Monkey Business !

This week pedestrians were startled to share the footpath near Royal Prince Alfred Hospital campus with three Baboons who had escaped when the lock on their transporter malfunctioned.  They were quickly rounded up by police and we have since learned that the older male was on his way to a scheduled vasectomy.  The two younger females were included in the journey because it was reasoned that their company would keep him calm.

This is something medical research would have preferred to avoid.   It seems we have a Baboon breeding colony at Wallacia and because Baboons have a similar bodily structure to humans they are essential in the research laboratories.  They are part of research on gestational diabetes, kidney disease, and the benefits to be obtained from diet and exercise.  It seems that this incident will quickly gain the attention of activists who oppose drug testing on animals.

It has since been explained that this male was no longer being used in the breeding programme at Wallacia and it was decided that a vasectomy was necessary so that he could again live peacefully in the colony.  The vasectomy would ensure that he would not  aggressively compete with the other males for access to the females used in the breeding programme.

We constantly hear of medical advances that promise relief from conditions for which there is no effective cure and often it is predicted that it will be a further ten years before they become available in pharmacies.   Before such drugs are licensed for general use they must undergo extensive long term testing to determine what side affects they may deliver.   This usually proceeds in two stages.   The first test is conducted on an animal closely resembling the body structure of humans to gain safety approval, and then a long term test system of tests on groups of human volunteers will evaluate both the positive effect and any side affects that may be the outcome of using the drug or the procedure.

It seems that the public was generally unaware that we had a Baboon breeding colony at Wallacia and this unfortunate incident  has given it unwanted publicity.    This may even take the form of intruders seeking to penetrate the colony with the aim of releasing captive animals and this could disrupt trials under way and delay the final outcome of releasing new treatments to the public.  It is evident that security at Wallacia may need to be tightened.

There are still many ailments that are beyond the reach of present day medical research and some promising evaluations are in the pipeline.  Such research is costly and in many cases what seems likely to  be a success ends in dismal failure.  Animal research is essential to weed out these failures at an early stage to maintain the interest of the big drug laboratories who are spending huge sums of money on medical research.  Any adverse publicity condemning animal trials will certainly  be unhelpful.