Sentimentality and the Enemies of Animal Protection

ABSTRACT

Ethical arguments promoting a higher moral status for nonhuman animals have developed a pace since the 1960s. These developments, however, have not been matched by a radical transformation in the way we treat nonhuman animals. In the 1990s, an alternative discourse emerged—the morality of care. Sympathy, empathy, compassion and pity form a family of sentiments that constitute the caring ethic. Sentimentality, the term associated with sentiment, is invariably invoked in our relationships to nonhuman animals. Although carrying positive connotations in the eighteenth century, sentimentality has since become a word of contempt and has been used to discredit our natural sympathy for nonhumans and to disparage animal protection reforms, both past and present. Here I argue for the rehabilitation of the term sentimentality and support Rorty's view that we need to create a moral sentimental education if we are to improve the world, and in particular the world as experienced by nonhuman animals. I believe that this educational enterprise should be directed at the pet-owning group, who are generally speaking already committed animal-lovers and who could be powerful agents for change in securing more justice for nonhuman animals.     

A career at the interface of cell and developmental biology: a view from the crest

Just as neural crest cells migrate great distances through the embryo, my journey has taken me from a childhood in a distant land to a career as a biologist. My mentoring relationships have shaped not only the careers of my trainees, but also the trajectory of my own science. One of the most satisfying aspects of mentoring comes from helping to empower the next generation of scientists to do more tomorrow than is possible today. This, together with a passion for discovery and learning new things, motivates me and makes science such a rewarding career.First, let me say how honored I am to receive the Women in Cell Biology Senior Award. I am particularly thankful to my former postdoctoral fellows and students. I have learned as much, or more, from them as they have from me and take great pride and vicarious pleasure from their successes. My goal as a mentor has been to impart an enthusiasm for science and for the satisfaction it can bring at both a professional and personal level. It is the pleasure of discovery and the bonds of collegiality that make being a scientist not only a worthwhile and interesting but also a very fulfilling career.When looking back upon my life as a biologist, many of the “choices” made along my career path were more of a random walk than a premeditated trajectory. Perhaps the most important and constant influences come from my family background, wonderful friends and colleagues, and an inherent interest in the natural world. For me, these were mixed with a good deal of luck and the generous mentorship of valued colleagues.     

Making space for traditions

For quite some time, the question of continuity across species with respect to culture has been linked in the academic world with definitional issues: What is culture, and how we can identify culture in a nonverbal species? 1 - 4 Behavioral scientists agree that behavioral traditions are that aspect of culture we can study in nonhuman animals, and we recognize that traditions are widespread in the animal kingdom (reviewed in Fragaszy and Perry, 5 see Laland and Hoppitt 6 ). However, confirming candidate traditions in nonhuman primates has proven frustratingly difficult. The difficulties experienced in identifying and studying traditions in nonhuman primates are correctable because they arise more from a combination of poor logic and conceptual confusion than from an inability to collect appropriate data. I argue that explicit evidence concerning social learning is necessary to evaluate the status of a behavioral practice as a tradition, and I suggest some ways that such evidence can be collected in natural settings using correlational methods and longitudinal designs. Clearer understanding of the social basis of traditions in nonhuman animals is essential to make headway in understanding their relation to human culture. No matter what else one includes in a definition of culture, a social basis for its existence is axiomatic.     

“I Throw Them Out of Here”: The Horse Trade as Phronetic Action

Practices involving horses have become increasingly popular in the spheres of sport and leisure throughout the Western world, and the trade in selling horses has expanded. The horse is characteristically understood as a commodity to be bought and sold several times during its lifetime. What is new in selling horses, however, is the significance of the emotional dimension of owning a horse. The purpose of my research was to scrutinize the ways in which ethical and emotional questions are taken into account in the trade in leisure horses, aspects that are often left out of consideration in favor of the more obvious instrumental values of selling animals. I asked how horse dealers perceive the future relationship between a horse and a prospective buyer based on the first encounter between the two. In particular, my interest was in horse dealers' tacit knowledge of the horses they sell, the actions taken to match the right buyers and the right horses, and the perceived implications of these for the welfare of the horses. To investigate this, I applied Aristotle's concept of phronesis, as well as Donna Haraway's idea of encounter value. The empirical study is qualitative, and was carried out in Finland where the practice of keeping leisure horses has become increasingly popular during the past few decades. The data consist of 10 thematic interviews conducted with horse dealers in 2012. According to the analysis, it appears that dealers' attempts to protect the horses they sell can be understood as phronetic actions aimed at securing the welfare of the horses. Assessing the encounter value of both the horse and the buyer functions as a tool for achieving this goal. The study thus problematizes the taken-for-granted dualistic view of relating to animals either instrumentally or emotionally.     

Sociobiology and the Comparative Approach: One Way to Study Ourselves

This paper is based on my lecture in a macroevolution course I team-teach with Profs. Daniel Brooks and David Evans at the University of Toronto. The lecture has undergone many revisions over the years as I grappled with problems discussing certain areas (e.g., rape as an adaptive strategy, gender “roles”). Eventually, I realized that the problem areas said more about my personal conflicts than they did about the science. This was one of those epiphany moments, a time when I recognized that I was less likely to accept hypotheses that contradicted the way I wanted the world to be and more likely to uncritically accept hypotheses that confirmed my world view. That epiphany, in turn, led me to realize that science is never separate from the personal biases/demons of its practitioners, especially when we are asking questions about the evolution of human behavior. That realization was not novel within the vast literature of sociology and philosophy. But it was novel for me. I was aware of discussions about personal biases clouding scientific interpretation; I just didn’t think it applied to me (I absorbed the philosophical discussions without making the connection to “my world”). So, on the heels of that epiphany, the following is a very personal take on the question of teaching sociobiology, based on where my journey, aided by my experience as an ethologist and phylogeneticist and colored by my own history, has taken me.     

Plans of mice and men: from bench science to science policy

The transition from bench science to science policy is not always a smooth one, and my journey stretched as far as the unemployment line to the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol. While earning my doctorate in microbiology, I found myself more interested in my political activities than my experiments. Thus, my science policy career aspirations were born from merging my love of science with my interest in policy and politics. After receiving my doctorate, I accepted the Henry Luce Scholarship, which allowed me to live in South Korea for 1 year and delve into the field of science policy research. This introduction into science policy occurred at the South Korean think tank called the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI). During that year, I used textbooks, colleagues, and hands-on research projects as my educational introduction into the social science of science and technology decision-making. However, upon returning to the United States during one of the worst job markets in nearly 80 years, securing a position in science policy proved to be very difficult, and I was unemployed for five months. Ultimately, it took more than a year from the end of the Luce Scholarship to obtain my next science policy position with the American Society for Microbiology Congressional Fellowship. This fellowship gave me the opportunity to work as the science and public health advisor to U.S. Senator Harry Reid. While there were significant challenges during my transition from the laboratory to science policy, those challenges made me tougher, more appreciative, and more prepared to move from working at the bench to working in the field of science policy.     

Engineering education in the wake of hurricane Katrina

Living through hurricane Katrina and its aftermath and reflecting on these experiences from technical and non-technical standpoints has led me to reconsider my thoughts and philosophy on engineering education. I present three ideas regarding engineering education pedagogy that I believe will prepare future engineers for problem-solving in an increasingly complex world. They are (1) we must practice radical (to the root) engineering, (2) we must illustrate connections between engineering and public policy, and (3) we will join the charge to find sustainable solutions to problems. Ideas for bringing each of these concepts into engineering curricula through methods such as case study, practicing broad information gathering and data interpretation, and other methods inside and outside the classroom, are discussed. I believe that the consequences of not considering the root issues of problems to be solved, and of not including policy and sustainability considerations when problems to be solved are framed will lead our profession toward well meaning but insufficient utility. Hurricane Katrina convinced me that we must do better as educators to prepare our students for engineering for a sustainable world.     

Cross-validation analysis for genetic evaluation models for ranking in endurance horses

Ranking trait was used as a selection criterion for competition horses to estimate racing performance. In the literature the most common approaches to estimate breeding values are the linear or threshold statistical models. However, recent studies have shown that a Thurstonian approach was able to fix the race effect (competitive level of the horses that participate in the same race), thus suggesting a better prediction accuracy of breeding values for ranking trait. The aim of this study was to compare the predictability of linear, threshold and Thurstonian approaches for genetic evaluation of ranking in endurance horses. For this purpose, eight genetic models were used for each approach with different combinations of random effects: rider, rider–horse interaction and environmental permanent effect. All genetic models included gender, age and race as systematic effects. The database that was used contained 4065 ranking records from 966 horses and that for the pedigree contained 8733 animals (47% Arabian horses), with an estimated heritability around 0.10 for the ranking trait. The prediction ability of the models for racing performance was evaluated using a cross-validation approach. The average correlation between real and predicted performances across genetic models was around 0.25 for threshold, 0.58 for linear and 0.60 for Thurstonian approaches. Although no significant differences were found between models within approaches, the best genetic model included: the rider and rider–horse random effects for threshold, only rider and environmental permanent effects for linear approach and all random effects for Thurstonian approach. The absolute correlations of predicted breeding values among models were higher between threshold and Thurstonian: 0.90, 0.91 and 0.88 for all animals, top 20% and top 5% best animals. For rank correlations these figures were 0.85, 0.84 and 0.86. The lower values were those between linear and threshold approaches (0.65, 0.62 and 0.51). In conclusion, the Thurstonian approach is recommended for the routine genetic evaluations for ranking in endurance horses.     

Preliminary study on current perceptions and usage of training equipment by horse enthusiasts in Canada

Training practices may impose restrictions on the equine behavioral repertoire through the use of training equipment. Presently, the prevalence of the use of training equipment in Canada is unknown. Through an online survey for horse enthusiasts (n = 654), this study evaluated the prevalence and predominant uses of whips, spurs, and head-control equipment by enthusiasts with direct contact with horses compared to perceptions held by enthusiasts with no direct horse contact using chi-squared analyses. Respondents primarily reported using whips and spurs to augment rider or trainer cues and reported using head-control equipment mainly for lunging purposes. The perceived frequency of spurs and head-control equipment use during riding or training by nonactive horse enthusiasts was significantly greater than reported usage by riders and trainers (p < .05). The results potentially indicate a lack of understanding and miscommunication of training equipment use by riders and trainers. The frequent reporting of training equipment for the purpose of augmenting rider cues may imply misinterpretation of the correct application of learning theory. These preliminary results warrant further investigation of equipment use within the horse industry.     

Chromatin configuration and epigenetic landscape at the sex chromosome bivalent during equine spermatogenesis

Pairing of the sex chromosomes during mammalian meiosis is characterized by the formation of a unique heterochromatin structure at the XY body. The mechanisms underlying the formation of this nuclear domain are reportedly highly conserved from marsupials to mammals. In this study, we demonstrate that in contrast to all eutherian species studied to date, partial synapsis of the heterologous sex chromosomes during pachytene stage in the horse is not associated with the formation of a typical macrochromatin domain at the XY body. While phosphorylated histone H2AX (γH2AX) and macroH2A1.2 are present as a diffuse signal over the entire macrochromatin domain in mouse pachytene spermatocytes, γH2AX, macroH2A1.2, and the cohesin subunit SMC3 are preferentially enriched at meiotic sex chromosome cores in equine spermatocytes. Moreover, although several histone modifications associated with this nuclear domain in the mouse such as H3K4me2 and ubH2A are conspicuously absent in the equine XY body, prominent RNA polymerase II foci persist at the sex chromosomes. Thus, the localization of key marker proteins and histone modifications associated with the XY body in the horse differs significantly from all other mammalian systems described. These results demonstrate that the epigenetic landscape and heterochromatinization of the equine XY body might be regulated by alternative mechanisms and that some features of XY body formation may be evolutionary divergent in the domestic horse. We propose equine spermatogenesis as a unique model system for the study of the regulatory networks leading to the epigenetic control of gene expression during XY body formation.     

Culture Matters in the Neolithic Transition and Emergence of Hierarchy in Thy, Denmark: Distinguished Lecture

How did the emergence of hierarchical social structure that followed the domestication of plants and animals in the Neolithic actually come about? I suggest that material media were instrumental in this transformation, as culture was changed by incorporating such newmedia as landscape constructions and elaborate prestige objects. During the Neolithic transition in Thy, Denmark, local corporate groups formed, and, subsequently, Bronze Age chieftains came to power. Shifts in material culture suggest possible connections to these institutional changes, namely the materialization of property rights by burial monuments and permanent domestic architecture and the centralization of power through the controlled production of wealth objects. I conclude that, as part of social process, the nature of culture has been transformed by incorporating material culture with specific characteristics of scale, permanency, and control that were vital to institutional change.     

Does horse temperament influence horse-rider cooperation?

Cooperation between rider and horse is of major importance in equitation. A balanced team of horse and rider improves (sport) performances and welfare aspects by decreasing stress, frustration, risks of injuries, and accidents. Important features affecting the cooperation are the physical skills, knowledge, and personality of the rider on one hand and the temperament, experience, and physical abilities of the horse on the other. A study with 16 riders and 16 warm-blood riding horses tested the effect of personality of riders and temperament of horses on cooperation between riders and horses. More emotionally reactive horses showed more evasive behavior during riding. Riders preferred to ride those horses who were assessed by the riders as being attentive to the rider's aid. The frequency of evasive behaviors during riding--as assessed by riders, in contrast to the assessments made by an external judge--influenced the cooperation between rider and horse. On average, a rider's personality did not affect the cooperation between rider and horse; however, it is suggested that a rider's personality does affect the cooperation with more emotionally reactive horses.     

Ambiguous Mice,Speaking Rats: Crossing and Affirming the Great Divides in Scientific Practice

ABSTRACT

During 2009–10, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with 31 immunologists, virologists, and neuroscientists working with either rats or mice. I encountered how the conceptual and physical bounds that have traditionally separated nature from culture, specie from specie, human from animal, are crossed, blurred, and reasserted. In this ambiguous zone, a scientific incuriosity about animals themselves persists, in the practice of inquiring into animal bodies and minds to produce insights into human health and its betterment. This privileging of human health bypasses animals themselves in favor of a view of them as human similars and prone objects, wholly available to persons, and affirms the Heideggarian thesis, that science occupies an arrogated position in modernity. Such incurious encounters with animals produced ideas and pronouncements about the close biological and genetic similarities that humans and animals share, that scientists in my study called “biokinship” and “genekinship.” These terms indicate both a close relation between animals and persons, but they also present the terms upon which hierarchical relations between humans and animals might be arrayed. Equally present among the scientists with whom I worked was a curiosity about animals themselves. This manifested in understandings and articulations of animals as beings with whom one might make a relationship in which mutually understood communication was possible. Attendant to this curiosity about animals themselves was an awareness scientists in my study had of what these relationships, or what I have called fleshy kinships with rats and mice, might mean for scientific practice, for good science, and for human–animal relatedness in the laboratory. This ambiguous situation calls for analytic attention to biotic materiality and process, but equally for attention to rodents as beings with whom scientists interact on an everyday basis, and with whom they form communicative relations.     

Estimation of diffusive resistance of bundle sheath cells to CO2 from modeling of C4 photosynthesis

This account is focused upon the early part of my career in order to illuminate the logistics and the culture of our science in the period 1936 to 1949. A roundabout path took me from a farm in Pennsylvania to a PhD under George Burr at Minnesota in 1939. In studying the photosynthetic competence of chlorophyll formed by the green alga Chlorella in darkness, I stumbled upon the phenomenon of photoinhibition. In a two-year postdoctorate at the Smithsonian Institution, I worked under E.D. McAlister. Our major accomplishment was in making simultaneous recordings of fluorescence and CO₂ uptake during the induction period. Variations in photosynthetic behavior of Chlorella led to a study of culture conditions and a recognition of the changing conditions which occur in batch cultures. A continuous culture apparatus (turbidostat) was developed as a means of attaining steady-state growth and production of uniform experimental material. I exploited the device in work at my first (and only) position at The University of Texas in 1941 and subsequent years. Study of the CO₂/O₂ gas exchange ratio led to the recognition of the important role of nitrate in the photosynthetic metabolism of algae. The account ends with the 1949 American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium.Invited and edited by Govindjee     

Landscape Utilisation,Animal Behaviour and Hendra Virus Risk

Hendra virus causes sporadic fatal disease in horses and humans in eastern Australia. Pteropid bats (flying-foxes) are the natural host of the virus. The mode of flying-fox to horse transmission remains unclear, but oro-nasal contact with flying-fox urine, faeces or saliva is the most plausible. We used GPS data logger technology to explore the landscape utilisation of black flying-foxes and horses to gain new insight into equine exposure risk. Flying-fox foraging was repetitious, with individuals returning night after night to the same location. There was a preference for fragmented arboreal landscape and non-native plant species, resulting in increased flying-fox activity around rural infrastructure. Our preliminary equine data logger study identified significant variation between diurnal and nocturnal grazing behaviour that, combined with the observed flying-fox foraging behaviour, could contribute to Hendra virus exposure risk. While we found no significant risk-exposing difference in individual horse movement behaviour in this study, the prospect warrants further investigation, as does the broader role of animal behaviour and landscape utilisation on the transmission dynamics of Hendra virus.     

Generation of an equine oviductal epithelial cell line for the study of sperm-oviduct interactions

Equine oviductal epithelial cells (OEC) were transformed with simian virus 40 large T antigen (SV 40 T-ag) to create a cell line for the study of the interaction of equine spermatozoa with oviductal epithelium. One cell line was established based on the expression of the SV 40 T-ag and extended lifespan in culture. Immortalized equine OEC retained the characteristics of differentiated OEC such as the formation of monolayers with characteristic epithelial morphology and cell polarization as well as expression of cytokeratin and equine major histocompatibility complex I. Monolayers of immortalized equine OEC retained their functional competence to bind equine spermatozoa in a dose-dependent manner comparable to that of primary equine OEC cultures. This immortalized cell line of equine OEC provides a uniform, readily available system for sperm-OEC co-cultures, and may be a useful model for the study of sperm-oviduct interactions in the horse.     

You are the most valuable reagent in the lab: mental health before and during the pandemic

No one maps out their tenure as a postdoc anticipating a life-altering tragedy. But mental health crises of all kinds affect academic trainees and staff at similar or higher levels than the general public. While the mental health resources available to trainees are often set by healthcare providers, all levels of university leadership can work to remove material and immaterial obstacles that render such resources out of reach. I describe how access to care via telemedicine helped me following a loss in my family.

Over the years, my siblings and close friends have sought mental health resources like therapy, psychoanalysis, or psychiatry, so I loosely understood their benefits. When I was a PhD student I went to therapy briefly, but my counselor and I decided I could do without it. Since I started my postdoc, stress manifested in some new ways but I managed it well with my usual coping strategies and support. That changed one bright December morning in 2019 while I was preparing for our weekly lab meeting. My phone rang indicating a call from my father, whom I had spoken to the night before to celebrate the news of my nephew’s birth. But the voice on the phone was that of a family friend, telling me that my father had died overnight of an undiagnosed heart condition. In the moment I couldn’t even understand what was happening, saying over and over, “but I talked to him last night.” Soon I was sitting at home, dazed, on a string of tearful calls with family and friends.I often read words like “lifted” or “buoyed” to describe the stabilizing support of a network of loved ones. In my case this network was tethering me to reality over the next few weeks, preventing me from spinning off the Earth’s surface in a storm of sorrow and anxiety. The trauma also took a strange physical form and convinced me that I was suffering from a cardiac condition of my own. I had a panic attack during which I went to urgent care convinced my own heart was about to give way. Night after night these physical symptoms prevented me from sleeping.Graced by many loving connections with my siblings, my boyfriend, and close friends, I was actually weathering the process as well as one can. My PI gave me a firm directive to take as much time off as I needed. These were two key elements early in my healing process: a supportive network and an understanding advisor. The third was getting professional help, which I soon realized I needed. Even if I felt OK one day, I didn’t trust that I’d be OK the next. My grief formed too thick and too broad a landscape for me to navigate without help.Deciding to seek mental health resources and realizing that one needs them are often the hardest parts. Connecting with those resources once the decision has been made should be as simple as possible. I called a mental health number, and a triage counselor noted my therapy needs and verified my insurance. She asked what times and locations I preferred and then searched for an open appointment with a therapist who accepted my insurance. She also informed me that my coverage allowed 12 sessions with no copay, which was a pleasant surprise. The therapist who agreed to see me had very few openings, in part because this all happened in December—the holidays are especially busy for therapists. I was aiming for a time after normal working hours, or in the morning before I would head to lab, but none of those times were available. I didn’t like interrupting my workday to trot off to therapy. Taking a long break once a week meant I couldn’t run experiments or mentor my student during that time. But I made the sacrifice because my highest priority was getting the help I needed. There was no shortcut. Prioritizing mental health over lab work is tough for researchers, and I would never have accepted that kind of weekly disruption before my dad’s passing. But as a wonderful mentor of mine used to say, “You are the most valuable reagent in the lab.” She wasn’t describing mental health at the time, but the phrase now provided a guiding principle for my recovery. My first few sessions were on Tuesdays at 2:00 pm.The afternoon break turned out to be less disruptive than I had feared, because I had recently come back to the lab and was working short days. Had she asked, I would have told my PI where I was on Tuesday afternoons, but she wasn’t normally abreast of my daily schedule, so I didn’t seek her approval beforehand. Coordinating experiments with lab members thankfully wasn’t an issue because my work was largely independent; I simply let lab members know that I’d would be out of the lab for a bit on those days.The weeks went by, and the benefits of therapy accrued, helping me in large and small ways as I grieved. In mid-March of 2020, my therapist followed public health guidelines and asked all her clients to transition to remote sessions. While this was easy and sensible, it was still a little disappointing. Therapists are professional empaths, among many other things, and doing away with the physical presence and exchange with her was a blow. Yet therapy via video felt less odd simply because most of my social interactions were now virtual. Thankfully I didn’t have to move out of state for the lockdown (as did many students living in campus housing), which meant I could stay with the same therapist without any insurance complications.A few weeks into lockdown, I asked my therapist whether we had reached the limit of my 12 sessions without a copay. She replied with the good news that my insurance provider had waived all copays for mental health costs due to the pandemic. By that time therapy had generated a platform and an outlet to explore areas of my grief beyond the trauma of my father’s passing. Without needing to weigh the costs and benefits of this resource, I saw my therapist for another 4 months. I slowly took stock of my upbringing in an unconventional family and the loss of my mother when I was 25 and waded through a series of difficult decisions regarding my father’s estate. My father’s death changed me at a depth that is untouched by any amount of therapy or treatment. I’m not “healed”: I feel aged, more brittle, and a little ground down compared with who I had been. But therapy guided me through the worst of my grief, past the acute trauma to help me grasp what I was going through.Since the pandemic began, the number of people reporting increased stress or mental health issues has steadily increased (information on the impact of COVID-19 measures on mental health: https://www.apa.org/workforce/publications/depression-anxiety-coronavirus.pdf) (also see Mental health resources for trainees). I am fortunate to have affordable health insurance and the support from my lab and my department. The ease of finding my institution’s phone number for mental health resources was itself an important benefit. I share these pieces of my story with humility and understanding that not everyone enjoys the privileges that I do and the knowledge that everyone weathers life’s tragedies in their own way. It is not lost on me that some benefits stemmed from a policy change made by a private insurance provider. The provider made the right decision to waive copays, freeing me from having to choose between cost and my mental health needs. Yet had I been a student who had to move out of state due to COVID-19, access to mental health resources might have been disrupted or cut off. The need for reduced out-of-pocket costs for healthcare is known and needs no repetition, but the benefits of telehealth should be a low-cost component of health plans offered to students and staff (information on telehealth recommendations: https://www.apaservices.org/advocacy/news/congress-patient-telehealth?_ga=2.231013471.1538013741.1619359426-1228006513.1619359425 and http://www.apaservices.org/practice/advocacy/state/leadership/telebehavioral-health-policies.pdf?_ga=2.3385904.1067518037.1620039082-1228006513.1619359425.I’m not a cloud of emotions attached to a pair of good pipetting hands, I’m a human who is choosing to spend my time doing research. This observation is easy to repeat, by trainees as much as by faculty and administrators, but much harder to act upon in the midst of conflicting priorities. Consider my story a success: Because I could access the resources I needed, I was able to prioritize my mental health in the midst of my ambitious research program even during the lockdown.MEET THE AUTHORI have been a postdoc in Stefani Spranger’s lab at MIT for 4 years. Supported by an Irvington Fellowship from the Cancer Research Institute, my work examines the behaviors of dendritic cells in tumors that contribute to productive or unproductive anti-tumor immune responses. My doctoral work examined modes of multicellular invasion controlled by the actin cytoskeleton with Margaret Gardel at the University of Chicago. Earlier I was a lab technician with Thea Tlsty at the University of California, San Francisco, which followed a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I serve on the Committee for Students and Postdocs at the American Society for Cell Biology, where I chair the Outreach Subcommittee.     

Bayer revisited

Bayer accuses me of wrongly claiming that he holds a negative thesis about the role that the liberal emphasis on privacy rights has had on AIDS public health policy. In his reply to my review essay, he denies holding such a thesis and, moreover, makes the stronger claim that his position is sympathetic to liberalism, or at least to some versions of it. Although I appreciate Bayer's efforts to clarify his views about liberalism and a "culture of restraint and responsibility", it is clear to me that our differences are related not to a misunderstanding on my part, but to a fundamental disagreement concerning what liberalism as a political philosophy is, and what public policy implications it entails in the case of AIDS....     

Disease risk analysis: a tool for primate conservation planning and decision making

Concern about emerging and re-emerging diseases plays an increasing role in conservation and management of both captive and free-ranging nonhuman primates (NHPs). Managers and policy makers must formulate conservation plans in an arena plagued by uncertainty, complexity, emotion, and politics. The risk analysis paradigm provides a framework that brings together scientists and policy experts to make better decisions for both people and animals. Risk analysis is a multidisciplinary, science-based process that provides an organized and logical approach for incorporating scientific information into policy development in the real world. By blending four specific goal-oriented stages-hazard identification, risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication-one can logically assess the probability that an adverse event, such as the introduction of an emerging disease into a na?ve population, will occur. The following is a review of this process as it pertains to NHP conservation and risks associated with infectious diseases.