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The article focuses on the African-Americans who are used as guinea pigs for medical experimentation in the U.S. It cites an example of African-American Ebb Cade who was injected with plutonium to find out the harm caused by plutonium in the human body. It mentions that African-Americans in prison were also used as guinea pigs to test radioactive, toxic and mind-altering drugs for the U.S. military.

The fruit of NANDINA DOMESTICA Thunberg (ND, Berberidaceae) has been used to improve cough and breathing difficulties in Japan for many years, but very little is known about the constituent of ND responsible for this effect. We have recently reported that the crude extract from ND (NDE) inhibits histamine- and serotonin-induced contraction of isolated guinea pig trachea, and the inhibitory activity was not explained by nantenine, a well-known alkaloid isolated from ND. To explore other constituent(s) of NDE with tracheal smooth muscle relaxant activity, we fractionated NDE and assessed the pharmacological effects of the fractions using isolated guinea pig tracheal ring preparations. NDE was introduced into a polyaromatic absorbent resin column and stepwise eluted to yield five fractions, among which only the 40?% methanol fraction was active in relaxing tracheal smooth muscle precontracted with histamine. Further separation of the 40?% methanol fraction with high-performance liquid chromatography yielded multiple subfractions, one of which was remarkably active in relaxing histamine-precontracted trachea. Chemical analysis with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer identified the constituent of the most active subfraction as higenamine, a benzyltetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloid. The potency and efficacy of the active constituent from NDE in relaxing trachea were almost equivalent to synthetic higenamine. In addition, the effect of the active constituent from NDE was competitively inhibited by the selective ? 2-adrenoceptor antagonist ICI 118,551. These results indicate that the major constituent responsible for the effect of NDE is higenamine, which probably causes the tracheal relaxation through stimulation of ? 2adrenoceptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion. Talks about the plight of guinea pigs. Criticism of US Department of Agriculture for its inability to prevent illegal experiments on the animals.

The article discusses the preclinical study data on GRNCM1, a cardiomyocyte product from Geron Corp. derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to treat myocardial disease. The study used a guinea pig model to assess the potential for arrhythmias from GNMC1 and echocardiogram analysis to assess cardiac function. Findings of the study indicate that GRNCM1 positively affects cardiac function resulting to overall decreased arrhythmias and increased cardiac output in the acute infarct setting.

This article reports that human guinea pigs could soon be testing small quantities of experimental drugs, making it quicker and easier to weed out those that don't work. Nine out of ten experimental drugs don't make it to market because of biochemical reactions that didn't surface in the animal models. Now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has changed its testing criteria to help pinpoint such "dud drugs" before they ever get to clinical trials. The minute quantities permitted by the new guidelines probably wouldn't uncover every potential glitch, but should reveal some basic molecular behaviour, such as whether or not cancer drugs would be preferentially absorbed by tumours.

This article focuses on a study which found that a drug commonly given to pregnant women to help their babies mature enough to survive can also affect the brains and behaviour of their grandchildren too. The finding raises a difficult dilemma for doctors, for while the drug undoubtedly saves lives, its side effects could last for generations. Fetal physiology specialist Stephen Matthews at the University of Toronto and his team have found alarming side effects of the drug in guinea pigs, which have similar placentas to humans and give birth to similarly mature offspring. Matthew suspects that the drug may cause subtle epigenetic changes in the fetus, altering how its DNA is expressed.

Reports on scientific experiments on guinea pigs which may bring hearing to the deaf. Conduct of the experiment in which the researchers used a modified virus to deliver a gene usually only active during embryo development; How it was capable of instructing the mature ear sells to turn into the crucial hair cells; How in just weeks hearing was restored to the animals.

Announces that neurologists have bred long-haired albino guinea pigs with the same neurological abnormalities seen in some autistic people. Brief details about the research of the team; Observation that the altered guinea pigs were much less inclined to interact with the other animals.

The article offers editorial trivia regarding U.S. news in April 1938. Cosmetics manufacturers test their products on the shaven guinea pigs' bellies, the texture of which is similar to a woman's face, for allergic reaction. The Polish government has banned the 1937 movie, "The Life of Emile Zola" allegedly due to its damaging effects to its army's prestige, taking upon itself to compare the Polish army to the French army at the time of the Dreyfus frameup. Walter Lippman writes that the U.S. has been in two world wars when there has only been one.

To the Editor: The recent article by Mastorides and colleagues in CHEST (January 1999)[1] on the use of micropore membrane air sampling and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect airborne [...]

The article focuses on the controversy involving animal rights activists and the Hall family of Darley Oaks Farm in Straffordshire, England. Around 30 years ago, the Hall family diversified from dairy and sheep farming into breeding guinea pigs for use in research laboratories. Six years ago, they became the target of animal rights activists. They have been abandoned by frightened suppliers and employees and lost their entire dairy herd, which was slaughtered when their tormentors made it impossible for the milk to be collected. The nadir came last year, when activists stole the body of Gladys Hammond, mother-in-law of one of the Hall brothers, from its grave in the churchyard at Yoxall in Staffordshire. This week, the family gave up its struggle, saying that by the end of 2005 they would stop breeding guinea pigs at Darley Oaks Farm. They hope this will at last lead to the return of Hammond's remains. The brutality of the Halls' treatment at the hands of animal rights campaigners would never be suffered by one of their animals inside a British laboratory. Live animal research is more tightly regulated in Britain than anywhere else in the world. A 20-year-old law covering vertebrate animals (plus one species of octopus) determines that animal breeders and researchers must be licensed and are inspected by government officials on average ten times a year, often unannounced.

After 6 years of alleged death threats, arson, hate mail, hoax bombs, and malicious phone calls, a family in Staffordshire, England, has agreed to cease breeding guinea pigs for medical [...]

Details the study by the researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana which have restored electrical nerve impulses in the severed spinal cord of a mammal using isolated spinal cords from adult guinea pigs. Use of polyethylene glycol (PEG), a nontoxic water-soluble polymer; Details on the experiments.

Reports on the success of researchers in vaccinating guinea pigs against the Ebola virus. Details of their research which involves the nascent field of gene vaccination; The publication of their work in the January 1998 issue of `Nature Medicine.'

The article discusses research on a gene therapy on guinea pigs made deaf with a drug that kills cochlear hair cells. It references a study by Jeremy Pinyon and colleagues published in "Science Translational Medicine." The team created loops of DNA encoding a gene for a growth factor called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and injected it with the cochlear implant. Findings of the study reported improved hearing in the animal.

The article discusses research conducted to determine whether temperature and humidity played a role in the spread of flu. It references a study by Peter Palese et al published in the October 2007 issue of "PloS Pathogens." The researchers housed several guinea pigs infected with a human flu virus in cages next to healthy animals. It has been found that the greatest transmission occurred at a low relative humidity of 20% to 35%, the conditions under which 75% to 100% of the uninfected guinea pigs contacted the virus.

Reveals that guinea pigs are the most often used species in experiments according to researchers, then cats and monkeys.