Public Affairs

As originally published in The Physiologist
Volume 45, Number 3, June 2002, page 152-154

Congress Excludes Rats, Mice and Birds from AWA
APS Press Room at EB 2002
Hatch Supports Therapeutic Cloning
Zerhouni Confirmed as NIH Head
NIH Releases Medical School Funding Data
APS Awards More Than $200,000 to 2002 Postdoctoral Fellowship Winners

Congress Excludes Rats, Mice and Birds from AWA

    When President Bush signed the farm bill into law on May 13, 2002, he also approved a provision that will permanently exclude rats, mice, and birds from USDA oversight under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Congress gave its final approval to the legislation in early May. 

    The bill was signed into law three months after Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) proposed the language to write into law the administrative exclusion of rats, mice, and birds from the AWA that has been in place for 30 years. The Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent on February 12. Without this provision, the USDA would have been required to extend the AWA regulations to cover these species. Research advocates argued that the majority of rats, mice, and birds in biomedical research are found in institutions where USDA regulations would duplicate the oversight already provided by the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Animals, the Good Laboratory Practices Act, and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. Given the large numbers of rats and mice used in research, the additional regulations would have added enormous cost and administrative burden without improving welfare for these animals.
    
    Although the Senate adopted the Helms amendment by unanimous consent, the House version of the farm bill did not contain comparable language, which meant that the House-Senate conference committee had to decide whether the provision would go into the final bill. However, this was minor compared to the differences in programs and costs the conferees had to work out between the House and Senate bills. These negotiations began in February, but it was not until the end of April that the conferees announced that they had reached agreement. Shortly thereafter research advocates confirmed that the Helms language was included in the final bill. Controversy still dogged the legislation because the Congressional Budget Office estimated its cost at $83 billion, nearly $10 billion more than what was budgeted for farm programs. Nevertheless, the House approved the conference agreement on May 2, and the Senate followed suit on May 8. President Bush was expected to sign the measure into law.

    The Helms amendment was needed to resolve the question of whether the USDA should regulate rats, mice, and birds under the AWA. The USDA was required to issue a proposed rule for the regulation of these species to comply with the agreement the agency reached with the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation (ARDF) in September 2000 as part of an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit over the USDA’s past exclusion of rats, mice, and birds from the AWA. 

    However, the USDA was prevented from issuing a proposed rule from October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001 because Congress had placed a temporary spending moratorium on making the change. Animal activists conducted a vociferous campaign against the moratorium, and in this year’s appropriations legislation, Congress allowed it to lapse. Instead, the USDA was allowed to formulate a rule, but it could not go into effect before October 1, 2002.

    Animal activist organizations sought to mobilize their members and lobbyists to block inclusion of the Helms language in the farm bill. ARDF Executive Director John McArdle accused “biomedical research lobbyists” of conducting “a concerted campaign of misinformation” and claimed that the lack of USDA oversight would cause “severe set-backs for the welfare of animals in laboratories and for the quality of the research conducted in those laboratories.” Meanwhile, the American Anti-Vivisection Society announced plans for “Campaign 50,” in which animal activist organizations would “work for the passage of legislation in all 50 states to provide the protection Helms has denied to these tens and millions of animals,” according to Executive Director Tina Nelson. The McArdle and Nelson statements were included in a joint press release in which the ARDF was described as the “scientific affiliate” of the AAVS.
    
    The farm bill conference agreement also calls for a National Academies of Science study on rats, mice, and birds in research to be conducted during the next year. The study is to estimate how many rats, mice, and birds used in research and determine the extent to which other regulatory oversight already applies to them. The study is also to provide an estimate of the additional cost to the USDA, research institutions, and breeders if the USDA were to regulate rats, mice and birds in some fashion and make recommendations how to minimize the regulatory burden of redundant oversight of animal research.

    Another provision that would have established standards for so-called “puppy mills” was dropped from the final farm bill. That measure, sponsored by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), would have imposed requirements for socialization and restricted how often female dogs could be bred. Re-searchers opposed this provision because the socialization requirements were not grounded in science and would have interfered with the ability of laboratory animal veterinarians to exercise professional judgment. The American Kennel Club and many hobby breeders of dogs opposed the legislation because of the arbitrary socialization requirements and also because they objected to a law that would determine how often a dog could be bred. 

APS Press Room at EB 2002

The APS highlighted physiological research through its Press Room at this year’s Experimental Biology meeting. Operated by Communications Office staff, the Press Room served as the headquarters for the Society’s media relations efforts. 

    Media consultant Donna Krupa wrote press releases for 27 of approximately 3,000 abstracts submitted through the APS. The releases were distributed to local and national media. At EB, the Press Room staff acted as a liaison between reporters and scientists by fielding press queries, setting up interviews and tracking media coverage.

    Our efforts were met with enthusiasm from both the media and the participating scientists. By the end of the meeting, the APS Press Room had been queried by CNN, the New York Times, the Times-Picayune, WebMD and the CBS Radio Network. Though results are still being tallied, the response received has been encouraging and suggests that public interest and awareness of physiological research will continue to grow in years to come. 

Hatch Supports Therapeutic Cloning

    On May 2, 2002 the biomedical research community got a major boost in the fight to allow human cloning for therapeutic purposes. Speaking at a press conference, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a conservative Republican generally known for pro-life views, announced his support for a bill that would outlaw reproductive cloning while allowing the cloning of human embryos for research purposes.

    “In the weeks ahead, the United States Senate will debate an issue that is of extreme importance to millions of Americans suffering from disease,” Hatch said. “The challenge before Congress is two-fold. We must craft a law to make sure that human beings are not cloned. At the same time, we must not stand in the way of scientific advances that hold the promise of treatments and cures for literally millions of Americans.” 

    Senator Hatch is co-sponsoring a bill with Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA). S. 2439, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2002, aims to outlaw the cloning of human embryos to produce children while still allowing cloning techniques to produce stem cells. S. 2439 is similar to an earlier bill, S. 1758, sponsored by Senators Feinstein and Kennedy, which FASEB endorsed last year. This legislation, if enacted, would impose civil and criminal penalties for anyone who violates the ban on reproductive cloning. It also contains certain features of another bill sponsored by Senators Specter and Tom Harkin (D-IA).

    A press release on Senator Hatch’s announcement can be found online at: http://hatch.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=182533. 

Zerhouni Confirmed as NIH Head

    On May 2, 2002 the Senate confirmed Elias Zerhouni to be the next Director of the NIH. The full Senate vote on Zerhouni’s nomination came immediately after the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved his nomination, making his confirmation the quickest of the last three NIH chiefs.
Earlier in the day, the HELP Committee held a confirmation hearing for Zerhouni who received high praise from both Republicans and Democrats on the committee. 
    
    During his testimony, Zerhouni said his foremost priority if confirmed would be to recruit top scientists to fill key appointments within the agency. Currently, five institutes lack permanent directors. Zerhouni also mentioned the need for translational research. “We need to bring the fruits of our research to clinical testing more rapidly and enhance our ability to prevent and detect disease much earlier.”

    One issue of concern has been Zerhouni’s position on stem cell research. During his confirmation hearing, Zerhouni avoided making any specific references to the technology instead saying “the NIH Director should actively promote necessary research within the policy guidelines laid out by the president and in strict compliance with all laws passed by Congress.” Transcripts from the hearing can be found on the APS website at: http://www.the-aps.org/news/Zerhouni-Trans.htm.

    Zerhouni’s most recent position was the Executive Vice Dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Chairman of the Russell Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science at Johns Hopkins and as Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering. He also served as Vice Dean for Research at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors and a co-founder of Surgi-Vision, a company based in Gaithersburg, MD that develops and markets magnetic resonance imaging technologies for use in diagnostic procedures.
Those close to Zerhouni say in addition to being a talented researcher, he is also a gifted manager. Zerhouni, they say, is that rare individual who can speak the arcane language of theoretical science, extract millions of dollars from wealthy supporters and navigate the treacherous political waters of academe. “He knows as much about finance as he does about faculty issues and strategic plans for clinical practice,” said Edward Miller, the dean of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Chief Executive of Hopkins Medicine. “He is very results-oriented.”

    Zerhouni is known in the medical community as a “translational scientist” for his efforts to bridge the gap between fundamental laboratory discoveries and practical applications for treating patients. He developed a myocardial tagging procedure that enables doctors to place invisible marks on the heart and monitor its movement, a procedure that helps physicians determine how disease affects the heart. 

NIH Releases Medical School Funding Data

    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research has released data on the distribution of NIH grant funds. This data is broken down by medical school departments and ranks universities by the number of awards received.

    Table 1 below represents aggregated data for eight categories of medical school departments. It compares the total number of awards, including research grants, training grants, fellowships, R&D contracts and other awards. It also shows total funding in each category for fiscal year 2001 and 2002.

    In fiscal year 2001, Departments of Physiology received 1,404 awards totaling $420,528,104. This represented a .57% increase in awarding from fiscal year 2000 and a 8.6% increase in funding over fiscal year 2000.

    According to the latest numbers, Departments of Physiology ranked fourth out of the eight departments in terms of total number of awards and third in terms of overall monetary awards.
The complete set of data for these departments can be found on the NIH website. Data for fiscal year 2001 can be accessed at http://silk.nih.gov/public/cbz2zoz.@www.rank01.medrnk.htm. Data for fiscal year 2000 can be found at: http://silk.nih.gov/public/cbz2zoz.@www.medschd.fy2000.htm. 

APS Awards More Than $200,000 to 2002 Postdoctoral Fellowship Winners

    The American Physiological Society has announced the winners of its 2002 Postdoctoral Fellowships in Physiological Genomics. The two-year award will provide funds totaling $73,000 to each of the three winning scientists, including a stipend and a mini-research grant for each year. 

    The aim of this program is to advance the study of physiological genomics by furthering understanding of the genome in the context of the organism. This program was established to provide training that will enable outstanding young scientists to combine the tools of cellular and molecular biology in the setting of the whole animal. 

    The 2002 award winners are: Ana Diez-Sampedro, (University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine); Malcolm A. Lyons, (The Jackson Laboratory); and Brian R. Wamhoff, (University of Virginia).

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