A New Research Model

The Story Of Beauty The Paralyzed Dog and
The Ugliness Of Scientific Research In Medicine

The nervous system in mammals (animals that drink milk from their mother) is extremely complex. It consists of millions of cells called neurons, arranged in a network composed of billions of connections (synapses). The system allows mammals to carry out functions from simple automatic reflexes (a flea bites and the dog scratches) to highly complex mental processes (composing music).

Once upon a time, we believed that the nervous system had a very limited capacity for regeneration, especially in older animals. We believed that if an animal were paralyzed there was little that could be done unless it was operated on within a couple of days. Even in those that received surgery, if they did not walk again within a few weeks, no recovery was expected.

Out of ignorance and stubbornness I have tried to help paralyzed dogs, some that have had surgery, and others that have not. One of those was Beauty (name changed to protect the privacy of the patient). She was a 4-year-old female dog who suddenly developed paralysis of her hind legs, along with loosing control of her bowels and bladder. Surgery was not an option for her, and too many days had passed between the onset of paralysis and the time when I saw her. She was getting around by dragging her hind legs, a strategy that worked well for her. She loved people and wanted to greet everyone and be patted. Dragging her hind legs was not an impediment to accomplishing her greatest desire.

But her dragging legs became ulcerated and infected. I gave her acupuncture and within two sessions she regained some movement in the legs: she would just slightly pull the leg towards her body if I pulled it back. But she would not do it on her own. I reasoned that because she could get her “people fix” just by dragging her legs, she did not need to bother with the work of using them. So I designed an exercise where someone would call her while I held her back legs. I would not let her go until she would pull on the legs. I raised the bar gradually, forcing her to actually bring her hind legs forward. She started using her hind legs more and more and gradually regained control of her bowels and bladder as well. Today, she walks and runs on all four legs.

Recently I came across some articles about experiments that show that the nervous system is anything but hardwired and inflexible. In one experiment, the nerves that send sensory signals to the brain from the right arm were cut off in several monkeys. As expected, the monkeys could not move their right arm and did every task with their left arm. The researchers then tied the monkeys’ left arms up in slings so they could not use them. To their surprise, the monkeys started using the injured right arm, until they regained almost complete use of it. Then, the researchers cut off the portion of the monkeys’ brains that control the motor functioning of the right arm. As expected, the monkeys lost use of the right arms. The researchers then applied repeated electrical stimulations to the arms. The monkeys once again regained control of their right arms. The researchers found that other parts of the brain began processing the information necessary for movement of the right arm. These experiments demonstrated that with the correct stimulation, the nervous system is able to regain its function after the loss of a part; the nervous system finds alternative pathways and reorganizes itself to continue doing what it evolved to do.

What I tried with Beauty out of intuition and general knowledge turned out to have a clear mechanism of action. I have used these techniques to help several patients, with great success. The techniques developed from the results of the experiments with the monkeys are helping human patients who have suffered the loss of certain functions due to brain or nerve damage after strokes or accidents.

But what about the monkeys that had their nerves cut off? They did not gain any direct benefit from the experiment. Nobody bothered trying to find out if they wanted to have their nerves cut off or their brains fried. They did not give their consent to undergo torture for the benefit of humanity or other animals. Current methods for experimentation in medicine rely on animal models. Animals are intentionally injured in order to replicate a disease seen in humans, so we may learn the mechanism of the disease and test treatments. So monkeys and other animals are purposely injured with chemicals, injected with microbes or have body parts removed.

Efforts are made to define the ethical treatment of laboratory animals but there is little that is humane in purposely causing injuries to animals for the sake of learning to treat humans, primarily. Routine medical practice offers countless opportunities for formulating and testing new treatments. Yet if practitioners were limited to the use of strictly-tested therapies, we could not help half of our patients; homeopathy and acupuncture would have to be abandoned, and Beauty and other patients of mine would probably have been euthanized.

We could develop protocols where researchers and practitioners work together, to learn as much as possible from naturally occurring cases. In the new research model, researchers would be required to be experimental subjects. That is how experimentation in homeopathy started and is still carried out. A fraction of the millions of dollars spent on animal laboratories would be sufficient to thoroughly document the work done in clinical practice and to make that information readily available to other practitioners. This system would make experimental subjects of doctors and patients. Then the burden of scientific experimentation would be evenly distributed among those who benefit directly or can give explicit consent. We would then be forced to develop the most gentle and least invasive therapies; and animals would not suffer disproportionately.

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