March Madness: We Have a Winner!

Marc Breedlove Per your request I did some more digging into Arthur Webers cat experiments and discovered that theyre even more hideous that originally thought. Thank you! Before living cats eyeballs are taken out from their skulls near end of the experiments these animals are forced to suffer through what Weber so poignantly calls an optic nerve crush in which the nerve that goes to the eye is crushed on purpose. Heres what Weber wrote in a paper he just published The bone overlying the left frontal sinus was removed to expose the roof of the bony orbit eyeball. All openings to the nasal passages then were sealed with bone wax. A finetipped scalpel blade was used to make an opening in the dorsal surface of the orbit eyeball. Careful blunt dissection of the overlying tissues exposed the optic nerve without disturbing the nerve sheath or retinal artery. The optic nerve was stabilized with a small surgical hook and a smoothfaced bulldog clamp that exerts about 1024 grams of force was place on the nerve for 15 seconds at a distance 23 mm behind the globe eyeball. Following removal of the intubation tube each animal was monitored until it was able to move All animals received a 7 day survival period. Weber also directly injects drugs into living cats eyes. Weber writes Single intravitreal injections were made immediately postcrush into 9 eyes An additional 9 eyes received the optic nerve crush and no treatment. Experimenters often justify the use of animals in experiments by citing their various similarities to humans. However it is because of our shared potential for mental and physical suffering that we should not experiment on animals and instead choose nonanimal research methods. Animals in laboratories are harmed due to housing social environmental husbandry procedural and experimental stressorsall of which have been wellstudied and defined in the scientific literature and shown to cause physical biochemical physiological epidemiological behavioral social psychological and cognitive detrimental or traumatic effects. People suffered from traumatic eye injuries before Webers cat experiment and they will likely continue to suffer afterwards. The only thing that has changed is that cats have been mutilated and killed. There are better more humane ways to conduct researchthe only question is whether Weber has the will and intellectual curiosity to go out and try using nonanimal test methods. Regards Shalin Gala Laboratory Methods Specialist Laboratory Investigations Department PETA

Dear Jack You still have it wrong. That quote you posted from me was about other surgery in Professor Weber's lab. The eye removal surgery is only done at the end of an experiment to gauge how well the trial therapies preserved retinal cells and after the eye is removed from the fully anesthetized animal it is euthanized without ever waking up. So no the animal is never awake and missing an eye. The animal is euthanized the same way that millions of cats are euthanized at humane societies every year. So your description of Professor Weber's research was from the very start of your "contest" wrong. As you would have known if you'd actually read his research available at any library. I don't know if you made an honest mistake or if you deliberately lied about his research to rile people up. But I'll know if it was an honest mistake because then you'll post an apology to your readers for having misled them and post a sincere apology to Professor Weber for having riled up so much hate speech by posting untrue descriptions of his research. But I doubt PETA will ever let you post an apology for misrepresenting an animal researcher no matter what you want or think about the matter.

In our vet tech program our Anatomy and Physiology professor told us that stray cats are often collected off the streets for these kinds of experiments. Does anyone reading this own a cat who they care for? Good here's my suggestion keep them indoors. Before Weber gets his dirty hands on your beloved companion.

IM so proud of u for earning this spot!! You really deserved it!!! You must have a serious mental problem to do this to those poor defenseless creatures!!!

Simply horrible. Ghastly. Sick. Disgusting. Wrong. Sinning. Need I say more?