Unconscious Confounds

Send a textWelcome to episode 32 of GetReal! I’m Dr.  Cindy Buckmaster, your host for GetReal! and today we’re going to talk about the confound in biomedical research with animals that no one is talking about - the impact of anesthesia on study outcomes. Are findings from studies involving anesthesia always reliable? Dr. Colin Dunlop, a well known veterinary anesthesiologist and established expert in the field will share the RAW Truth with us today…on GetReal! Support the show

Send a textToday we stop ignoring the truth about how new treatments make it to our medicine cabinets and face the hard facts…together...on GetReal! Support the show

Send a textThere’s no such thing as compassion fatigue and we should drop it from our vocabulary immediately! This term, along with most of the others used to describe the emotions we battle when working with research animals, just makes things worse. Confused? Our guest from the Two Truths episode, Lisa Kelly, returns today to spell it out for us…on GetReal!Support the show

Send a textYou may find this surprising, but biomedical research with animals isn’t only necessary for improving human and animal lives. It’s also critical for protecting our food supply and our economy. How so? Dr. Maggie Behnke, Attending Veterinarian for the USDA National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, joins us today to lay out the facts…on GetReal!Support the show

Send a textIs love for animals what truly drives the animal rights movement? How did this movement begin and what is its ultimate goal? Patti Strand, President and Founder of the National Animal Interest Alliance, has been studying this movement and sharing her findings publicly for decades. She’ll break it all down for us today…on GetReal!Support the show

Send a textGroups opposed to research with animals insist that studies with monkeys are irrelevant to human health and disease, and that all of these animals should be retired to sanctuaries. Those who believe these groups consider this to be a perfect plan; but is it? Surely a sanctuary would be an ideal place for retired research monkeys to spend the rest of their lives; but would it? Scott Kubisch, Director and Founder of Peaceable Primates Sanctuary, will lay out the facts for us today…on GetReal!Support the show

Send a textThere’s a lot of discussion these days about the “reproducibility crisis” in science and how that may be delaying the medical advances we seek for ourselves and our loved ones. Today we’re going to talk about what may be the number one reason for why more than half of the research findings from animal studies are questionable. The animals on study are hardly ever as healthy as we think. And you can’t get clean results from dirty research models. How did we get here and what’s the solution moving forward? Dr. Ken Henderson, Senior Director for Laboratory Services with Charles River Laboratories, will break it down for us today…on GetReal! Support the show

Send a textToday we’ll catch up with Trina who lost her beautiful boy, Austin, to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy two years ago. It turns out that her journey with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy isn’t over yet because, contrary to popular belief,  girls and women are also affected by this devastating and deadly disease. But the scientific and medical communities have ignored this fact for decades. Well, Trina has had enough! And she’s on a mission to put girls and women with this rare disease on the research calendar. We’ll discuss this and more with her today on GetReal! Support the show

Send a textBreeding research mice responsibly is not as easy as it sounds. Every day, animal lives are wasted and biomedical discovery is compromised because colony management has simply become too complex for human beings to do well. So…we should STOP DOING IT! Our partners at Transnetyx have developed tools that are available right now that make our critical research with rodents less wasteful, more productive…and more meaningful. We’ll learn about some of them from Bob Bean and Jessie Janeczek today on GetReal! Support the show

Send a textWhat would you do if you worked with research animals and you were certain they could receive better care than they were getting? A lot of people would probably just get frustrated and complain about it. They might even feel hopeless enough to resign. But what if you could find better ways for folks to care for their animals and their science, and actually help them change things for the better? Would you find the time to do that for your organization? What about the entire research community? Our guest today is Gennifer Caesar and she’s decided to go large with this concept. She’ll share her journey and her ideas with us today… on GetReal!Support the show