Discussion Guide and Transcript
Episode Three
Research Ethics Reimagined Episode 3 “Connecting the Dots With Allyson J. Bennett, PhD”
July 24, 2024
- In this episode, we explore how scientific research with humans and other animals is intertwined, yet plays fundamentally different roles in producing new knowledge with broad-ranging benefits.(Transcript available) Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple| Listen on Amazon Discussion Questions
- 1.)The Importance and Visibility of Research with Nonhuman Animals
- Bennett discusses how major medical advances were only made possible through research with nonhuman animals. Why do you think this information is not widely known or understood by the general public?
- How might labeling medicines and medical devices to indicate involvement of non-human animals in their development impact public perception and decision-making?
2.) Communicating About Research with Nonhuman Animals
- Bennett suggests when discussing research with nonhuman animals, we should focus on broad concepts rather than technical details. How can researchers and ethics professionals effectively communicate about this research without getting bogged down in jargon?
- What strategies can institutions employ to support researchers who face public scrutiny or attacks due to their work with nonhuman animals? How can organizations like PRIM&R assist in this effort?
3.) Ethical Considerations in Research with Humans and Other Animals
- Bennett points out that a core principle in research with both humans and other animals is maximizing benefits while minimizing harms. What are some key similarities and differences in the ethical frameworks for these two types of research?
- How do you think we should approach the “absolutist position” that argues against any use of nonhuman animals in research, regardless of potential benefits? What might be the ramifications of such a stance?
Key Terms and Acronyms
IACUC: Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, a committee that oversees an organization's nonhuman animal program, facilities, and research.
IRB: Institutional Review Board, a committee that reviews and monitors research involving human participants.
3Rs: Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement - guiding principles for more ethical use of nonhuman animals in testing.
Xenotransplantation: The process of transplanting organs or tissues between different species.
Pharmacotherapy: The treatment of disease through the administration of drugs.
Additional Resources
- Americans for Medical Progress - Organization providing information about the role of research with nonhuman animals in medical advances.
- National Institutes of Health Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare - Provides guidance and interpretation of the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
- PRIM&R's Research Ethics Timeline - A resource for exploring the milestones of research with humans and other animals.
- Speaking of Research - Provides accurate information about the importance of research with nonhuman animals in medical and scientific progress.
Transcript
Transcript, Ep.3, “Connecting the Dots With Allyson J. Bennett, PhD”
Host: Ivy R. Tillman, EdD, CCRC, CIP, Executive Director of PRIM&R
Guests: Allyson J. Bennett, PhD
A transcript generator was used to help create written show transcript. Written transcript of podcast is approximate and not meant for attribution.
Ivy Tillman: Welcome to Research Ethics Reimagined, a podcast created by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, or PRIM&R. Here, we talk with scientists, researchers, bioethicists, and some of the 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 Tillman. Let's dive in.
Today, I'm very pleased to have with me Dr. Allyson Bennett, who is the professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin. Throughout her career, Dr. Bennett has focused on answering a central question: how aspects of physical and social environments affect biobehavioral development.
Dr. 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 PRIMR23, our annual conference, which was held most recently in Washington, DC.
She spoke about the essential role non-human animal research and testing plays in scientific and medical advances and how our collective need to make those contributions clear to the public. Thanks again, Allyson, for speaking with us all in December and for being with us today.
Allyson Bennett: Thank you, Ivy. It's absolutely my pleasure to speak with you today and to have joined the conference.
Ivy Tillman: So, we'll get started. Before we do dive into some of the remarks from the conference, I wanted to start with your journey into this work. So, what fascinated you about the work that you do and how did you get started?
Allyson Bennett: 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. So, how do our experiences and our genes make for that kind of individual variation across the lifespan?
Ivy Tillman: During your remarks at PRIMR23, you spoke about how too often research conducted with non-human animals is essentially invisible. That the vast majority of people do not know that major medical advances were only made possible through research with non-human 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 with non-human animals?
Allyson Bennett: 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. I think many times we benefit from and take for granted advances that took decades or a hundred 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. 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. And we're now a hundred 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 Tillman: 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? We began a discussion around when is the best time to introduce these concepts. Is it at the K through 12 level? Is it college? Is it within the public discourse? What are your thoughts around that? Where do we begin to help with connecting the dots of how of discovery?
Allyson Bennett: I think 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? What is the scientific process itself? And that essentially begins in K through 12. I think treating biomedical or behavioral or animal research as something separate from the entire scientific process would be weird. So, beginning very early on. And if you think about it, my area of work is comparative and developmental psychobiology. In my field, people have compared different animals and their behavior for well over a hundred 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, um, learn and remember in the way we do? Those are all part of scientific studies. And those are things we can teach very early on.
Ivy Tillman: That's a really good point. Just considering my journey in science and having children in school, you're right. It's almost as if the process is taught in isolation of the involvement of non-human animals and the involvement of humans in the scientific discovery process.
Allyson, you have suggested marking medicines that had non-human involvement during the researcher testing. 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 Bennett: So, the drug labels, I think, and 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. 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, in 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 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. It gives people the basis for making a decision.
Ivy Tillman: 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 research. So, I'm going to switch gears a little bit and talk about the professionals in the research field. And so, what are some of the ways that individuals that work in the research field can support researchers? How can we effectively communicate the ethical considerations and safeguards in place when conducting research with non-human animals?
Allyson Bennett: 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 regulations, 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 audience. 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 may not be that interesting to a public audience.
I think we tend to throw around IACUC, IRB, 3Rs, and a whole bunch of acronyms. We know exactly what we're talking about. We know why they're important at a fundamental level. But that doesn't mean a broader public audience does. That doesn't mean anybody wants to study for an exam in order to be able to talk about all those acronyms.
What people want to know is why is animal research conducted? Why is it important? How are the animals treated? 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, the IACUC administrators, have fundamental knowledge that is of interest. Communicating means stepping back, taking a very broad view, not getting bogged down in acronym 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. 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? It sounds boring. So, thinking about that audience, what's engaging, 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 Tillman: 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. So, kind of 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 going to add something to that if it’s okay. So, my question is, how do institutions support their 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 and institutions where I've worked where whole research buildings had to have security come in, but 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. So, how does an institution or how do we, PRIM&R 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 Bennett: If research is conducted at an institution, the institutions should stand behind the research, principle number one. 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. So, I think from the institutional perspective, it's 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 up front about the research with institutional stakeholders, with all of the people who are involved.
So, we all know that scientific research doesn't occur because there's a scientist in a lab. Scientific research occurs because there are institutions, there are experts across a wide, wide range of domains, there are veterinarians, 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. Because, if the institution's stakeholders internally have that information, you don't have situations in which people are surprised.
Ivy Tillman: It gives us—the individuals supporting the institutions, and the scientists and the ethics professionals—it gives us something to start with and to work from.
Allyson Bennett: I really think it's key. I think the other thing for the IACUC professional perspective is remembering that scientists under attack are human. 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. They're receiving horrible treatment and have fears for their family, fears for their colleagues, fears for their students. So, I think empathy is another piece of the equation.
Ivy Tillman: In your presentation at our annual conference, you talked about the ethical consideration process for non-human animals as well as human research, emphasizing that something that's consistent, our core principle of both is maximizing benefits while minimizing harms. So, what would surprise our listeners to understand what's similar about the ethics around non-human animal research and human research?
Allyson Bennett: 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 time, that's energy, that's expertise and resources that are going to one thing rather than another thing. 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 non-human animal research.
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 non-human 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, 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 non-human animal research for a very simple reason, which is humans and other animals differ in their cognitive abilities, in our conception of them as autonomous beings with rights, 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. Our system inherently puts humans over other animals. We do not equate the two.
Ivy Tillman: I want to go back to our previous discussion around activism and the sentiment around some of the activists' philosophies around eliminating use of animals as a whole, and how that can be seen as absolutist. And you talked about that in your keynote at our conference. The argument is that that absolutist viewpoint really argues that benefits are irrelevant. There are benefits of non-human animal research are irrelevant and animals must not be used. What are the ramifications of this type of an absolutist position and how did we get there?
Allyson Bennett: 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.
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 humans. In absence of knowledge about its safety, and we would then have to choose which humans that would be. There's 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. So, one thing I would ask an absolutist is, “What is your plan for the humans that will replace other animals at every step of the way in scientific research?”
Ivy Tillman: Wow. Yeah.
Allyson Bennett: I don't think they have a plan.
Ivy Tillman. I know. But you know what, it reframes 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. And I think that's what you did so beautifully for those of us in the non-human animal and the human research ethics community at our conference, is that you provided that platform and position to where we don't have to, we're not apologetic. This is why it's needed. And I love that question.
Allyson Bennett: Thank you. I appreciate that a lot. And I have to say I've benefited enormously from PRIM&R and other venues that bring together people across the human and non-human animal research side, scientists and people working thoughtfully on 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. 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 I do think, just on the debate front, people often want to have a debate. They want to have a winner. And that's not how it works.
In addition to that though, 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 absolutist question, I think asking that, “Okay, what is your plan?” Like, help me understand. Help me understand how you see this working. 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? Can we partner to think about that?
Ivy Tillman: I like that approach because then it does not feel as if you are in a debate or if you are having to defend and it really does extend that hand of collaboration. Oftentimes, particularly with topics of this nature, it is what has been told versus what is known. Those are two different things, oftentimes.
Okay, so I'm going to 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 Bennett: Thank you. So, I do tell students brains don't come pre-labeled. Often, 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. I connect the two hemispheres.” All of that had to be discovered. 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 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 talking in that way, you can open the window to thinking about, wow okay, so we learned about what the brain does through decades and decades of studies of humans, of other animals, studies that involved human brain injuries that happen spontaneously. Phineas Gage and the railroad tie. But also, very carefully controlled studies in non-human animals.
Oftentimes at this point, people might think, oh, brain imaging, MRI, that's how we figured it all out. So, I'll often say, what year was MRI discovered actually functional? That would have been circa 1970s. That was pretty late. We had a lot of intuitions and knowledge about how the brain worked before that.
And 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 brain works. Yet discoveries continue because there are many things we do not know and the world continues to change.
Ivy Tillman: That discussion at the keynote was fascinating and the way you describe it to your students makes sense. Lots of times, we're looking and we hear about the outcome of all that it took to know that information, not understanding how that happened. So, continuing 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 non-human animal participants and subjects.
Allyson Bennett: If we think about mental health advances, things like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, and other disorders, we can look back hundreds 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, it was a moral failing if one 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. Discoveries that involved 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 talked 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 pharmacotherapies, drug treatments that were specific to those chemicals functions. Drug treatments that then provided relief from suffering.
Ivy Tillman: 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 emphasize closing the gap, and we've kind of talked about that. That's kind of been a theme that's permeated this conversation, closing the gap between the public's understanding of human and non-human 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, non-human animal research?
Allyson Bennett: I think there are so many ways and one of the things I'm most encouraged about over the past maybe20 years is a remarkable change 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. 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.
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've talked about today, which is connecting those dots. So, if you're a policymaker, what you want to 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, then can we blame policymakers for making decisions that will jeopardize public health?
Ivy Tillman: Thank you. And I want to thank you not only for joining us today on the podcast, but for the incredible work that you do. And thank you for providing the insight that you're providing to our community, both the community of individuals and professionals at PRIM&R, 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, Allyson.
Allyson Bennett: Thank you, Ivy, and thank you for your leadership and the work that PRIM&R does. I think it's absolutely essential to build public trust and understanding of science that benefits everyone.
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