The cause of red nose day is noble. Anybody in their right mind would want to contribute to finding a cure that would save the lives of babies. The red nose gimmick has done lots to unite the community in a common cause, including sports and television celebrities and politicians. Thr Red Nose Appeal is the most popular charity in Australia - Victorians alone donate up to $1.5 million a year. Due to this success the SIDS foundation has a wealth that can be used to produce real gains. It is unfortunate that much of the funding allocated for research into cot death is spent on animal based research, SIDSF reports this is as much as 30%.
Animal research (vivisection) is a defective research method. The artificiality of the experiments cannot produce results equilivant to real life situations. How many monkeys die of cot death? So how can animals be of any assistance to finding the cure? When the animal is infected with the disease in research, it gives out different results, the animal never actually has the disease, just symptoms that are associated with the disease in question.
These differences limit the ability to view one species and extrapolate what we have viewed to another. The human species is like no other. It is useless to compare humans to even our closet relative, the chimpanzee, the species difference is too substantial.
When we give money to charitable organizations we assume the work they are doing or the research they are carrying out ir worthwhile. We should not be this trusting.For example, SIDSF granted $18,726 per year (1993-95) to Hugh McGregor and Dr David Walker of the physiology Department of Monash University to study how maternal smoking effects respiration in the newborn. The study used guinea pigs as the model.
It was found that "Guinea Pigs born to mothers who were exposed to either nicotine or carbon monoxide for the majority of pregnancy showed a blunted response to carbon dioxide........these animals also showed a functional deficit in lung size when compared to the control group."
The report went on to say that "the newborn guinea pigs born to mothers who recieved nicotine from the beginning of pregnancy weighed more at birth and actually gained weight much faster than the control and carbon monoxide treated groups.....they also had a subtle respiratory deficit."
It cost $56,000 to find this out.
Even if newborn guinea pigs are affected by maternal smoking this will manifest itself in different ways to the effect of maternal smoking in newborn humans. An example is that for decades scientists failed to warn us of the hazards of smoking because they could not recreate human diseases such as lung cancer or emphysema in animals.
Luckily, population studies and clinical studies showed overwhelming evidence of the negative effects of smoking. Scientists could no longer refute the dangers because of the inability to recreate the diseases in animals.
One thing we do know is that newborn guinea pigs do not suffer SIDS as a result of smoking.
There has been an enormous amount of evidence put forth by a number of health professionals that actually exposes the major causes of SIDS.
It is difficult to understand why research into these areas is not being undertaken.
Dr. Kalokerinos who managed to completely eliminate the high incidence of cot death at his country practice in Collarenebri states; "The actual mechanism of death is an acute deficiency of vitamin C and this can occur even if the diet contains so-called 'adequate' amounts becausse of an increased need of absorption.
Sudden death in scurvy is well documented - sailors have dropped dead while actually working. There need not be any clinical signs of scurvy although these may be present. There are 2 main causes of deficiency - a dietary deficiency and an increased need because of stress, injury, or illness.
This information was taken from a newsletter, more of it will be added soon.