“Saving the Lives of Our Dogs”: The Development of Canine Distemper Vaccine in Interwar Britain. The New England Journal of Medicine 374 (June): 2175–2181.īresalier, Michael, and Worboys, Michael. Assessing the Gold Standard - Lessons from the History of RCTs. Social Studies of Science 48 (2): 232–258.īothwell, Laura E., Jeremy A. How Experiments Age: Gerontology, Beagles, and Species Projection at Davis. Medical & Healthcare Marketplace Guide.īolman, Brad. Food and Drug Administration Requirements for Toxicity Testing of Contraceptive Products, European Journal of Endocrinology 77 (1, Suppl): S240–S253.īiomolecular Research and Development - Laboratory Animals. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, March 7, 1960.īerliner, Victor R. Master’s Thesis, Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah.īeeney, Bill. Record-Herald, June 19, 1974.īeckham, Jeremy. Amarillo Globe Times, January 5, 1966.Īssociated Press. Understanding Nazi Animal Protection and the Holocaust. Qualitative Sociology 17 (2): 143–158.Īrluke, Arnold, and Sax, Boria. ‘We Build a Better Beagle’: Fantastic Creatures in Lab Animal Ads. Sacrificial Symbolism in Animal Experimentation: Object or Pet? Anthrozoös 2 (2): 98–117.Īrluke, Arnold. Journal of the Institute of Animal Technicians 18 (3): 124–130.Īrluke, Arnold. London, UK: Nicholson & Watson.Īppleton, Douglas H., and Appleton, Carol. Marshall to Sell Green Hill Lab-Dog Breeding Facility Says Italy Too Restrictive on Scientific Use of Animals, ANSA, November 22, 2016.Īppleton, Douglas H. Ames: Iowa State University Press.Īndō, Kōji. The New York Times, February 6, 1970, Late City edition, sec. 12 Dogs Develop Lung Cancer In Group of 86 Taught to Smoke.
Activist Gena Corea later argued that the focus on breast cancers in beagles obscured the threat of uterine cancer posed by Depo-Provera, although studies have suggested that the drug lowers risks of uterine and other cancers (Corea 1980, pp. Whether or not Depo-Provera raised breast cancer risks in humans was not known, FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt acknowledged that year, (Conlon 1973). The choice was not entirely unpredictable, since even supporters of the beagle standard quietly acknowledged the lingering uncertainties offered by any particular study: the dogs were expensive and trials typically employed a limited number. Nevertheless, they argued that the drug had such a “small patient population, that limited clinical trials with informed patient consent” would be permitted. When Depo-Provera, the first injectable contraceptive treatment, was tested in 1973, the FDA noted that beagles receiving the drug demonstrated escalated risks of breast cancer.
The story of American commercial breeder Marshall Farms offers insight into the role of for-profit companies in contemporary laboratory animal provision, as the article makes a case for the value of a global perspective on transnational corporations as key sites of scientific practice and collaboration.
Situating beagles as a biocommodity, the article calls for more sustained attention to the “political economy” of laboratory organism breeding, use, and production. Nevertheless, debates continued for decades over the beagle’s value as a model of carcinogenicity, even as the dogs became legislated stand-ins for human beings in multiple countries. The breed was dispersed widely due to the expanding use of dogs in pharmacology in the 1950s and a worldwide crisis around pharmaceutical safety following the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s. This article tracks the transformation of beagle dogs from a common breed in mid-twentieth century American laboratories to the de jure standard in global toxicological research by the turn of the twenty-first.