research, and you don't know whether animal research and testing played a role in developing that new medication. So it gives people a choice.
Allyson:It gives people the basis for making a decision.
Ivy:I love that point. Like, just making that informed decision is really important and not something that's broadly discussed when we consider how best to begin to speak into some of the more controversial aspects sometimes, around the the research. So I'm gonna switch gears a little bit and talk about the professionals in the research field. Right? And so what are some of the ways that individuals that work in the research field and support researchers?
Ivy:How can we effectively communicate the ethical considerations and safeguards in place when conducting research with nonhuman animal?
Allyson:I think that's an absolutely key piece of the equation. So we have many professionals who are absolutely important to ethical consideration, who know about the many layers of regulation standard and oversight in animal research. What we also have is a gap between that knowledge and what the broader public knows. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is if you think about good communication, you have to think about your audio.
Allyson:And it could be the case that broad public audiences don't want to know all of the detailed expert work that IACUCs do. It's interesting to us. It it may not be that interesting to a public audience. I think we tend to throw around IACUC, AIRB, 3 r's, and a whole bunch of acronyms. We know exactly what we're talking about.
Allyson:We know why they're important at a fundamental level, but that doesn't mean a broader public audience does. Doesn't mean anybody wants to study for, an exam in order to be able to talk about all those acronyms. What people wanna know is why is animal research conducted? Why is it important? How are the animals treated?
Allyson:And why are you doing the work you're doing? So I think that was a bit of a long answer, but I think sometimes what happens is the IACUC has fundamental the IACUC, IACUC administrators have fundamental knowledge that is of interest. Communicating it means stepping back, taking a very broad view, not getting bogged down in app and then standards policy and details, but taking a broad view to talk about what is it we're doing here. We are balancing scientific objectives, research that benefits the broad public with the humane and ethical care of research animals. That's what we do.
Allyson:And here's how we do that with a few examples. So when you say the word administrator, people are thinking shoveling paper around. Right. Sounds boring. So thinking about that audience, what's engaging?
Allyson:What are people curious about? What do they want to know? And letting the audience's interest drive the discussion rather than the other way around.
Ivy:I think that's really, really key. And something that across the board and the research enterprise, I think, needs to be explored and discussed and supported. Right? So kinda moving along that line, we had a question around here around, do you have any suggestions on how institutions can communicate better? But I'm gonna add something to it if you're okay.
Ivy:So my question is, how do institutions support the researchers when they are under attack or scrutiny regarding the type of research that they're doing. And, you know, I'll take for instance cases in institutions where I've worked where whole research buildings had to have security come in, but we weren't it wasn't shared as to why. So we did not know why, but we knew that there was a broader public concern around some of the research being done there. Right? So how does an institution or how do we, PRIMR and other organizations, partner with institutions to provide them some level of guidance to support the researchers who are doing this most important work.
Allyson:If research is conducted at an institution, the institutions should stand behind the research. Principle number 1. And what that means is talking about the research, knowing the researchers, knowing the landscape in which they're doing the research ahead of time and talking about it ahead of time, not waiting or hoping that by being quiet, you can avoid public attention. So what we have are very well organized political groups with a single objective, which is to end the use of animals, not only in scientific research, but for all purposes. These are well organized groups that have high profile campaigns that are meant to inspire public sympathy and support and fundraising.
Allyson:So I think from the institutional perspective is being knowledgeable and understanding that that's the political landscape in which they are conducting research and their scientists are conducting research. That means talking with individuals and being very upfront about the research with institutional stakeholders, with all of the people who are involved. So we all know that scientific doesn't research doesn't occur because there's a big scientist in a lab. Scientific research occurs because there are institutions that are experts across a wide wide range of domains. There are veterinarians.
Allyson:There are institutional officials and administrators. There are students. There are many within the institution that are making the infrastructure that supports the work. So one of the questions I think that can be asked first is, do the broad range of stakeholders within your institution know about the research that's being conducted? Why it's being conducted, how it's regulated, how it's governed.
Allyson:Because if the institution's stakeholders internally have that information, You don't have, situations in which people are surprised.
Ivy:It gives us the individual supporting the institutions and the scientists and the the ethics professionals. It gives us something to to start with and to work from.
Allyson:I really think it's key. I think the other thing for the IACUC professional perspective is remembering that scientists under attacks are human. Mhmm. So they are human, and the experiences they are having are, in almost every case, simply by virtue of the work that they've chosen to conduct on behalf of the public. Those under attack are receiving threats.
Allyson:They're receiving horrible treatment and have fears, fears for their family, fears for their colleagues, fears for their students. So I think empathy is another piece of the equation.
Ivy:Most definitely. In your presentation at our annual conference, you talked about the ethical consideration process, right, for nonhuman animals as well as human research, emphasizing that, you know, something that's, consistent or core principle of both is maximizing benefits while minimizing harms. So, what would surprise our listeners to understand, like, what's similar about the ethics around nonhuman animal research and human research?
Allyson:Sure. So I think if we start at the very beginning, the very first question for any scientific research is why. So what's the purpose of the work? What's the benefit? So for any scientific research, that's that's time, that's energy, that's expertise and resources that are going to one thing rather than another thing.
Allyson:So we ask, what is the purpose? What do we hope to gain? What question do we hope to answer? Who will it benefit? And that is the same for human and nonhuman animal research.
Allyson:I think the other similarities are minimizing harm for humans and other animals, means reducing potential for unnecessary pain, for unnecessary distress. When we get to comparing human and nonhuman animal research ethics, we also acknowledge a core difference. So if we look at the history of ethical consideration of human experimentation, particularly from a Western European perspective of looking at things like Nuremberg or the declaration of Helsinki, we acknowledge that humans have autonomy. Humans have the right to consent to being involved in scientific research, to being informed about how that research might affect them. We do not have the same kind of approach to nonhuman animal research for a very simple reason, which is humans and other animals differ in their cognitive abilities.
Allyson:In our, conception of them as autonomous beings with right, the kind of human rights that are enshrined in many of our international laws and conventions. That doesn't mean we don't care about the animal's experience. We act to prioritize their humane treatment and their welfare. But our system inherently puts humans over other animals. We do not equate the 2.
Ivy:I wanna go back to our previous discussion around, activism or or and the sentiment around some of the, activist philosophies around eliminating use of animals as a whole and how that can be seen as absolutist. And you talked about that in your your keynote at our conference. The argument is that that absolutist viewpoint really argues that benefits are irrelevant. There are benefits of nonhuman animal research are irrelevant, and animals must not be used. What are the ramifications of this type of an absolutist position?
Ivy:And how did we how did we get there? How did we get there?
Allyson:I mean, I think that is absolutely the central question. So from the absolutist perspective, humans would not use other animals for any purpose, for food, for labor, for clothing, for research. If we think about what that would mean for animal research, it would mean we do not conduct studies that benefit humans or other animals. It would mean that if we have a potential new medication, we do not assess whether it's safe through the humane and ethical use of some animals. We move directly to human in absence of knowledge about its safety, and we would then have to choose which humans that would be.
Allyson:There's a a long and not good history of human medical experimentation and very troubling human rights violations that gave rise to the principle of testing in other animals before humans. If we remove that, I think the questions we will have about human research ethics will be overwhelming.
Ivy:Wow.
Allyson:So one thing I would ask in absolutist is what is your plan for the humans that will replace other animals at every step of the way in scientific research?
Ivy:Wow. Yeah.
Allyson:I don't think they have a player.
Ivy:I know. I know. But you know what? It reframes that that position that oftentimes we find ourselves in where it becomes a debate. Or, traditionally, in our communities, we begin to apologize instead of really being firm and understanding why.
Ivy:And I think that's what you did so beautifully for those of us in the nonhuman animal and the human research ethics community at our conference is that you provided that that platform and position to where we don't have to we're not apologetic. This is why it's needed. And I I love that question.
Allyson:Thank you. I I appreciate that a lot. And I I have to say I've benefited enormously from PRIMR and other venues that bring together people across the human and nonhuman animal research side, scientists, and people working thoughtfully on the the ethics and the standards and regulations and implementing those. Because I think it's exactly that kind of collaborative, respectful conversation that moves us forward in productive ways. The world continues to change.
Allyson:And so it's not as though there will be a static rule book, do x and that will be ethical. Things will continue to change. And and I do think just on the debate front, people often wanna have a debate. They wanna have a winner, and that's that's not how it works.
Ivy:Right.
Allyson:In addition to that, though, I I think we should always ask if somebody has a perspective that is different from yours within reason, we should ask and try to understand how they got to that point. So that's where circling back, I think, the absolutest question I think asking that, oh, okay. What is your plan? Like, help me understand. Right.
Allyson:Help me understand how you see this working.
Ivy:Right.
Allyson:What will happen if we don't have scientific research with animals? Walk me through that. Show me what it would look like in terms of the studies we do, in terms of how we treat new products. Help me understand what you're seeing and what challenges you might face in that kind of a reality. Can we work together?
Allyson:Can we partner to think about that?
Ivy:I like that approach because then it does not feel as if you are in a debate or if you are Right. Having to defend, and it really does extend that hand of collaboration. Mhmm. Oftentimes, particularly with topics of this nature, it is what has been told versus what is known. Those are 2 different things oftentimes.
Ivy:Okay. So I'm gonna switch gears. So during your remarks, you noted that you often tell your students brains do not come labeled. What do you mean by that, and how have researchers learned about how the human brain functions? This is fascinating to me.
Allyson:Thank you. So I I do tell students brains don't come prelabeled often with a with a picture that shows a tan glob of human brain tissue. And when you look at that picture, I think it becomes immediately apparent that nothing about it, nothing about the brain says, I'm the cerebellum. I'm involved in motor function. I'm the corpus callosum.
Allyson:I connect the 2 hemispheres. All of that had to be discovered. So if you role play and imagine you are the first person to be holding a human brain, you can start to walk through what might have needed to happen to understand that it it did really important things like allow us to speak, think, see, navigate space, communicate with others, know who's who in a social environment. By Hawking in that way, you can open the window to thinking about, wow. Okay.
Allyson:So we learned about what the brain does through decades decades of studies of humans, of other animals, studies that involved human brain injuries that happened spontaneously, Quineas Gage and with the railroad type, but also very carefully controlled studies in nonhuman animals. Oftentimes at this point, people might think, oh, brain imaging, MRI, that's how we figured it all out. They'll often say, what year was MRI discovered actually functional? That would have been circa 19 seventies. That was pretty late.
Allyson:We had a lot of intuitions and knowledge about how the brain worked before that. And by by following that same process, you can then jump to well, do we now know everything? Is there nothing left to discover? Because we know quite a lot about how the grain works, yet discoveries continue. Because there are many things we do not know, and the world continues to change.
Ivy:That discussion at at the keynote was fascinating, and the way you describe it, you know, to your students makes sense. Lots of times we're looking and we hear about, like, the outcome of all that it took to know that information, not understanding how that happened. So continue to think about mental health advances in recent decades. Can you elaborate on some specific examples of how these advances in mental health treatments, such as those for depression, schizophrenia, and other disorders, have been shaped by research involving both human and nonhuman animal participants and subjects.
Allyson:If we think about mental health advances, things like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, and other disorders, we can look back 100 of years and see an evolution that involves scientific knowledge. So we can go back to a time in which people thought mental health disorders were caused by demons or people were witches or mental health was simply a moral issue. So So it was a moral failing if one would was not healthy. When we think about what changed, part of what changed is understanding how the brain works and understanding there were chemicals in the brain that were involved in things like mood, emotion, things that are important to depression. How we came to know about brain chemicals were discoveries in other animals.
Allyson:Discoveries that involve studies of frogs, rabbits, cows, clams, monkeys, a whole host of animals. Because, again, if we think about that tan blob of tissue that is the brain, somebody had to identify the chemicals within the brain that talk to each other that then contributed to mood, to the symptoms of depression. And it wasn't until we knew about those chemicals that we could develop what are called targeted viral therapies, drug treatments that were specific to those chemicals' functions, drug treatments that then provided relief from suffering for millions of people. Mhmm.
Ivy:Yeah. Fascinating fascinating information, but also not widely connected. Again, going back to connecting these dots, not widely connected at all. And so we'll conclude with this, final question. You also, in your keynote, emphasized closing the gap, and we've kinda talked about that.
Ivy:That's kind of been a a a thing that's permeated this conversation, closing the gap between the public's understanding of human and nonhuman animal research. So how can researchers actively engage with the public? We've talked about institutions. We've talked about the ethics professionals. But how can researchers actively engage with the public to bridge this gap and foster informed decision making regarding policies related to animal nonhuman animal research?
Allyson:I think there are so many ways. And one of the things I'm most encouraged about over the past, maybe 20 years, is a remarkable chain in how much researchers do engage with public audiences through a wide range of venues. So that can be public talks. That can be podcasts like this. It can be, short YouTube videos.
Allyson:It can be talking with journalists. It can be talking with school kids. It can be going to Capitol Hill and talking with legislators. I think that researchers, for the most part, are oriented towards talking with the public and doing so in all the ways that we can. I think what we also need are institutions to support that kind of work, particularly within our communications offices providing support and training.
Allyson:So it's often the case that researchers don't receive that training in graduate school. Though more and more it is the case. I'm fortunate at UW Madison, we have an amazing research communications office that supports our work, that provides training, that encourages people to talk with the media and talk with public audiences. I hope that all institutions have that kind of support. I think in terms of policy making, it's the same thing that we we've talked about today, which is connecting those dots.
Allyson:So if you're a policy maker, what you wanna know is what happens if I endorse this policy? What impact will it have on my constituents? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? So if we have someone say, let's ban a particular kind of research, and there's no one there to say, hey, here's what might happen.
Allyson:Can we blame policy makers for making decisions that will jeopardize public health?
Ivy:So thank you. And I wanna thank you not only for joining us today on the podcast, but for the incredible work that you do. And thank you for, you know, providing the insight that you're providing to our community, both the community of individuals and professionals at Premier, but more broadly. And as we continue to contribute to the discussions around trust in science and research in the public discourse, we thank you. Thank you, Allison.
Allyson:Thank you, Ivy, and thank you for your leadership and the work that Primer does. I think it's absolutely essential to build public trust and understanding of science that benefits everyone.
Staff:Thank you for listening to Research Ethics Reimagined, a podcast created by Primer and produced by Syntax in Motion. Please subscribe and share with your friends and colleagues. To learn how to become a member of Primer, please visit us at www.primer.org. Be sure to join us next month as we continue our conversation with scientists, researchers, bioethicists, and some of the leading minds exploring new frontiers of science.