Activists protest feline HIV study

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A researcher's plan to infect about 120 cats with the feline version of HIV and then inject them with methamphetamines has outraged animal rights activists and is raising questions about the need for the study.

Ohio State University professor Michael Podell received a $355,000 grant for the first year of what he expects to be a five-year study costing $1.68 million. The National Institute on Drug Abuse - part of the National Institutes of Health - awarded the money.

"We want to understand more about HIV and drug abuse in people," said Podell, associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences. "One of the ways to do that is to develop an animal model that has similar characteristics."

Podell also is interested in the drug's effect on the nervous system. Meth speeds up neurological degeneration - something Podell says is becoming more of a problem as people with AIDS are living longer because of improved drug treatments.

Feline immunodeficiency virus and HIV have similar effects on the immune and neurological systems of their respective hosts, Podell said. And cats respond to meth similar to the way people do.

Peter Wood, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, attacked the study as "cruel, wasteful and bizarre." He argued that HIV and FIV are not similar enough for the research to transfer to humans and that the social pressures that would lead a person to take meth cannot be replicated with cats.