Delma Fleming takes me to task for alleged ignorance about the use of primates in research, citing numerous abuses and careless handling of monkeys in research. She further declares that primates are not necessary in research, or will not be in a decade or two. I’m not a biologist, but apparently neither is Fleming (the Ph.D. which she flaunts is in psychology, according to googled references, mine is in early English literature). You don’t need a Ph.D. in biology to know where the truth lies, however. The starting point for my assertions about the role of monkeys in science has been the work I do assisting various academics and government agencies prepare proposals for federal grants. Although none of the applications I have helped prepare use primates in experiments, some of the grants admit this as a possibility, and I am well aware of the stringent requirements for such projects through the guarantees that they require of the applicant. 

Any cursory Internet search will turn up authoritative information to back up my position, such as the web sites of the American Society of Primatologists and the National Institutes of Health U.S. National Library of Medicine, whose statement on Government regulation of nonhuman primate facilities reads: “Myriad international, federal, and state laws, regulations, rules, guidelines, and standards directly affect the activities of all nonhuman primate research facilities. Federal regulations alone encompass every aspect of facility operations.” The National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, clarifies this issue, citing a report by the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research: “Alternative methods to the use of animals as disease models are employed whenever possible. However, animal experimentation continues to be absolutely essential for…improving human health through basic and applied biomedical research.” Arguing that inappropriate use of monkeys in the past is cause for ceasing to use them is incorrect. The wrong behaviors of the past are what provoked the valuable restrictions and conditions that are genuinely in force to protect them now and in the future. 

I am totally in favor of reducing the use of animals in experimentation, especially in ways that may cause them pain or death. I am an animal lover who lovingly hosts several dogs and cats I have rescued. The reality is that although the number of animals, especially monkeys (which make up only 0.25-0.5 % of the animals used in research in the U.S.), has been able to be reduced in recent years, their use continues to be essential. For an idea of how valuable their use has been, skim this list of medical advances made through research with nonhuman primates: the discovery of the components of blood and plasma, the ability to diagnose and treat typhoid fever, the discovery of the mumps virus, treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, the discovery of the Rh factor and other blood-typing knowledge critical for safe blood transfusions, the development of the first polio vaccine in the 1950s, advances in cancer chemotherapy, the development of yellow fever vaccine, the development of German measles vaccine, therapeutic use of cortisone, advances in corneal transplantation, treatment of leprosy, the discovery that alcohol is toxic to the liver, the development of cyclosporine and anti-rejection drugs, the identification of psychophysiological co-factors in depression, anxiety, and phobias, treatment of congenital cataracts and “lazy eye” in children, advances in Parkinson’s disease, the first Hepatitis B vaccine, establishing the effectiveness of AZT for HIV/AIDS and other HIV/AIDS research, lead toxicity studies that help in the fight against childhood lead exposure, advances in curing diabetes, advances in Alzheimer’s research, development of anthrax vaccine, and advances in human embryonic stem cell work, to name only some of the more striking contributions. 

Raising monkeys for research is greatly preferable to capturing wild monkeys, the alternative regrettably practiced when farmed monkeys are not available. Some monkey species are in danger of extinction because of this practice. Further, monkeys from the wild may have genetic abnormalities or pathogens that greatly diminish their suitability for research. Raising monkeys in a facility such as that proposed for Guayama is essential then, not only to protect the wild population but to assure that experimentation with monkeys produces valid results and does not needlessly exploit these creatures. I don’t know the specifics of the plan for this facility, but if it complies with all regulations and guidelines, I would endorse it. 

I appreciate, applaud and support the effort to protect and defend animals. However, when it takes extreme forms and when it distorts the facts as in Delma Fleming’s letter it does a serious disservice to the cause. 

The Puerto Rico Commonwealth bureaucracy isn’t the only venue where obdurate incompetence reigns.

I was born in New Jersey and need a birth certificate. I goggled New Jersey BVS and was instructed to forward written request, a photocopy of ID and a $4 money order. Then I was deluged with spam from private operations that “expedite” documents for $40 to $60. I mailed Trenton the $4.

Whe the birth certificate wouldn’t arrive, I e-mailed them. No response. I e-mailed them again. No response. Again. They wired back they had no record of my request nor of the $4. That I should complain to the US Postal Service, they’re always losing stuff. I re-requested and sent another $4. Throughtout, the spam from the “expeditors” was relentless.

After four months I got my first request back with a scribble that my address on the request and on my driver’s were different.I’d moved, what can you do?

So I still can’t apply for a passport. And I hear that’s a nightmare too these days. One wonders, is stupidity inherent to government service? As Giancarlo Giannini put it in Film d’amore a d’anarchia (1973), VIVA L’ANARCHIIIIAAAA! 

Is there a connection between the drinking doctors and our homophobic leaders?

Individuals commenting on the videos criticized the doctors, while others urged the public to stop shattering Puerto Rico’s image.”Everyone needs to wind down and relax after work.... Focus on the positive,” one person said. -- Quoted from: “P.R. doctor’s scandal spawn You Tube mock videos” (Feb 1).

How could any doctor or other medical professional be among these suffering Haitians and want to party? Wose yet, find “having fun” in this terrible human tragedy? Does this same kind of mentality make it possible for some Puerto Rican leaders to say that gay Steven, who was stabbed, decapitated, cut up into pieces and burned, deserved what he got? 

Too many fundamentalist religious leaders teach about a God of hate and fear instead of about a God of love and compassion. As a Christian taught to believe in love and compassion, I cannot comprehend the behavior of these drinking doctors. Also, I cannot understand the anti-gay bigotry of some religious and political leaders in Puerto Rico. It is so contrary to the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It seems that some super religious here in Puerto Rico have their spirituality in disconnected segments instead of as an integrated whole. They are unable to relate spiritually to the reality around them.

I see a connection between this behavior and the doctors drinking with the homophobia in Puerto Rico. I wonder how many of these doctors would drink to and have fun about hate-crime victim Steven getting what he deserved because he is gay?

To Jorge López:

Your whines shall ever fall on deaf ears. Insofar as the business community are making money, all is fine at Fortaleza. They saturate the media when elections come around and that’s a pretty penny and the pols favored better be grateful. Our public school uneducation is the catalyst, we wouldn’t dream of thinking independently.

And the difference between New York City and us is that over there the middle class is a protected category, here instead we’re the buffer, we come between the poor and their wealthy oppressors, we catch the bullets, hence the vehement stats.

Like most folks in this country, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes & the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. 

In order to get that paycheck, in my case, I am required to pass a random urine test (with which I have no problem). 

What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don’t have to pass a urine test. 

So, here is my question: Shouldn’t one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? 

Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their BUTT — doing drugs while I work. 

Can you imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? 

I guess we could call the program “URINE OR YOU’RE OUT”! 

P.S. Just a thought, all politicians should have to pass a urine test too!

To Robert McCarroll:

“Gov. Fortuño, are you on the side of the voters or the large campaign contributors?” you wonder.

Mr. McCarroll, do you believe in the Easter Bunny? I wonder.

Voters don’t matter in the macro of politics. You first keep the masses undereducated enough to render them incapable of independent thinking. Our public schools do a superb job at that, not to forget the virtual prohibition of public libraries. Though a complex economy does require a modest schooled sector, management and technology can hardly be done by the intellectually deprived. And natch, the scions of the leeches on top go to Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton.

Then you feed the media your lies. Dr. Göbbels used to point out that the trick’s saturation, to say things over and over again, no matter how far-fetched. And having the media rant what you tell them to costs campaign contributions plenty, that’s how Milla de Oro turns out the de facto seat of government.

Among humankind males are expected to pursue females. Yes, we have to do all the work. And endure rejection most of the time, appeal for the opposite sex being idiosyncratic, unless you’re Brad Pitt perhaps. Rejection always hurts, even when done nicely. But when you get your nose rubbed in the dirt, when the damsel in question flaunts in your face that your approach or merely your person is offensive to her, then, the hurt hurts deep. A man is expected to be thick-skinned, but in truth we’re not, our innards are as mushy as the next creature’s.

 A woman in turn need not chase anybody, she simply waits for Prince Charming to show up. But inevitably many toads asking to be kissed will precede him, it’s an inevitable annoyance, but certainly less traumatic than being told by Brad Pitt to go fly a kite. So shouldn’t these soon-to-be-sent-packing suitors be treated with respect, kindness even?

 It so happens my young neighbor got detained and harrassed by the police because he initiated conversation with a young lady walking up Ashford. She told them she “was alerted” in that he kept on talking to her but didn’t have much to say,” and she answered him anyway because “you never know.” We don’t all have the gift of the gab and thinking out a good line in a matter of seconds is no easy affair. A burly cop wagged a finger in front of his face and warned him that in Puerto Rico you don’t “montas un perico,” talk on and on like a parrot, to a fémina, cop slang for female, to whom you haven’t been introduced and have no reason to address. My neighbor’s from Madrid, where, well, féminas are friendlier.

Joaquín Serrano, Condado