PETA does brain science
New York Times - January 25, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/science/25sheep.html
Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay. Then
the news media and the blogosphere got hold of the story.
Dr. Roselli, a researcher at the Oregon Health and Science
University, has searched for the past five years for physiological
factors that might explain why about 8 percent of rams seek sex
exclusively with other rams instead of ewes. The goal, he says, is to
understand the fundamental mechanisms of sexual orientation in sheep.
Other researchers might some day build on his findings to seek ways
to determine which rams are likeliest to breed, he said.
But since last fall, when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
started a campaign against the research, it has drawn a torrent of
outrage from animal rights activists, gay advocates and ordinary
citizens around the world — all of it based, Dr. Roselli and
colleagues say, on a bizarre misinterpretation of what the work is
about.
The story of the gay sheep became a textbook example of the
distortion and vituperation that can result when science meets the
global news cycle.
The news media storm reached its zenith last month, when The Sunday
Times in London published an article under the headline “Science
Told: Hands Off Gay Sheep.” It asserted, incorrectly, that Dr.
Roselli had worked successfully to “cure” homosexual rams with
hormone treatments, and added that “critics fear” that the research
“could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.”
Martina Navratilova, the tennis star who is both openly gay and a
PETA ally, wrote in an open letter that the research “can only be
surmised as an attempt to develop a prenatal treatment” for sexual
conditions.
The controversy spilled into the blog world, with attacks on Dr.
Roselli, his university and Oregon State University, which is also
involved in the research. PETA began an e-mail campaign that the
universities say resulted in 20,000 protests, some with language like
“you are a worthless animal killer and you should be shot,” “I hope
you burn in hell” and “please, die.”
The news coverage, which has been heaviest in England and Australia,
focused on smirk and titillation — and, of course, puns. Headlines
included “Ewe Turn for Gay Rams on Hormones” and “He’s Just Not That
Into Ewe.”
In recent weeks, the tide has begun to turn, with Dr. Roselli and Jim
Newman, an Oregon Health and Science publicist, saying they have been
working to correct the record in print and online. The university has
sent responses to senders of each PETA-generated e-mail message.
Dr. Roselli, whose research is supported by the National Institutes
of Health and is published in leading scientific journals, insists
that he is as repulsed as his critics by the thought of sexual
eugenics in humans. He said human sexuality was a complex phenomenon
that could not be reduced to interactions of brain structure and
hormones.
On blogs where attacks have appeared, the researchers point out that
many of the accusations, like The Sunday Times’s assertion that the
scientists implant devices in the brains of the sheep, are simply false.
The researchers acknowledge that the sheep are killed in the course
of the research so their brain structure can be analyzed, but they
say they follow animal welfare guidelines to prevent suffering.
The authors of the Sunday Times article, Chris Gourlay and Isabel
Oakeshott, referred questions to a managing editor, who they said was
traveling and could not be reached.
Dr. Roselli and Mr. Newman persuaded some prominent bloggers,
including Andrew Sullivan, who writes an online column for Time, to
correct postings that had uncritically quoted The Sunday Times’s
article. They also found an ally in the blog world: a scientist who
writes under the pseudonym emptypockets and has taken up Dr.
Roselli’s cause. The blogger, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because he said a public stand could hurt his career, said he had
been cheered by the number of bloggers who dropped their opposition
when presented with the facts.
Ms. Navratilova, who also received a response from the university,
said she remained unconvinced.
“The more we play God or try to improve on Mother Nature, the more
damage we are doing with all kinds of experiments that either have
already turned or will turn into nightmares,” she wrote in an e-mail
reply to a reporter’s query. “How in the world could straight or gay
sheep help humanity?”
In an interview, Shalin Gala, a PETA representative working on the
sheep campaign, said controlling or altering sexual orientation was a
“natural implication” of the work of Dr. Roselli and his colleagues.
Mr. Gala, who asked that he be identified as openly gay, cited the
news release for a 2004 paper in the journal Endocrinology that
showed differences in brain structure between homosexual and
heterosexual sheep.
The release quoted Dr. Roselli as saying that the research “also has
broader implications for understanding the development and control of
sexual motivation and mate selection across mammalian species,
including humans.”
Mr. Newman, who wrote the release, said the word “control” was used
in the scientific sense of understanding the body’s internal
controls, not in the sense of trying to control sexual orientation.
“It’s discouraging that PETA can pick one word, try to add weight to
it or shift its meaning to suggest that you are doing something that
you clearly are not,” he said.
Dr. Roselli said that merely mentioning possible human implications
of basic research was wildly different from intending to carry the
work over to humans.
Mentioning human implications, he said, is “in the nature of the way
we write our grants” and talk to reporters. Scientists who do basic
research find themselves in a bind, he said, adding, “We have been
forced to draw connections in a way that we can justify our research.”
As for whether the deaths of the sheep are justified, he said, “why
would you pick on a guy who’s killing maybe 18 sheep a year, when
there’s maybe four million killed for food and clothing in this
country?”
Paul Root Wolpe, a professor of psychiatry at the University of
Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the university’s Center for
Bioethics, said that although he supported Dr. Roselli’s research,
“I’m not sure I would let him off the hook quite as easily as he
wants to be let off the hook.”
By discussing the human implications of the research, even in a
somewhat careful way, Dr. Roselli “opened the door” to the reaction,
Dr. Wolpe said, and “he has to take responsibility for the public
response.”
If the mechanisms underlying sexual orientation can be discovered and
manipulated, Dr. Wolpe continued, then the argument that sexual
orientation is based in biology and is immutable “evaporates.”
The prospect of parents’ eventually being able to choose not to have
children who would become gay is a real concern for the future, Dr.
Wolpe said. But he added, “This concern is best addressed by trying
to change public perceptions of homosexuality rather than stop basic
science on sexuality.”