Letters to the editor

Origin Story

I just read the article "Saving Lives, Alternatively Speaking" [Fall 2024] about the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing and its current efforts to find alternative systems for in vivo toxicology studies, particularly for FDA-regulated drug products. What brought back memories was the sentence about the original grant that formed CAAT coming from the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association. Perhaps I could add some color to what was behind that grant.

The CTFA was a trade association that had a toxicology committee composed of people coming from member companies, including a recently minted PhD in pharmacology who joined Procter & Gamble straight out of grad school. P&G shuffled me into toxicology and the corporate boot camp program for management and writing while my girlfriend/wife finished her PhD in toxicology at Cincinnati.

Being a toxicologist at P&G meant following prescribed protocols for testing formulations, under severe conditions, in "predictive" animal models. But as part of management training, I was sent to CTFA to participate, with far more experienced colleagues from other companies, on the toxicology committee. I wasn't allowed to question the wisdom or predictive value of the animal testing protocols at conservative P&G because the company's program management was to only be guided by internal "experts" in each field. That's how the idea for the grant originated at CTFA and I was able to convince my tox committee colleagues to go with the Hopkins proposal. I didn't last much longer at P&G, but I'm pleased to see how CAAT has grown from this initial grant 44 years ago.

Jeffrey Oster, A&S '75
Seattle

Worthwhile Investment

Animal testing raises serious ethical concerns and often fails to predict human outcomes. The article "Saving Lives, Alternatively Speaking" highlighting advances in alternatives to animal testing is both timely and inspiring. Traditional animal testing is not only ethically troubling but also fails to predict human outcomes. Innovations like organoid cultures and AI offer reliable, humane, and cost-effective alternatives. Increased investment in these technologies, as demonstrated by innovators like Johns Hopkins, can transform science while upholding ethical standards. I hugely admire the work being done to reimagine research and I love that you have brought attention to this and provided such valuable insight and information. 

Giselle Kennedy
St. Paul, Minnesota

On Autocracy

Anne Applebaum's thesis in Autocracy, Inc. ["Dictators United," Fall 2024] is that authoritarian states are united by their dislike of "us"—the United States and our democratic allies, joined by their determination to undermine both the language and the reality of liberal democracy.

Do we have the political will to remain the global champion of democracy? As a United States citizen, I hope so. But it is not looking good right now.

John D. Rosin, SAIS '83 (MA)
Berlin

Sour Ending

I thoroughly enjoyed Maryalice Yakutchik's "Dispatch From The 15th Century BCE" in the Winter 2024 issue until I reached the concluding paragraphs:

Türker is asserting herself among Assyriologists whose expertise is epigraphy—an insular field that Lauinger describes as dominated by white males from America and Western Europe.

It's vital that a diverse group of scholars pursues studies of the past, Lauinger says. "Otherwise we're just going to be saying the same thing over and over again."

These assertions fail on conjoined grounds. First, are we to believe the conclusions researchers in any endeavor are condemned to reach the same conclusions by virtue of their identity? This certainly would be news in countless highly specialized disciplines wherein long-running and often bitter feuds over hypotheses derived from sparse evidence fill journals and fuel conferences. Second, are we to believe researchers of different identities are more likely to follow different approaches solely as the result of the accident of their births?

These gratuitous and unsubstantiated statements at the end of an otherwise fine entry insult multiple generations of researchers in a wide variety of disciplines. While he died in 1832 and thus cannot speak for himself, I strongly doubt Jean-François Champollion, the decipherer of the Rosetta Stone, began presentation of his work, "Moi, un homme blanc de naissance Europeenne..." ("I, a white male of European birth...").

Howard L. Simons, A&S '75, SAIS '77 (MA)
Glenview, Illinois

Correction:

In "A Teeny-Tiny Problem of Epic Proportions" [Winter 2024], we incorrectly stated the estimated population of people who live in the Mississippi River watershed area. The total number of residents used for the study was 86 million people. Thank you to reader Mark Benson for flagging the error.