The mouse-grimace scale measures pain for better analgesics
Posted 07.29.2010 at 4:24 pm
1 Comment
Pained Expression
The severity of a mouse’s pain can be determined by how much its eyes narrow,
its ears flatten, its whiskers shift, and its nose and cheeks bulge.
Paul Wootton
Ears pulled back? Nose bulging? Eyes squinting? Get some morphine for that mouse, stat. The first animal “pain face” scale, published in May by neuroscientists at McGill University in Montreal, measures the agony of lab mice. After giving mice a mild stomachache-inducing drug, the researchers recorded changes to five facial features, such as squinting eyes and bulging cheeks, which they combined to produce a 1-to-10 scale. They then verified it with more than 100 other mice, and it correlated with the degree of pain administered. Replacing conjecture about animal pain with an objective scale could help researchers more accurately test compounds in animals in order to develop better painkillers for a species that’s already well-known to grimace when hurt: Homo sapiens.
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This article also appeared in the September issue, which prompted me to send a letter to the editor.
I was stunned beyond belief to see a so-called "modern" publication print an article about studying the facial attributes of a mouse in varying degrees of pain as a means of better judging the value of painkillers. Apparently, since painkillers are important to humans, these sick "scientists" test the value of painkillers by deliberately causing pain (the very thing to be avoided) in so-called "lesser" animals. Not be to unclear, we were given a drawing of what "intense pain" looks like in a mouse.
Is this psychotic! Yes, it is!
If you have great difficulty with empathy, then imagine an article reporting how Jews were tested - or perhaps blacks or mentally retarded - to see what expression they made when exposed to varing degrees of pain, and this in order to use them in pain-testing experiment for the "higher" species.
Both the writer of this article, assuming she developed this story on her own, and the people who made the decision to put this article in your publication should be ashamed. I'm a damn good judge of people and the person who wrote this article has deep issues - not only is the article itself disgusting, but the drawings and the info that "more than 100 mice were tested" are all means of amplifying that mice were caused pain. She may as well have waved a flag and shouted, "Read my article about how mice were caused pain - and let me be clear from the drawings that they were caused intense pain - and let me be clear that more than 100 mice were caused this pain - and to close, let me say that this form of testing painkillers will be used over and over and over." And to add, in this online version, the word "agony" is used. This is dispicable.
I recently received a notice to renew my subscription, which I have had for decades. There are other science publications and it is now that I'm going to jump ship and dump this trash.
Shame on Popular Science.
Disgusting!