{"id":2882,"date":"2009-01-04T17:43:34","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T17:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agenciainclusive.wordpress.com\/?p=2882"},"modified":"2009-01-04T17:43:34","modified_gmt":"2009-01-04T17:43:34","slug":"criaturas-que-proporcionam-conforto-em-ingles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inclusivenews.com.br\/?p=2882","title":{"rendered":"Criaturas que proporcionam conforto (em ingl\u00eas)"},"content":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/04\/magazine\/04Creatures-t.html?scp=2&sq=blind&st=cse<\/a><\/div>\n
New York Times Magazine, January 4, 2009<\/div>\n

Creature Comforts<\/h1>\n
By REBECCA SKLOOT<\/div>\n

ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT IN A SUBURB <\/span> of Albany, a group of children dressed as vampires and witches ran past a middle-aged woman in plain clothes. She gripped a leather harness \u2014 like the kind used for Seeing Eye dogs \u2014 which was attached to a small, fuzzy black-and-white horse barely tall enough to reach the woman\u2019s hip.<\/p>\n

\u201cCool costume,\u201d one of the kids said, nodding toward her.<\/p>\n

But she wasn\u2019t dressed up. The woman, Ann Edie, was simply blind and out for an evening walk with Panda, her guide miniature horse.<\/p>\n

There are no sidewalks in Edie\u2019s neighborhood, so Panda led her along the street\u2019s edge, maneuvering around drainage ditches, mailboxes and bags of raked leaves. At one point, Panda paused, waited for a car to pass, then veered into the road to avoid a group of children running toward them swinging glow sticks. She led Edie onto a lawn so she wouldn\u2019t hit her head on the side mirror of a parked van, then to a traffic pole at a busy intersection, where she stopped and tapped her hoof. \u201cFind the button,\u201d Edie said. Panda raised her head inches from the pole so Edie could run her hand along Panda\u2019s nose to find and press the \u201cwalk\u201d signal button.<\/p>\n

Edie isn\u2019t the only blind person who uses a guide horse instead of a dog \u2014 there\u2019s actually a Guide Horse Foundation that\u2019s been around nearly a decade. The obvious question is, Why? In fact, Edie says, there are many reasons: miniature horses are mild-mannered, trainable and less threatening than large dogs. They\u2019re naturally cautious and have exceptional vision, with eyes set far apart for nearly 360-degree range. Plus, they\u2019re herd animals, so they instinctively synchronize their movements with others. But the biggest reason is age: miniature horses can live and work for more than 30 years. In that time, a blind person typically goes through five to seven guide dogs. That can be draining both emotionally and economically, because each one can cost up to $60,000 to breed, train and place in a home.<\/p>\n

\u201cPanda is almost 8 years old,\u201d her trainer, Alexandra Kurland, told me. \u201cIf Panda were a dog, Ann would be thinking about retiring her soon and starting over, but their relationship is just getting started. They\u2019re still improving their communication and learning to read each other\u2019s bodies. It\u2019s the difference between dating for a few years and being married so long you can finish each other\u2019s sentences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edie has nothing against service dogs \u2014 she has had several. One worked beautifully. Two didn\u2019t \u2014 they dragged her across lawns chasing cats and squirrels, even pulled her into the street chasing dogs in passing cars. Edie doesn\u2019t worry about those sorts of things with Panda because miniature horses are less aggressive. Still, she says, \u201cI would never say to a blind person, \u2018Run out and get yourself a guide horse,\u2019 because there are definite limitations.\u201d They eat far more often than dogs, and go to the bathroom about every two or three hours. (Yes, Panda is house-trained.) Plus, they can\u2019t curl up in small places, which makes going to the movies or riding in airplanes a challenge. (When miniature horses fly, they stand in first class or bulkhead because they don\u2019t fit in standard coach.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most striking about Edie and Panda is that after the initial shock of seeing a horse walk into a cafe, or ride in a car, watching them work together makes the idea of guide miniature horses seem utterly logical. Even normal. So normal, in fact, that people often find it hard to believe that the United States government is considering a proposal that would force Edie and many others like her to stop using their service animals. But that\u2019s precisely what\u2019s happening, because a growing number of people believe the world of service animals has gotten out of control: first it was guide dogs for the blind; now it\u2019s monkeys for quadriplegia and agoraphobia, guide miniature horses, a goat for muscular dystrophy, a parrot for psychosis and any number of animals for anxiety, including cats, ferrets, pigs, at least one iguana and a duck. They\u2019re all showing up in stores and in restaurants, which is perfectly legal because the Americans With Disabilities Act (A.D.A.) requires that service animals be allowed wherever their owners want to go.<\/p>\n

Some people enjoy running into an occasional primate or farm animal while shopping. Many others don\u2019t. This has resulted in a growing debate over how to handle these animals, as well as widespread suspicion that people are abusing the law to get special privileges for their pets. Increasingly, business owners, landlords and city officials are challenging the legitimacy of noncanine service animals and refusing to accommodate them. Animal owners are responding with lawsuits and complaints to the Department of Justice. This August, the Arizona Game and Fish Department ordered a woman to get rid of her chimpanzee, claiming that she brought it into the state illegally \u2014 she disputed this and sued for discrimination, arguing that it was a diabetes-assistance chimp trained to fetch sugar during hypoglycemic episodes.<\/p>\n

Cases like this are raising questions about where to draw the lines when it comes to the needs and rights of people who rely on these animals, of businesses obligated by law to accommodate them and of everyday civilians who \u2014 because of health and safety concerns or just general discomfort \u2014 don\u2019t want monkeys or ducks walking the aisles of their grocery stores.<\/p>\n

A few months ago,<\/span> in a cafe in St. Louis, I met a man named Jim Eggers, who uses an assistance parrot, Sadie, to help control his psychotic tendencies. Eggers looks like a man who has been fighting his whole life. He is muscular, with a buzz cut, several knocked-out teeth and many scars, including one that runs ear-to-chin from surgery to repair a broken jaw. Eggers avoids eye contact in public \u2014 he walks fast down streets and through stores staring at the ground, jaw clenched. \u201cI have bipolar disorder with psychotic tendencies,\u201d he told me as he sucked down a green-apple smoothie. \u201cHomicidal feelings too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eggers\u2019s condition has landed him in court several times: a disturbing-the-peace charge for pouring scalding coffee onto a man under his apartment window who annoyed him; one-year probation for threatening to kill the archbishop of St. Louis because of news reports about church money and molestations by priests in other cities (which the archbishop had nothing to do with). In describing his condition, Eggers says it\u2019s like when the Incredible Hulk changes from man to monster. His vision blurs, his body tingles and he can barely hear. According to his friend Larry Gower, who often serves as a public liaison for him, in those moments, Eggers gets extremely loud. They both agree that Sadie is one of the few things keeping Eggers from snapping.<\/p>\n

Sadie rides around town on Eggers\u2019s back in a bright purple backpack specially designed to hold her cage. When he gets upset, she talks him down, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s O.K., Jim. Calm down, Jim. You\u2019re all right, Jim. I\u2019m here, Jim.\u201d She somehow senses when he is getting agitated before he even knows it\u2019s happening. \u201cI still go off on people sometimes, but she makes sure it never escalates into a big problem,\u201d he told me, grinning bashfully at Sadie. \u201cNow when people make me mad I just give them the bird,\u201d he said, pulling up his sleeve and flexing his biceps, which is covered with a large tattoo of Sadie.<\/p>\n

Soon after what he calls \u201cthe Archbishop Incident,\u201d Eggers got Sadie from a friend who owned a pet store. She\u2019d been neglected by a previous owner and had torn out all her feathers, so Eggers nursed her back to health. He didn\u2019t initially train her as a service animal, he says; she did that herself. When Eggers had episodes at home, he\u2019d pace, holding his head and yelling: \u201cIt\u2019s O.K., Jim! You\u2019re all right, Jim! Calm down, Jim!\u201d One day, Sadie started doing it, too. He soon realized that she calmed him better than he calmed himself. So he started rewarding her each time it happened. And he has had only one incident since: he dented a woman\u2019s car with his fist on a day when he\u2019d left Sadie at home.<\/p>\n

Eggers didn\u2019t think to use any special language to describe Sadie until he tried to take her on a bus and the driver said that only \u201cservice animals\u201d were allowed. Eggers went home and looked up \u201cservice animal\u201d online. \u201cThat\u2019s when it all fell into place,\u201d he told me. He learned that psychiatric service animals help their owners cope with things like medication side effects. Eggers takes heavy doses of antipsychotics that leave him in a fog most of the day. So he trained Sadie to alert him with a loud ringing noise if someone calls, or to yell \u201cWHO\u2019S THERE?\u201d when anyone knocks on the door. If the fire alarm goes off, Sadie goes off. If Eggers leaves the faucet running, Sadie makes sounds like a waterfall until he turns it off.<\/p>\n

Eggers got a service-animal bus pass for Sadie and began taking her everywhere. (He has special insulated cage panels to keep her warm in winter.) For years, few people objected. Then, in the spring of 2007, Eggers went to have his teeth cleaned at the St. Louis Community College dental-hygiene school, and officials there told him that Sadie wasn\u2019t allowed inside because she posed a risk to public health and wasn\u2019t really a service animal. \u201cAll I can say is, they were lucky I had Sadie with me to keep me calm when they said that,\u201d Eggers told me.<\/p>\n

He filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education\u2019s Office of Civil Rights (O.C.R.), which initiated an investigation. Its conclusion: the school wrongfully denied access based on public-health concerns without assessing whether Sadie actually posed a risk. (Several top epidemiologists I interviewed for this article said that, on the whole, birds and miniature horses pose no more risk to human health than service dogs do.)<\/p>\n

But Eggers is still fighting that fight. According to the O.C.R., the school \u201cexceeded the boundaries of a permissible inquiry\u201d by questioning Eggers about his disability. But that didn\u2019t change the school\u2019s conclusion: it labeled Sadie a mere \u201ctherapy animal.\u201d If that label sticks, it will mean that Sadie isn\u2019t covered by the federal law that protects service animals and guarantees them access to public places.<\/p>\n

Stories like Eggers\u2019s involve<\/span> two questions that are often mistakenly treated as one. The first: What qualifies as a service animal? The second: Can any species be eligible?<\/p>\n

There are two categories of animals that help people. \u201cTherapy animals\u201d (also known as \u201ccomfort animals\u201d) have been used for decades in hospitals and homes for the elderly or disabled. Their job is essentially to be themselves \u2014 to let humans pet and play with them, which calms people, lowers their blood pressure and makes them feel better. There are also therapy horses, which people ride to help with balance and muscle building.<\/p>\n

These animals are valuable, but they have no special legal rights because they aren\u2019t considered service animals, the second category, which the A.D.A. defines as \u201cany guide dog, signal dog or other animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including, but not limited to, guiding individuals with impaired vision, alerting individuals with impaired hearing to intruders or sounds, providing minimal protection or rescue work, pulling a wheelchair or fetching dropped items.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the 1920s, when guide dogs first started working with blind World War I veterans, service animals have been trained to do everything from helping people balance on stairs to opening doors to calling 911. In the early \u201980s, small capuchin monkeys started helping quadriplegics with basic day-to-day functions like eating and drinking, and there was no question about whether\u00ad they counted as service animals. Things got more complicated in the \u201990s, when \u201cpsychiatric service animals\u201d started fetching pills and water, alerting owners to panic attacks and helping autistic children socialize.<\/p>\n

The line between therapy animals and psychiatric service animals has always been blurry, because it usually comes down to varying definitions of the words \u201ctask\u201d and \u201cwork\u201d and whether something like actively soothing a person qualifies. That line got blurrier in 2003, when the Department of Transportation revised its internal policies regarding service animals on airplanes. It issued a statement saying that in recent years, \u201ca wider variety of animals (e.g., cats, monkeys, etc.) have been individually trained to assist people with disabilities. Service animals also perform a much wider variety of functions than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

To keep up with these changes, the D.O.T.\u2019s new guidelines said, \u201cAnimals that assist persons with disabilities by providing emotional support qualify as service animals.\u201d They also said that any species could qualify and that these animals didn\u2019t need special training, aside from basic obedience. The only thing required for a pet to fly with its owner instead of riding as cargo was documentation (like a letter from a doctor) saying the person needed emotional support from an animal. Legally speaking, the D.O.T.\u2019s new policy applied only to airplanes \u2014 the A.D.A.\u2019s definition of service animal stayed the same. But for those looking online to find out whether they could take their animals into stores and restaurants, the D.O.T.\u2019s definition looked like official law, and people started acting accordingly.<\/p>\n

Soon, a trend emerged: people with no visible disabilities were bringing what a New York Times article called \u201ca veritable Noah\u2019s Ark of support animals\u201d into businesses, claiming that they were service animals. Business owners and their employees often couldn\u2019t distinguish the genuine from the bogus. To protect the disabled from intrusive questions about their medical histories, the A.D.A. makes it illegal to ask what disorder an animal helps with. You also can\u2019t ask for proof that a person is disabled or a demonstration of an animal\u2019s \u201ctasks.\u201d There is no certification process for service animals (though there are Web sites where anyone can buy an official-looking card that says they have a certified service animal, no documentation required). The only questions businesses can ask are \u201cIs that a trained service animal?\u201d and \u201cWhat task is it trained to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

If the person answers yes to the first and claims that the animal is, say, trained to alert him or her to a specific condition (like a seizure), additional questioning could end in a lawsuit. And in many cases, according to Joan Esnayra, founder of the Psychiatric Service Dog Society, the outcome of those lawsuits depends largely on the words people use to describe their animals. \u201cIf you say \u2018comfort,\u2019 \u2018need\u2019 or \u2018emotional support,\u2019 you\u2019re out the door,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you talk about what your animal does in terms of \u2018tasks\u2019 and \u2018work,\u2019 then you stand a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Case in point: When the dental school questioned Eggers about whether\u00ad Sadie was a service animal, he said she kept him \u201ccalm.\u201d If he had said that she alerts him to things like attacks and doorbells, his case might have been stronger.<\/p>\n

According to Jennifer Mathis, an attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, \u201cA lot of times when people with legitimate service animals lose these cases, it has to do with the fact that they don\u2019t explain their service animals well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than risk a lawsuit, many business owners simply allow the animals, even if they doubt their legitimacy. Then they complain to the Department of Justice that the A.D.A. is too broad in its definition of \u201cservice animal,\u201d and too restrictive of businesses trying to protect themselves from people who fake it. Which many people do.<\/p>\n

In October, a man in Portland, Ore., took his dog on a bus, claiming that it was a service animal. While getting off the bus, the dog killed another dog that was riding as a \u201ccomfort animal.\u201d (In Portland, comfort animals are allowed on public transportation.) A few days later, an editorial appeared in The Oregonian with the headline \u201cTake the Menagerie Off the Bus.\u201d It opened with: \u201cNo offense, ferret lovers. \u2026 Your pet \u2026 may offer emotional support. But it shouldn\u2019t be roaming the aisles of a \u2026 bus or train.\u201d It argued that the story of the dead comfort dog was proof that people had stretched the legal definition of service animals to include a virtual zoo of animals.<\/p>\n

Lex Frieden, a professor of health-information science at the University of Texas<\/a> Health Science Center at Houston and a former director of the National Council on Disability, sees the issue differently. \u201cPeople shouldn\u2019t be able to carry their pets on a plane or into a restaurant claiming they\u2019re service animals when they\u2019re not,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that has nothing to do with what species a service animal is.\u201d The appropriate response in those situations isn\u2019t a species ban, he says, but rather strict punishments for people who pose as disabled. \u201cIt\u2019s fraud,\u201d he points out, \u201cand it results in increased scrutiny of people with legitimate disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, in an effort to clarify the confusion surrounding service animals, the Department of Justice proposed new regulations to explicitly include psychiatric service and exclude comfort animals. This was part of a sweeping revision of the A.D.A. intended to increase protection and access for the disabled, which was widely applauded. But tucked into that proposal were a few lines that worry advocates and people with disabilities: the D.O.J. proposed limiting service animals to a \u201cdog or other common domestic animal,\u201d specifically excluding \u201cwild animals (including nonhuman primates born in captivity), reptiles, rabbits, farm animals (including any breed of horse, miniature horse, pony, pig or goat), ferrets, amphibians and rodents.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, the D.O.J. held a public hearing in Washington and invited anyone who would be affected by the proposed changes to argue for or against them. Many pleaded their cases in person, others by letter. The arguments in favor of species restrictions came primarily from businesses concerned about having to alter facilities, rebuilding seating areas, say, to make room for miniature horses. Several service-animal organizations and people with disabilities argued that banning reptiles and insects was fine but that excluding miniature horses and primates simply went too far. In their defense, they cited things like dog allergies, the long life spans of several species and monkeys\u2019 opposable thumbs. After considering the arguments, last month the D.O.J. submitted a final proposal to the Office of Management and Budget<\/a>. Until there\u2019s a ruling, neither office will comment on the issue or say whether the species restriction was removed or revised after the public hearings.<\/p>\n

Jamie Hais, a spokeswoman for the D.O.J., said she couldn\u2019t comment on why the department suggested the species restriction. But its proposal expressed concerns about public-health risks and said that when the original A.D.A. was written, without specifying species, \u201cfew anticipated\u201d the variety of animals people would attempt to use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s simply not true,\u201d says Frieden, who was an architect of the original A.D.A. While drafting the regulations, he said, Congressional staff members had long discussions about defining \u201cservice animal\u201d and whether\u00ad a trained pony could qualify. \u201cThere was general consensus that the issue revolved around the question of function, not form,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, in fact, if that pony provided assistance to a person with a disability and enabled that person to pursue equal opportunity and nondiscrimination, then that pony could be regarded as a service animal.\u201d They discussed the possibility of birds and snakes for psychiatric disorders, he said, but one of their biggest concerns was that the A.D.A. shouldn\u2019t exclude service monkeys, which were already working with quadriplegics. Since then, however, monkeys have become the most contested assistance-animal species of all.<\/p>\n

On a rainy day in November, <\/span>I walked through a T. J. Maxx store in Springfield, Mo., with Debby Rose and Richard, her 25-pound bonnet macaque monkey \u2014 one of the most controversial service animals working today. Rose was wearing brown pants and a brown-and-gold-patterned shirt. Richard was wearing a brown long-sleeved polo over a white T-shirt with jeans and a tan vest that said \u201cPlease Don\u2019t Pet Me I\u2019m Working.\u201d Richard stood in the child seat of Rose\u2019s shopping cart, facing forward, bouncing up and down, smacking his lips and grinning as Rose pushed him down the aisles.<\/p>\n

Richard is a hands-on shopper. If Rose pointed at a sweater or purse she liked, or a pair of shoes, his hand darted out to touch them. As we passed a pair of tan, fuzzy winter boots that Rose particularly liked, Richard leaned out of the cart and quickly licked one on its toe.<\/p>\n

People stared as we walked. \u201cWhy do you have him?\u201d they\u2019d ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a service animal trained for my disability, kind of like a seizure-alert dog,\u201d Rose told them, again and again.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I pet him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like to be touched,\u201d she\u2019d say, \u201cbut you can give him five.\u201d<\/p>\n

People raised their hands, and Richard gave them five.<\/p>\n

That Rose isn\u2019t bothered by people looking and asking questions is impressive, considering that she has agoraphobia and severe anxiety disorder with debilitating panic attacks. Until getting Richard four years ago, she required heavy doses of anti-anxiety drugs just to go out in public. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have come in this store before Richard, let alone handled all these people talking to me,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose adopted Richard in 2004; he was badly neglected and near death. She and two of her six children \u2014 whom she raised as a single mother \u2014 run an exotic-animal shelter. Rose says she believes that Richard was trained as a service animal for his previous owner, an elderly woman whose son gave Richard away when she died. He had been neutered, and his tail had been surgically removed. He\u2019d also had his large and potentially dangerous canine teeth pulled, a procedure commonly done with service monkeys for safety (and often cited as one of several ethical concerns with using wild instead of domesticated species for such jobs).<\/p>\n

As Richard returned to health, Rose realized that he had begun to recognize her panic attacks before she did. Her doctor suggested that she train him to help with her disorder, then wrote a letter approving of him as a service animal, saying that Richard was \u201ca constructive way to avoid use of unnecessary medications.\u201d Rose took that letter to the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, got permission for Richard to accompany her in public and has been drug-free ever since. She ordered a service-animal ID certificate online; she even got a restriction on her driver\u2019s license saying that she can\u2019t operate a car without a monkey present. Now he sits in her lap with a hand on the wheel while she drives, and she never leaves home without him.<\/p>\n

But the number of places Rose and Richard can go is decreasing. In September 2006, after receiving complaints that Richard was sitting in highchairs in restaurants, touching silverware and going through a buffet line with Rose, the Health Department sent a letter to all local restaurants announcing that Richard was a risk to public health and not a legitimate service animal. It instructed businesses to refuse him access and to call the police if Rose protested. Businesses posted the letter on their doors and in their bathrooms; soon Cox College of Nursing and Health Sciences, where Rose was attending nursing school, refused Richard access, too. Stories\u00ad started appearing about Rose and her monkey in the newspaper and on TV. \u201cSuddenly,\u201d she told me, \u201ceveryone knew I had a mental disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose dropped out of school and filed a lawsuit against her local Health Department, the nursing school, Wal-Mart and several other local businesses that had forbidden Richard access, saying that they violated the A.D.A. Kevin Gipson, director of the local Health Department, told me that he had asked Rose to show him what \u201ctasks\u201d Richard performed that would qualify him. \u201cShe couldn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Defining \u201ctask\u201d is often a point of contention in these cases, especially with psychiatric service animals, whose work generally can\u2019t be demonstrated on command. Before going to T. J. Maxx, I saw Rose begin to panic while sitting in her lawyer\u2019s office talking about her case. Her face flushed; her voice quivered. Richard, who had been dozing in the chair beside her, leapt onto her arm and began stroking her hair. He hugged her, rubbed her ear and cooed while she talked. She immediately calmed down. \u201cHe snaps me out of it before the attacks happen,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they start at night, he\u2019ll turn on the light and get me a bottle of water.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Gipson, that\u2019s really beside the point. \u201cEven if Richard is a legitimate service animal,\u201d he told me, \u201cif he poses a public-health risk, the A.D.A. says he can be excluded. And we believe primates pose a significant health risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose says that Richard is perfectly safe and immaculately clean. She showers and blow-dries him every day and uses hand sanitizer on him regularly, and he always wears diapers. But that doesn\u2019t impress the Health Department. Monkeys can carry viruses, like herpes B, which are essentially harmless to them but usually deadly to humans. Those viruses can be transmitted through saliva and other bodily fluids. In 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> published a study titled \u201cB-Viruses From Pet Macaque Monkeys: An Emerging Threat in the United States?\u201d saying that 80 to 90 percent of adult macaques like Richard carry herpes B. It\u2019s possible to test them for viruses, which Rose does every year with Richard, but those tests often give false negatives. Plus, Gipson told me, \u201che could catch it any time from contact with other monkeys, which we know he\u2019s had.\u201d Five days before the Health Department banned Richard, a local newspaper ran pictures of him and several other monkeys hanging out at Rose\u2019s family\u2019s sanctuary.<\/p>\n

According to Frederick Murphy, former head of viral pathology for the C.D.C. and co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, the threat that viruses from service monkeys present to humans is essentially unknown. There have been a few cases of primate-lab workers contracting herpes B from macaques \u2014 mostly from being bitten \u2014 but no cases of people being infected by service monkeys, which are usually capuchins.<\/p>\n

The bigger concern, according to several experts, is potential aggression. \u201cPeople think monkeys are cute and like humans, but they\u2019re not,\u201d says Laura Kahn, a public-health expert at the Woodrow Wilson<\/a> School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. \u201cThey\u2019re wild animals, and they\u2019re dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics of noncanine service animals tend to focus on disease perhaps because that\u2019s the only way to legally exclude any service animal under the current A.D.A. But on the whole, Bradford Smith, former director of the University of California Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, says, \u201cI would tend to think the disease argument is really a proxy for other concerns, like having to let any person who says their parrot or horse is a service animal enter into public areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose\u2019s case is sometimes<\/span> held up as an example of why the A.D.A. should be rewritten to exclude primates as service animals. But in fact, Frieden says, it\u2019s an example of how the original A.D.A. works well as it was written, since it allows broad use of service animals while still leaving room to protect the public health. \u201cSome situations have to be dealt with on a case-by-base basis,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t legislate fine lines \u2014 that\u2019s just not a functional law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frieden is very clear about his belief that it would be a huge loss if concerns about specific cases jeopardized the use of all noncanine service animals, especially the capuchin monkeys trained to help quadriplegics. The capuchins attend \u201cmonkey college\u201d at Helping Hands, a nonprofit organization in Boston, where they fetch remote controls, put food in microwaves, open containers, vacuum floors and flip light switches, all in exchange for treats. Helping Hands capuchins are captive bred, which minimizes the risk of picking up diseases, and they\u2019re provided specifically for in-home use. The proposed species restriction might make it impossible for people to transport capuchins or keep them in their homes because of zoning restrictions. The thought of this makes Helping Hands\u2019s founder, M. J. Willard, shudder. \u201cThere ought to be a more nuanced way if somebody just thinks it through,\u201d she says. \u201cEven just minor requirements of verifying the legitimacy of a service animal would solve a lot of the current problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frieden agrees. He suggests that perhaps a national committee could be appointed to develop certification standards for all service animals as well as a formal process for preventing and punishing service-animal fraud. Doing so might solve part of the controversy, he says. But not all of it. Particularly when it comes to species questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people try to make this issue black and white \u2014 this service animal is good; that one is bad \u2014 but that\u2019s not possible, because disability extends through an enormous realm of human behavior and anatomy and human condition,\u201d Frieden told me. In the end, according to him, the important thing to remember is this: \u201cThe public used to be put off by the very sight of a person with a disability. That state of mind delayed productivity and caused irreparable harm to many people for decades. We\u2019ve now said, by law, that regardless of their disability, people must have equal opportunity, and we can\u2019t discriminate. In order to seek the opportunities and benefits they have as citizens, if a person needs a cane, they should be able to use one. If they need a wheelchair, a dog, a miniature horse or any other device or animal, society has to accept that, because those things are, in fact, part of that person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Rebecca Skloot teaches nonfiction at the University of Memphis. Her first book, \u201cThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,\u201d will be published by Crown in spring 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:<\/p>\n

Correction: January 4, 2009<\/span>
\nAn article on Page 34 of The Times Magazine this weekend about animals that help disabled people misidentifies the location of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, one of whose public-health experts commented on the topic. It is at Princeton, not Harvard.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/04\/magazine\/04Creatures-t.html?scp=2&sq=blind&st=cse New York Times Magazine, January 4, 2009 Creature Comforts By REBECCA SKLOOT ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT IN A SUBURB of Albany, a group of children dressed as vampires and witches ran past a middle-aged woman in plain clothes. She gripped a leather harness \u2014 like the kind used for Seeing Eye dogs \u2014 which was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noticias"],"yoast_head":"\nCriaturas que proporcionam conforto (em ingl\u00eas) -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/inclusivenews.com.br\/?p=2882\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pt_PT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Criaturas que proporcionam conforto (em ingl\u00eas) -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/04\/magazine\/04Creatures-t.html?scp=2&sq=blind&st=cse New York Times Magazine, January 4, 2009 Creature Comforts By REBECCA SKLOOT ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT IN A SUBURB of Albany, a group of children dressed as vampires and witches ran past a middle-aged woman in plain clothes. 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