Animal rights symposium misrepresented
This letter is in reference to Friday's article, "Speakers attempt to justify animal research," which addressed the symposium on the use of animals in research at the University. Although an educational event such as this, organized by a student group (Focus on Animal Contributions To Science) might not be newsworthy enough to be printed on its own, it was made newsworthy by the attendance of another student group, Student Organization for Animal Rights, and by the potential conflict that might ensue.
Regardless of what context it is printed in, more of an attempt to understand the event should have been made, as the article contained important errors that we wish to clear up.
The purpose of the symposium was misrepresented in the headline, "Speakers attempt to justify animal research," and at several points throughout the article. The symposium was not meant as a tool to sway animal-rights activists, but rather as an educational symposium for people working with the Academic Health Center, the eventual goal being that people within this field would be less hesitant to speak out against blatant lies propagated about the use of animals in research. The purpose of the symposium was explicitly stated in the introduction by our president, Kristin Schreiber: to educate people within the University about what kinds of animals are used in research at the University, what standards are used to regulate it and who takes care of the animals.
The majority of attendees were not animal-rights activists. Yet none of these people were asked for an opinion on whether the message was empty. Smaller mistakes, like "eight prominent University professors" (in truth, there were nine speakers, and only five of them were professors) were not as serious, but they led to an important misinterpretation: that researchers themselves are the only ones concerned about this issue and the only ones with any involvement in it. In fact, other speakers included the head of the animal care and use committee, a veterinarian, a medical doctor, an animal-care worker and an ethicist.
Quoting a blatant lie by an activist who said, "No one is involved in funding alternatives (to animals)," the article was misleading because, in fact, several speakers spoke about alternatives. Dick Bianco and Cynthia Gillett talked about the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee's application process, in which every scientist who is proposing to use animals must conduct a documented search for alternative and adjunct techniques that reduce the number of animals used.
Both Dr. Walter Low (cell culture) and Apostolos Georgopoulos (computer modeling) use nonanimal adjuncts in their research, which they presented during the symposium. Several other speakers made the point that many scientists who use animals use other techniques as well, but that these two are never truly independent of each other because the base of knowledge from one is essential to the other. The ignorance that surrounds the issue was not dispelled by the article, because it focused solely on the reactions of animal-rights activists. Ironically, it perpetuated many of the misconceptions about the use of animals in research at the University.
Perhaps this is a more complex issue than can be addressed in such a short article. If the real purpose of this symposium were understood, more researchers would be willing to take the time to talk about it and shed more light on this not-so-black-and-white issue.

Kristin Schreiber,president,Andrew Morgan,member,Focus on Animal Contributions To Science (FACTS)

Save the mice!
I have a query for the animal-rights activists whose actions on this campus were previously reported in the pages of the Daily: will you help "save the mice?"
One clue that winter is upon us is that the mice have begun to move inside and cohabit residential kitchens and homes. As much as I respect these creatures, I, like many others, do not want to extend my sympathy to include sharing my accommodations with them, even for the harsh winter.
Yet it is a challenge to find live traps so that one can return the mice to their natural habitat. The hardware stores are replete with poisons, snap-traps, adhesive-papers, etc. From the sheer volume available for sale, I must be impressed with the magnitude of the murinicide. The scale of this annual ritual must surely dwarf the use of animals in research.
Yet no animal-rights activists seem to be picketing the stores or raiding them to confiscate these murderous devices. Nor does there seem to be widespread advocacy for the use of live traps. Why no consistency of voice or action?
Are we entitled to a response from those who advocate dismantling the use of animals in scientific research?

Douglas Allchin,adjunct faculty,philosophy

U suckered by PeopleSoft
Thank you, Kristin Gustafson, for writing Monday's article, "PeopleSoft glitches create headaches," which addressed the many incompetencies of the bloated pig of a program known as PeopleSoft. I would also like to thank the Daily in general for making it front-page news. A lot of people have misconceptions about who the real culprit is when they wait in line for an hour at the financial aid office or try to register for classes. Just blame PeopleSoft.
Now, I'm not sure how we got suckered into this thing, but they must have one of the best public relations departments in the world to be able to convince the powers that be at the University to spend $53 million to be their beta testing group. Hell, we could have bought another Gateway Center for the West Bank and used the extra $5 million to pay our own programmers in the computer science department to implement a new Y2K-compliant system. But no, PeopleSoft has us by the cajones.
We have gone this far, we pretty much have to finish it. We need something that works now -- even if it is severely faulty -- as opposed to a year down the road, or however long it would take to code a project this big. Thank you, PeopleSoft.

Colin DeLong,junior,computer science