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| Guinea pigs come in assorted colours |
In the midst of the ongoing human tragedy that is the Pandemic, the pugnacious people at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) proffered some useless advice recently. Calling someone a guinea pig, a test animal, is an insult if guinea pigs can get insulted; its speciesism, a new micro-aggression. Here is the tweet:
Why some pasty-faced vegan vermin decided to tweet this to out at this time is perplexing. Maybe it was meant as a bit of comic relief from the daily onslaught of COVID/Vaccine news, but I think they were serious.
All PETA people must be vegan, and of the most extreme kind. I wonder if they eschew fossil fuels, like oil, gas? Surely they must know they are animal by-products. How can they live with themselves knowing this?
A good friend and I have an inside joke about guinea pigs. I feel like one during my ongoing treatment for relapsed Myeloma, and all of us who look forward to being vaccinated against the current scourge, will be part of a monstrous clinical trial, Phase 4 actually, for the cutting edge anti-COVID vaccine technology that has just been developed. Not only that, we are all guinea pigs now as a result of the Pandemic. How will the virus affect us? Will the variants nullify the effectiveness of the vaccines? What are the lockdowns doing to the economy, our mental health, and on and on?
Many of my social media “friends” are upset that the vaccines are unproven over long time periods. They seem to ignore the fact that there is a perceived emergency and putting an end to it ASAP is the goal. They also forget that modern medicine is just statistics over time, and doctors are really just practicing.
But I’m happy to be a guinea pig; grateful actually, in every sense.
The drug protocol I’m being subjected to did not exist that long ago, so I’m going to be part of the ongoing data collection as will we all be in the current COVID Challenge.
Guinea pigs of course are docile mammals that share much human biochemistry, so we subject them to novel treatments and drugs trying to infer how these might affect people. Cruel, maybe, insulting, to our furry friends, well, that depends on the situation. In the life of a guinea pig, lab life might be considered very good, until your number comes up.
Shortly after I was diagnosed with Myeloma, and against my physician’s advise, I searched through Google to find all the relevant data on Myeloma. What were the chances of survival? How long do I have? How does it kill? You know, given the tools, anyone would do that. It was not encouraging. Average life span after diagnosis was 29 months. So from my diagnosis in September 2018, it would mean February 2021 was it for me. The end should be right about now, or soon. But I’ve never thought of myself as average, and I have a reasonably healthy lifestyle. I partake in few of the so-called common vices; I’ve always been a chicken that way. Oops, sorry PETA. So I gave myself something more than average duration. Since I ended the initial treatment regime called CyBorD back in July 2020, my disease progression, as they call it, has been more or less stable. No major blood anomalies but some increase seen of the cancer is visible in bone marrow on MRI. So my doctor said lets catch it in the bud. Let me hasten to add that over the last couple of years there has been lots and lots of pain, huge amounts of fatigue, many constraints, no picnic, but here I Am. In some ways the Pandemic has had a positive impact. My wife (my wonderful helpmate) and I have been isolated for almost a year, that means that my very compromised immune system has been spared even a sniffle. We're very thankful for all the electronic devices we rely on for family contact. Of course there are outdoor "visits" when the weather allows, but....
So in January 2021, I’ve begun a new and promising treatment. It’s so new that an average survival time has not yet been determined, but so far on average it’s in excess of 32 months and counting. Doesn’t seem very long does it? One thing about cancer, it changes your point of view on everything.
