Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
15. Melanie D.G. Kaplan on lab animals, non-human friends, & penpals
68 Plays2 months ago
Melanie Kaplan’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and National Parks magazine. She’s a former Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT. Her new book, Lab Dog, tells the story of Hammy — a beagle rescued from a research lab — and follows Melanie’s journey to uncover what really happens to the thousands of dogs used in biomedical and consumer testing in the United States.
Subscribe now
We discuss…
- The first non-humans we fell in love with.
- What have we gotten from testing lab animals?
- Trump admin. moving us away from animal research?
- What products are still being used on lab dogs? (Bug spray)
- How to write a book about hard things (animal torture) and make it readable.
- What’s so special about beagles?
- I share my own non-human love stories.
- How my parents didn’t curate my boyhood media consumption, leading to scenes like this one being forever burned into my memory:
- Should there be a memorial for all the lab animals?
- Ken wonders if Melanie has a long roster of correspondents, thereby possibly rendering their penpalship insignificant.
- Who would Melanie be penpals with, living or dead, if she had the choice?
- Who is the grand-mommy of book blurbers?
- What is the real America (grocery stores vs. newsfeeds)?
- Marc Maron’s final podcast with Barack Obama.
- What’s in a “Canadiano?”
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Melanie D.G. Kaplan
00:00:05
Speaker
This is the Out of the Wild podcast with Ken Ilgunis.
00:00:18
Speaker
My guest is Melanie D.G. Kaplan. Melanie's work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and National Parks Magazine. She's a former night science journalism fellow at MIT, and her new book, Lab Dog, tells the story of Hammy, a beagle rescued from a research lab, and follows Melanie's journey to uncover what really happens to the thousands of dogs used in biomedical and consumer testing in the United States.
00:00:49
Speaker
Melanie, hello.
Ken and Melanie's Pen Pal Friendship
00:00:50
Speaker
Hi, Ken. Is it weird talking to me? Because we've had a pen pal ship for like, I i looked and our first email was back in 2013. And I don't think we've ever heard her each other talk or seen each other's faces or anything like that.
00:01:05
Speaker
I don't think so. I definitely haven't seen each other. I couldn't remember if we talked or not, but certainly a lot of, um yeah, a lot of writing. I looked at the archives and it's well over, it's gotta be like close to 200 emails we pass back and forth. So it was, I almost, I was almost surprised to just see how thriving our pen pal ship was um for a long time.
00:01:31
Speaker
um But yeah, anyways, it's nice to finally see you and hear you. It's so nice. And I think um if I remember correctly, I probably reached out because just as a fan, right? And that's, is that how it started?
00:01:45
Speaker
I didn't know you were a fan, but I'll take that. ah Yeah, I just published my first piece in the New York Times about living in a van, which was my thing for a bit, and you sent a slight little note back and forth.
00:01:59
Speaker
And then i I was like, oh, a journalist, so an old hand who's been doing this for a while, i could definitely use one of these. And like for the next five years, I'm like, do you know an editor at the Washington Post? like That was basically...
00:02:14
Speaker
what I was asking you all the time. no know Yes. And then for the next five years, I'm like, what can I learn from him about writing a book? Because, you know, I loved I loved your first book. And um it's just yeah, it's been a really fun correspondence.
00:02:28
Speaker
Cool, cool. Well, let's just get it right into it.
Discussion about 'Lab Dog' and Childhood Pets
00:02:31
Speaker
um Lab Dog. I loved it. I didn't finish the last two chapters, so maybe there's a cliffhanger or something there, but I got a really good sense of it. It's a wonderfully but written and very important book.
00:02:44
Speaker
Um, i once started a podcast with this, uh, guest Dan Flores about a non-animal, a non-human friend he had. He had a pet raven who lived around his property.
00:02:58
Speaker
And your, you know, your book is about non-humans and our relationship with them and how we love them. I thought I'd start by just asking, what's the first non-human you kind of fell in love with?
00:03:12
Speaker
Gosh, I had so many non-humans in my life as a child. I had these dachshunds. My parents brought one home from Germany when my dad was stationed there in the army.
00:03:23
Speaker
And i love the dachshunds, but I also spent a lot of time in my room. I was a good little introvert and spent a lot of time organizing my shelves and setting up my dolls and my stuffed animals. And, and I really love them. It became this, my own little world of make-believe.
00:03:43
Speaker
And, you know, I'd set up parties for them and bring them with me on trips, of course. And, you you know, I think i I learned at a young age to try to just create some story. I wasn't a writer then, but, um you know, I had a very vivid imagination.
00:04:01
Speaker
and you know, bringing that into the story with Hammy was just such a joy, that part of the writing. I loved writing about him. I loved making him real for readers. And, and we had such a bond, you know, I think that that part just came easily to me.
00:04:22
Speaker
You had such a bond. It ah it almost seemed like love that at first sight. Is that how you remember it? Cause you were quite taken with them right away.
Fostering and Keeping Hammy
00:04:31
Speaker
It wasn't love at first sight. In fact, I was trying to not love him at the beginning because you know when you have a dog, at least in my world, my life ends up revolving around the dog.
00:04:45
Speaker
And and i had started taking on some assignments. like i went across the US by train, which was amazing. And I got some assignments online. for national parks magazine that, um, you know, really needed to be dog free.
00:05:00
Speaker
And, you know, I can't, you can't do a bird watching story with a dog next to you. And I was, I'd gotten used to that and it was, it was really nice. So I had to think seriously about whether i wanted a dog in my life. So I was just fostering him at first. and And then he also was just so scared of everything. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I,
00:05:22
Speaker
got to get on the road and do stories and got to go places and he can't even leave the house. And it took probably um close to a month before i really fell for him and realized that he had a lot of needs and just needed a lot of love and attention. And like, all right, I'm going to rally. I'm going to try to be that for this little creature. Yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker
That really comes through this kind of maternal warmth you you have for them. Is that something you've always had in you for the animals you've had? Or is it just something about Hammy and his vulnerability? We should add that he was a lab dog for the first few years of his life. And the book revolves around that.
00:06:06
Speaker
But yeah, this maternal warmth is just this, is that part of you? I'm sure that is part of me, but his special needs really brought that out and I'm sure made me a more patient person because he had come out of, like you said, several years of being in a lab and whatever that environment was, maybe he was sharing kennel with another beagle, maybe he was confined by himself, but whatever he experienced was
00:06:38
Speaker
He was not running around in fields and hearing city sounds and deciding where to sleep at night. And there were so many things that were not available to him.
00:06:49
Speaker
So, you know, he comes into this world and everything is new. Everything's a little scary. and And it did bring out that part of me. I just really wanted to take care of him. Yeah.
Investigating Animal Research
00:07:02
Speaker
So you go on this journey and you're going like left and right into these centers and labs and talking with people who just are in the animal research field.
00:07:15
Speaker
What was that experience like for you? Because I can imagine it just being kind of nonstop misery and things that would induce depression just being around this really hard subject. Or were you able to kind of detach a little bit from it?
00:07:33
Speaker
I definitely detached a little bit. You know, i think when I set out, I put on my journalist hat and i wanted to get answers to some of these questions.
00:07:44
Speaker
Like, why are we breeding dogs for research and testing? And what are they used for? And what have we learned from them in the past? And so I looked at this like, this is my this is my job. I need to do this. i'm ah I'm a curious person, but I also need to find out because this is really kept in the dark. And i thought, you know, I have this this creature that I'm living with. And because of him, I've come to ask these questions. And i just owe it to the world. It's all this story. And I just felt really strongly about, I've got to get some answers.
00:08:20
Speaker
And, know, one of the biggest challenges is that the research community They talk about transparency, but they don't often talk. They don't talk to journalists on a regular basis because they're afraid, i think, what they say is going to be misinterpreted or misused. And there's just a history of them being harassed by animal activists.
00:08:45
Speaker
And um so so that was hard because I really had not done much controversial reporting before. you know i was used to kind of going out and everybody wants to talk to me and and they did not. So I and was lucky to find a few dog researchers who were willing to talk. But in many cases, I never heard back.
00:09:05
Speaker
I had PR people say, no, thanks, not interested. and time and time again, I was kind of shut down on that quest to talk to the research side.
00:09:16
Speaker
And what do you what do you kind of LabDog as doing? Is there kind of new information or have you just kind of ah found a niche here where you're just really focusing on LabDogs and beagles or yeah, kind of what was the the motivation there?
00:09:35
Speaker
You mean new information in terms of? Just new reporting, um something new to say about the issue, things like that. I think what's unique about this is that there's a lot of books out there by animal activists and advocates.
00:09:55
Speaker
and And then there's a lot of books on the academic side about animal research or um laboratory veterinary care. But i think, I believe this is the first book that really kind of goes down the middle and talks to both sides. And that was really important to me. i wanted this to be fair to both sides to tell all of the stories because you don't know the story unless you know both sides. And the people on the far sides who say it's black and white, um you know i just feel like I can't trust that.
00:10:30
Speaker
you know it's It's not. There's so much nuance and there's so much gray area. and um And it's complicated because we've learned a lot from these animals. mean, we we were doing experiments on dogs 400 years ago, and the first successful blood transfusion came from dogs.
00:10:49
Speaker
So it's not like they've been useless, but more and more today, we have technologies that allow us to test things in a more... effective and efficient way without using animals.
00:11:02
Speaker
And yet we still have this culture and system of experimenting on animals for biomedical research. I'm impressed that you're able to kind of keep some focus on this gray zone between the the black and right be black and white, because I know you have such a visceral emotional reaction to Hammy's situation and all the the beagles and all the animals involved in lab research, which is just you know terrible.
00:11:32
Speaker
um But you do in the book kind of go into like what we've gotten from um testing lab animals. Again, a terrible practice, but you know it happens for a reason. like If you were to like just as a thought exercise, like steel man the animal yeah lab animal research in favor of you know that the researchers, what could we say? like What have we gotten from animal research?
00:12:02
Speaker
So, i mean, focusing on dogs, the the big one is that we discovered insulin through dog experiments, and this was more than a century ago. but And there was one particular dog that they mentioned. Her name was Marjorie, and...
00:12:20
Speaker
it's It's so unusual that that happens, that there's one big moment and the the researchers are running around and celebrating. And, you know, the way I understand how biomedical research works is that it's just these like,
00:12:35
Speaker
very tiny steps along the way. So, you know, we don't say like, oh, you know, dogs help us discover this one day or, um and and because of that, it's really hard to understand. It's hard for me to understand how this works because I'm not in a lab every day. And And i don't understand a lot of the science, but um we do we do learn from them for sure.
00:13:00
Speaker
Dogs have helped us you know with research on sleep apnea and joint replacement and diabetes and cardiovascular. I mean, we share hundreds of diseases with dogs.
00:13:13
Speaker
And if we keep experimenting on them, we will probably learn something. So it's not like we learn nothing from them. The question is, could we do it in a better, more efficient way and a more ethical way? Because, you know, I do believe if we are going to continue
Complex Views on Animal Research
00:13:32
Speaker
researching and testing on animals, there there's got to be no other way to do it. And we need a much higher bar for, you know, in terms of our moral responsibility, there's there's got to be
00:13:47
Speaker
you know, we've we've got to say, okay, they can't experience this level of harm, or we have to know there is going to be, you know, a big win, a big benefit from this if we're going to do this to them.
00:14:00
Speaker
Gotcha. And did this journey that you went on, did it kind of... clarify your position on the issue or you know, make you feel so more strongly about something? Like, where do you kind of position yourself on animal lab research? Are you like in favor of like a wholesale ban against animals or or what?
00:14:26
Speaker
You know, I avoided saying that in the entire book and I
00:14:32
Speaker
It's tough. It's, you know, the more i learned, the more I realized how complicated it is. So I haven't come out and said, you know, yes, we need to stop it immediately. um i have many friends who say that.
00:14:44
Speaker
And, you know, the good news as, as I'm not answering your question is that this administration is talking about it more than previous administrations. The Trump administration?
00:14:57
Speaker
Yes. They are wanting to move away from animal research. and they're investing more in these alternatives. um The FDA and the and NIH have both come out and said this this year.
00:15:09
Speaker
so So that's exciting. And you know i think the thing is, there's no so far, there's no transition plan. There's no, okay, here's how we're gonna do this because we can't just say tomorrow, we're gonna stop this. you know What do you do with the tens of millions of animals that are in labs in the US today?
00:15:30
Speaker
You know, we've we've got to figure out what to do and and the research isn't going to just stop. So how are the scientists going to do the research if not with animals or with fewer animals?
00:15:42
Speaker
um So it's it's really complicated. I mean, would I like for there to be no animal research? of Of course. I think, you know, even people doing the research would say it would be great if we had another way to do this.
00:15:56
Speaker
Um, but you know, I, yeah, I think I'm going to leave it up to smarter minds to answer that question and let us know what's next. I'm amazed by that. Well, I'm amazed by a couple of things. Um,
00:16:11
Speaker
kind of this cruelty of of animals and and research on animals. It seems like something almost every American can kind of get behind, um you know, protesting or wanting to stop because left or right, we all love dogs. It's a completely bipartisan issue.
00:16:30
Speaker
um i mean, there's the issue of the animals, which everybody, nobody wants to see animals hurt, right? um And then also, this is taxpayer dollars for the most part, and people don't want to see their money going to this.
00:16:46
Speaker
But then, you know, in the book, I talked one mother whose son has muscular dystrophy, or people whose children have some, you know, super rare disease, and they would do anything to give their kids, you know, an extra couple years or a chance of some cure um whether it means dogs or monkeys.
00:17:10
Speaker
um And I don't have human children. And um I still understand that that's, yeah, that's a really tough place to be To be honest, when I started your book, um I didn't even know there was still research happening on dogs.
00:17:29
Speaker
Do you get that a lot? Like, oh, we didn't even know like beagles were research subjects. Yeah, for sure. i mean, when I first adopted Hammy, he, he had a tattoo in his ear, which they do at the breeding facility. So he was born in Virginia and a place that bred, you know, thousands of beagles.
00:17:49
Speaker
And, um, at any given time they had thousands of beagles there. And, and so I would show people the tattoo in his ear. And all I knew is that he came from a lab in Virginia And people were shocked. And this is this happened time and time again for years.
00:18:07
Speaker
And one of my journalist friends even said, you know, is that legal? and And I knew it was legal, but I really didn't know any more than that. So that's when I really started thinking that I need to write about this. Like something like with cosmetics, I was so pissed off when you started talking about like cosmetic testing on rabbits and stuff
Consumer Products and Animal Testing
00:18:27
Speaker
like that. And i was just like, cosmetics, they' not even necessary. You know, we'd all survive without eye shadow and lipstick. I certainly would. Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
And things like shampoo, it's just like, I'm guessing there's still some sort of testing for like new bath products and shit. But it's just like, we figured out shampoo probably hundreds of years ago. Like, why does this sort of stuff have to keep going? Do you have any other kind of like exasperation behind maybe unnecessary testing?
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, well, so cosmetics is actually ah really big win because in the 80s, some of the big companies like Revlon, there was a big campaign against them doing these tests on rabbits.
00:19:15
Speaker
And they ended up putting a lot of money into the alternatives, the non-animal alternatives. And most of the cosmetic testing is not on animals anymore. So that's a huge win.
00:19:30
Speaker
In some cases, there's a company that sells their product in China or you know a company in south america country in South America where those those countries still require some animal testing. And so that's why not everything is cruelty-free today.
00:19:48
Speaker
But you're right. i mean, this this should be all of these things should be cruelty-free. There's no reason why we have to do this. um Then you get into some personal care products that have a dual um purpose. Like you've got um an anti-dandruff shampoo, or you've got ah teeth whitening toothpaste. If they're doing something else, then they also fall into the drug category, which requires a different set of tests.
00:20:17
Speaker
But I think the one that was most exasperating for me was pesticides because you know, the vast majority of pesticides are used in agriculture. So they're on the field, sprayed everywhere.
00:20:30
Speaker
um But also just the bug spray that we buy and the ant killer and the roach killer and even antimicrobial wipes because that kills microbes. So anything that kills is considered pesticide.
00:20:43
Speaker
And today, dogs are still used for every pesticide test. oh And they give them huge doses and they euthanize them.
Personal Impact of Writing 'Lab Dog'
00:20:55
Speaker
And then they look at their tissues and organs and, and even the flea and tick ah products that go on the dogs, they test them in the same way, you know, and they put fleas and ticks on their bodies. And the whole thing was really upsetting.
00:21:11
Speaker
So I've completely stopped. know, I wasn't a big bug spray user to begin with, but I'm like, I don't care how much I'm itching. I will not buy a pesticide. Has this is this book process um changed you at all or any other of your habits?
00:21:27
Speaker
Like, are you like full vegan now or or anything? i you know, I started eating plant-based exclusively at home shortly after I adopted Hammy.
00:21:38
Speaker
And, and that's been great. It's actually really easy to do now, you know, I got all the right grains and good beans. And, um and so that that was a big change. But I think with the book, the other big changes around drugs.
00:21:55
Speaker
And again, never really a big user of over the counter drugs. But now I definitely think twice before i buy something, or even if I have a prescription filled, there's a little bit in the book about when I had this rash or some kind of bites and I went to the dermatologist and he peeled off three prescriptions and one was pills, one was an ointment, one was a lotion.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I just took them home and shredded them. I'm like, I don't really need these. I'll let this thing run its course. And and you know that one act, did that you know is that going to save dogs? No, but it just feels like we all have choices like that, because, you know, i know people who get these prescriptions filled all the time, whether they need them or not, just to have them on hand.
00:22:46
Speaker
And, you know, you've got a cough syrup, but then there's a lemon flavored cough syrup or cherry flavored, and each new product is a new test. And these companies are in the business of selling the products and making money.
00:23:00
Speaker
um But a lot of animals are still suffering because of it.
Balancing Book Structure and Heavy Topics
00:23:04
Speaker
It's infuriating, especially when you go into ah a pharmacy or a big grocery store and you just see like these walls of of products and you know so many tiny variations of each. And like we can certainly imagine a much simpler pharmacy that maybe requires lot less testing. And some of these poor animals, maybe their lives would have been easier.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah. And this is a depressing subject. And I wonder how much thought you gave to kind of people, you know, reading 300 plus pages of a subject that kind of nobody really wants to spend that much time with. And I'm wondering how you thought about that in your book and maybe how you structured the book to kind of keep people going through it.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I thought about my mom a lot because she's incredibly sensitive and squeamish and doesn't like to see, you know, even a ladybug hurt. um And, you know, I think one of the big things is what I chose to leave out because there's a certain amount I have to have in there so people understand what's happening.
00:24:16
Speaker
But, you know I don't think there's anything gratuitous in there. And I certainly didn't go into a lot of detail that I could have. But the big thing is is the story of Hammy. And I didn't know what this was going to look like when I started. I knew this was going to be about science. And I knew this was going to be about Hammy and me.
00:24:35
Speaker
And Hammy and me getting in the car and taking a road trip and meeting a bunch of people that work in this field. And um you know I think the way that that I structured it is a reflection of the way that I went through the reporting process.
00:24:53
Speaker
Like, you know, I'd spend a day going into ah mouse lab and talking to scientists. And then, you know, in the evening I would cuddle up with him and, you know, we would have our moments and just kind of sweet time together. And that was in some ways a palate cleanser for me and hopefully for the reader.
00:25:14
Speaker
And, you know, i just wanted to keep reminding, um i won i wanted to keep reminding readers that he was there, his story was progressing as my research was progressing. And, um you know, i hope I hope that they can fall in love with him as much as I did.
00:25:33
Speaker
ah The reader falls in love with him. with having to very much. It's a brilliantly structured book. That's why i asked that question. You know, i I wrote a book on climate change and just like, that's another subject that even someone interested in climate change, like myself, I don't want to read a whole book about that just because it's so depressing. So I had to ask myself, you know, how can you write something that someone will want to read and, you know, kind of bring them into this important subject. And I, i think you've, you've done that. And I liked how you kind of,
00:26:02
Speaker
ah gotten into the philosophy and ethics, and you talk about Peter Singer's animal animal liberation. um Did you enjoy that process, kind of looking at kind of the moral philosophy? Did you learn anything from it?
00:26:17
Speaker
Hey folks, that's the end of the free version of the podcast.
Podcast Conclusion and Reflections
00:26:21
Speaker
um If you want to listen to the next 30 minutes or so, go back to my sub stack, Kendall Gunas out of the wild, um and you'll have access to all my essays and full podcasts and all of that.
00:26:35
Speaker
This conversation, i was really happy with how it started and then like my brain just started to shut down and brain farts and mind fog and I had to cut out some, but then it kind of hit like another level later on.
00:26:48
Speaker
um i talk about the first non-human i fell in love with, which was duck and I talk about how my parents didn't properly curate the media I was consuming as a young child. So I think I saw an animatronic um duck having sex with someone.
00:27:09
Speaker
um I ask a question like, should there be a memorial for all the lab animals who've died for us? um We get into the books and shows we're watching. and then we talk about pen pal ships because um it's just weird that I've just been emailing Melanie for 12 years and I've never spoken to her seen her until then.
00:27:33
Speaker
um And then we talk about just the state of America. um Where are we going? should be we Should we be as worried as so many people are? Or are things going to be okay as they usually are?
00:27:47
Speaker
So thanks again for listening. See you next time.
00:28:04
Speaker
This is the Out of the Wild podcast with Ken Ilgunis. Original music by Duncan Barrett.