Written by Michelle Kretzer
In the midst of World Week for Animals in Laboratories, we have exciting news to share. After more than three decades of PETA action, Harvard will be shutting down its deeply controversial primate-testing facility in 2015.
This victory is 30 years in the making. In fact, some early-day PETA members took part in a headline-making demonstration outside the laboratory on April 25, 1983, almost 30 years ago to the day. Since then, we've kept the public informed about the cruel and deadly experiments going on at the facility and filed numerous federal complaints against it. Now, we will urge the center to fund the retirement all of its captive primates to existing sanctuaries or build a place suitable to retire them.
PETA's director of laboratory investigations, Justin Goodman, made this announcement:
PETA is celebrating Harvard's decision to shutter its massive primate prison after our decades-long campaign to achieve exactly that. This forward-thinking move recognizes not only the financial reality but also the signals that the future of research at top-notch institutions does not lie in tormenting other species. For decades, the more than 2,000 primates confined at Harvard have been shocked, starved, infected with debilitating illnesses, and addicted to cocaine, heroin, nicotine, and alcohol in painful and irrelevant experiments. PETA is pleased that Harvard has made the long-awaited decision to stop treating our fellow beings like unfeeling test tubes, and we hope these primates do not end up shunted to yet another laboratory. Since our inception, PETA has protested the abuse of primates in Harvard's laboratories. Harvard's announcement comes almost 30 years to the day after PETA and 5,000 other activists gathered for a historic protest on Boston Common to demand an end to this cruelty. Recently, PETA protested and stopped NASA's plans to fund radiation experiments on monkeys at Harvard, targeted Harvard as one of the worst laboratories in the U.S., filed complaints calling on the federal government to revoke taxpayer funding following the Harvard primate center's laundry list of animal welfare violations, and run ads on cabs and bus shelters around the city declaring that experiments on primates are tantamount to murder."
PETA is celebrating Harvard's decision to shutter its massive primate prison after our decades-long campaign to achieve exactly that. This forward-thinking move recognizes not only the financial reality but also the signals that the future of research at top-notch institutions does not lie in tormenting other species. For decades, the more than 2,000 primates confined at Harvard have been shocked, starved, infected with debilitating illnesses, and addicted to cocaine, heroin, nicotine, and alcohol in painful and irrelevant experiments. PETA is pleased that Harvard has made the long-awaited decision to stop treating our fellow beings like unfeeling test tubes, and we hope these primates do not end up shunted to yet another laboratory.
Since our inception, PETA has protested the abuse of primates in Harvard's laboratories. Harvard's announcement comes almost 30 years to the day after PETA and 5,000 other activists gathered for a historic protest on Boston Common to demand an end to this cruelty. Recently, PETA protested and stopped NASA's plans to fund radiation experiments on monkeys at Harvard, targeted Harvard as one of the worst laboratories in the U.S., filed complaints calling on the federal government to revoke taxpayer funding following the Harvard primate center's laundry list of animal welfare violations, and run ads on cabs and bus shelters around the city declaring that experiments on primates are tantamount to murder."
The almost defunct New England Primate Research Center is one of eight such dedicated federally funded primate prisons across the country. Other similar facilities are located in Oregon, Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington, Texas, California, and Louisiana. We need your help to empty all of their cages. Please ask Congress to divert public money away from experiments on animals in favor of humane, relevant, and lifesaving non-animal research.
I am reminded of a famed Victor Hugo quote: "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." Thank you, PETA supporters. And congratulations.
It wasn't as if experimenters at New York University (NYU) didn't know for days that Hurricane Sandy was approaching. It wasn't as if they didn't know that federal policy requires them to at least try to protect the animals they torment and kill in experiments from also becoming victims of a natural disaster. But the experimenters either made no evacuation plan for the animals in their "care" or they failed to follow through with it. Instead, they abandoned 10,000 mice and rats in a basement laboratory, who remained trapped in their cages as the floodwaters rose. Many animals—panicked, afraid, and desperate to escape—drowned to death, while others suffocated from the toxic diesel fumes of a leaking fuel tank. NYU was unable to give an exact figure for the number of animals who died—remarking instead that the facility lost 7,660 cages of mice and 22 cages of rats, with each cage holding one to seven animals.
PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health, the government body that oversees federally funded experiments, calling for an investigation into NYU's irresponsible and unconscionable actions and inaction. In our complaint, we pointed out that the university will likely acquire thousands more animals to replace those who died, multiplying the suffering caused by the experimenter's negligence.
It's not the first time that animals were left trapped in laboratory cages during natural disasters. At the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, 35 dogs, 78 monkeys, 300 rabbits, and 4,000 mice and rats drowned during tropical storm Allison in 2001. The storm also killed 30,000 mice and rats who were left in the basement at Baylor College of Medicine. Hurricane Katrina killed 8,000 animals trapped in Louisiana State University's laboratories, and thousands more died at Tulane.
An official with the National Academy of Sciences remarked: "This happens again and again and (research labs) never learn. Anybody with half a brain knows you do a site-specific analysis [to understand the risk of disasters], and it's really stupid to put your animals in the basement if you're in a flood zone."
Stupid, cruel, and inexcusable.
Written by PETA
In a huge victory for vervet monkeys, U.S. military officials have confirmed that the Army is ending cruel and archaic monthly training exercises at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in which monkeys are poisoned with a drug overdose that makes them suffer from violent seizures in a crude demonstration of the effects of nerve-agent exposure. Instead of abusing terrified monkeys, Aberdeen—the only Army base in the country that uses animals for this training—will now use human patient simulators, just as every other military facility already does. The move follows months of vigorous campaigning by PETA.
PETA's campaign against the barbaric chemical casualty training exercises included a series of protests this week outside the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army. Supporters of this effort included veterans, physicians, active service members, and actor Woody Harrelson, who sent a letter on PETA's behalf to Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno. Many others have also been protesting at Army recruitment centers, flooding the offices of Army officials with e-mails and phone calls, and even gathering outside the homes of Army officials affiliated with the monkey lab. One PETA member even disrupted a speaking event last week by Aberdeen's commanding general, Nick Justice.
Please send an e-mail to Maj. Gen. Nick Justice to thank him for this compassionate decision and ask that he ensure that the transition to simulators be made immediately.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
You don't have to blog for PETA in order for your posts to help us help animals.
Users of Blogger and WordPress can now earn donations for their favorite charity (hint, hint) without actually spending any money.
That's because Blogger and WordPress have teamed up with SocialVibe—a social-networking site with a cause—to help people educate others about animal rights issues and contribute to PETA campaigns.
If you don't use SocialVibe yet, it's easy to do. All you have to do is sign up, and then create and post your customized badge to generate that first $1 donation to PETA. Then, each time you or one of your blog readers completes a SocialVibe activity, a microdonation is made to our organization.
Also, if you sign up right now, you can help PETA's youth division, peta2, meet its goal of raising $3,000 before September 14 for its "Animal Testing Breaks Hearts" campaign.
Don't forget to tell all your blog-inclined friends too!
Written by Heather Drennan
Here's your first look at PETA's newest campaign: "Animal Testing Breaks Hearts."
We first launched "Animal Testing Breaks Hearts" as a youth-oriented peta2 campaign, but the reaction from everyone, regardless of age, was "Awww!"
So below are pictures of our first "Big PETA" "Animal Testing Breaks Hearts" campaign event. We promise more to come. So who knows? You just might be greeted by our giant, loveable rat on your next trip to the pharmacy. He's traversing the U.S. and letting everyone who crosses his path know that reducing animal suffering is as easy as refusing to buy products from companies that test on animals.
So next time you head to the store to stock up on cosmetics and household products, arm yourself with PETA's free shopping guide and don't go breakin' any hearts.
Written by Liz Graffeo
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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