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.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) is the last facility in the country that still abuses cats for Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) training, in defiance of modern science and ethics. Now PETA has obtained alarming undercover video footage of cats being subjected to these cruel training exercises in a recent WUSTL PALS course conducted in conjunction with St. Louis Children's Hospital.
Despite the availability of superior, lifelike simulators, which are used instead of animals at all of the more than 1,000 other PALS training facilities in the U.S., WUSTL continues to lock nine cats in its laboratories. Several times a year, trainees repeatedly force hard plastic tubes down the animals' delicate windpipes in a crude attempt to learn to intubate human infants.
The video shows unskilled trainees struggling for several minutes to intubate two helpless cats named Elliott and Jessie, botching the attempts to shove tubes down their windpipes and mishandling metal instruments in ways that could break the cats' teeth. As several participants in the video note, the inadequately anesthetized cats even begin to wake up during the procedure.
A WUSTL veterinarian is seen discussing how each cat is subjected to as many as 15 intubations each session, even though studies show that intubating animals more than five times per session can cause pain and trauma. The veterinarian and course leader also admit that some cats' windpipes are injured during the exercise, which can cause potentially fatal bleeding, swelling, scarring, and collapsed lungs. Each of the cats held captive at WUSTL is subjected to this miserable procedure up to four times a year.
Even the American Heart Association (AHA), which created the curriculum and sponsors the PALS course, confirmed to PETA last month, "We do not endorse or require the use of animals during the AHA-PALS training because of advances and availability of simulation mannequins."
Please urge officials at WUSTL and St. Louis Children's Hospital to stop causing cats to suffer for intubation training and to use effective, non-animal training methods instead.
President Barack Obama's new $100 million BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) is intended to provide insight into human brain function and behavior to help find cures for diseases. But considering that the project's leadership committee is dominated by animal experimenters who have little experience in human brain research, it's doubtful that the initiative will be either "advanced" or "innovative" or that it will produce results relevant to humans.
So PETA is appealing to the National Institutes of Health, which was tasked with selecting scientists for the panel, to shake up the leadership committee and include scientists who are engaging in the human-based research necessary to solve human health problems.
Sixteen of the 17 panel members are involved primarily in archaic animal experiments, which have consistently failed to find cures for human brain disorders because of fundamental biological differences between species. In fact, in a recent Reuters article on the BRAIN Initiative, Dr. Christer Nordstedt, Eli Lilly and Co.'s vice president of neuroscience research, said, "We've been handicapped by the fact that we have been studying diseases in animals that don't really exist in animals. Mice don't get depression. They don't get schizophrenia. They don't get Alzheimer's disease."
Including at least some of the thousands of researchers who use ethical, human-based research methods, such as advanced imaging and other modern technology, will offer insights into the human brain that are not possible through experiments on animals. That means that the initiative will get closer to finding cures without tormenting animals in cruel and deadly experiments and wasting more taxpayer money.
You can help by e-mailing your senators and representatives and urging them to divert taxpayer funds away from animal experiments and into relevant, lifesaving human-based research.
Update: Good news! We love James Cromwell even more than we already did because of his willingness to face arrest to help bring attention to cruel brain experiments on cats at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and now we love that local prosecutors have declined to bring criminal disorderly conduct charges against him—as well as against the PETA staff member who was arrested with him—for pointing out that the experiments are unethical and must be stopped. The pair have instead been cited for noncriminal county ordinance violations—similar to a traffic ticket.
The USDA's documentation confirms that pain was inflicted on cats—including Double Trouble—who suffered from chronic life-threatening infections after having holes drilled into their skulls and metal coils implanted in their eyes and being constantly starved to force them to obey commands. Please join James Cromwell today in urging the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to stop these cruel and deadly experiments.
The following was originally posted on February 7, 2013:
Members of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System Board of Regents sat stunned as actor James Cromwell entered their meeting to challenge them over experiments on cats. Likely the last thing the board expected today was to have an Academy Award nominee rush in, holding a grisly picture of a cat with a large metal post protruding from her head, and exclaim, "This is not science! This is torture! Shame on you!" But James, a longtime PETA supporter, felt that it was high time the board got personally called out for UW-Madison's abuse of cats. Campus police arrested him and a PETA staff member but not before the board had to stare into the face of just one of the many cats who had been tormented and killed in UW-Madison's disturbing brain and ear experiments.
The orange tabby cat whose image has become synonymous with the cruel cat laboratories is Double Trouble. Experimenters screwed a steel post to her skull so that they could immobilize her head and planted electrical devices deep inside her ears. They allowed her massive, bloody head wound to become severely infected, and they then starved her for days at a time so that she would cooperate with them in exchange for a morsel of food to eat. Finally, calling the experiment a failure, they killed and decapitated her.
PETA has repeatedly asked UW-Madison to end its abusive experiments on cats but has received no response. Please e-mail UW's Board of Regents and urge the members to listen to James and the hundreds of thousands of other compassionate people who want the school to end these cruel cat laboratories and switch to modern, superior, non-animal research methods.
Update: In March, PETA reached out to Hainan Airlines, and representatives from the airline confirmed that its policy remains firm: It still does not ship primates to laboratories. In the written statement, Hainan Airlines representatives said that they "fully agree" with PETA on this issue and that they support our "effort in the protection of animal rights."
The following was originally posted on February 24, 2012:
Exciting news! Two more air carriers, TAM and Hainan Airlines, have announced that they will no longer transport primates for use in cruel laboratory experiments! PETA and other animal protection organizations put the pressure on the airlines after it was revealed that they were recently handling shipments of monkeys to laboratories in North America.
Richard Fisher | cc by 2.0
Now we're that much closer to stopping the transport of primates for use in experiments once and for all—but we're not there yet.
Please continue to tell the few remaining airlines that ship primates to laboratories—including Air France, China Eastern Airlines, and Continental Airlines—that cruelty should be grounded.
More good news on the international product testing front: After discussions with PETA, Pangea Organics is ending all sales of its products in China, where animal tests for cosmetics are required. For choosing principles over profits and vowing not to pay for animal tests anywhere in the world, PETA is proud to honor Pangea Organics with our Courage in Commerce Award.
© iStockPhoto.com/zoshyii
Pangea Organics has been a member of PETA's Beauty Without Bunnies program and will stay on PETA's cruelty-free list along with more than 1,300 cosmetics companies and personal-care and household products companies that are committed to compassion.
Pangea joins a growing list of companies that are choosing to stay true to their cruelty-free roots. Last year, Paul Mitchell Systems became the first company to pull out of China rather than harming animals after learning from PETA that selling in that country would mean painful and deadly tests on animals, and other companies, such as Dermalogica, have followed suit. Urban Decay also reversed its decision to enter the Chinese market after hearing from thousands of PETA supporters. And NYX, Paula's Choice, Yes To Carrots, and Jack Black have all said, "No, thanks!" to the Chinese market until tests on animals are no longer required—and that day is coming closer. PETA is helping to fund the efforts of the Institute for In Vitro Sciences, which is working to help Chinese scientists and government officials accept superior, non-animal methods, and China is poised to approve its first non-animal test.
Please help us congratulate Pangea Organics, and show your support for cruelty-free living by using PETA's brand-new global Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide every time you shop! Order a free copy or use PETA's Beauty Without Bunnies database to find compassionate companies that refuse to pay for animal tests anywhere in the world.
PETA has opposed experiments on animals from its earliest days because they're not only cruel but also unscientific. A few weeks ago, we told you about a government report highlighting the irrelevance of cruel experiments on chimpanzees. Now, a momentous study published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers further proof that experiments on other animals don't help humans. The report's authors conclude that the results of sepsis and burn experiments on mice—like those performed at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB)—cannot be applied to human beings, so their use represents a massive waste of time, money, and lives.
The groundbreaking PNAS study took 10 years to complete and involved 39 researchers from institutions across the continent, including Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. As The New York Times reports, those scientists "report stunning evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers—sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years and billions of dollars have been wasted following false leads. … [The study] helps explain why every one of nearly 150 drugs tested at huge expense in patients with sepsis has failed. The drug tests all were based on studies in mice. And mice, it turns out, have a disease that looks like sepsis in humans, but is very different from the human disease." The researchers discovered the discrepancy after conducting humane, modern studies on cells from hundreds of human patients. Regarding the experiments on animals, the study's lead author stated, "[Researchers] are so ingrained in trying to cure mice that they forget we are trying to cure humans."
One of the forces behind the UTMB studies is Shriners International, which for years has funded cruel burn and sepsis experiments on mice, dogs, and other animals at UTMB and elsewhere and continues to do so even today. One UTMB experimenter, Daniel Traber, soaked up money for years in exchange for burning animals' skin off. In one experiment uncovered by PETA, Traber torched mice with a Bunsen burner until more than 40 percent of their bodies were charred or forced them to inhale smoke—or both. The mice who survived this torture were finally killed.
Please join PETA in urging Shriners International to pull its funding of these cruel and wasteful experiments in light of the damning new report of their fatal flaws.
Like many of you, we were appalled by photos that have surfaced showing a visibly terrified monkey crudely strapped into a restraint device in which he was reportedly launched into space by the Iranian Space Agency (ISA). Back in 2011, our friends at PETA U.K. urged agency head Dr. Hamid Fazeli to ground the misguided mission, pointing out that nonhuman primates are no longer sent into space by the American or European space agencies.
It appears that Iran is repeating the wasteful and cruel mistakes that marked the darkest days of the space race. Monkeys are smart and sensitive animals who not only are traumatized by the violence and noise of a launch and landing but also suffer when caged in a laboratory before and after a flight—if they survive.
NASA ended the use of primates in space radiation experiments in the early 1990s, following protests by PETA. In 2010, NASA's plans to restart the program were canceled after PETA and others voiced strong ethical and scientific objections to the ill-advised plan.
Similarly, the European Space Agency (ESA) has a very active space exploration program and has publicly stated that it "declines any interest in monkey research and does not consider any need or use for such results." The ESA instead employs modern technology such as state-of-the-art simulators to assess health risks for astronauts.
Whether it happens in Iran or Ireland, in an underground laboratory or in outer space, cruelly exploiting animals for specious science is indefensible. We've reached out to the ISA once again to ask it to stop shooting monkeys into space. Learn how you can help stop experimentation on all animals.
For decades, PETA has been calling for an end to the cruel and irrelevant use of chimpanzees in experimentation. We’ve made significant progress over the years bring an end to this national disgrace, and now the government is finally taking concrete steps to do the same.
© Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
At a historic meeting this afternoon, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) committee recommended that the agency cut funding for seven of the nine current taxpayer-funded grants for biomedical experiments on chimpanzees and fully or partially cut funding for 12 of 13 behavioral studies. With regard to the fate of these 360 NIH-owned chimpanzees, the committee stated that "the majority of NIH-owned chimpanzees should be designated for retirement and transferred to the federal sanctuary system. Planning should start immediately ...."
The NIH's momentous move follows the landmark 2011 finding of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that "most current biomedical research use of chimpanzees is not necessary." After the report's release, the NIH formed a committee to determine, among other things, which taxpayer-funded projects should be ended and how many chimpanzees should be retired.
PETA submitted recommendations calling for a complete end to experimentation on chimpanzees to both IOM and NIH during these deliberations—and that's just one part of the extensive groundwork that led to this exciting development. Every step of the way, PETA has relentlessly pursued any and all avenues to uncover abuse to chimpanzees in laboratories and has advocated for the creation of stronger federal policy and legislation to protect chimpanzees from being tormented in experiments.
PETA has exposed cruelty in laboratories, filed complaints against laboratories that experiment on chimpanzees, reached out to Members of Congress, organized demonstrations, gained celebrity support, filed shareholder resolutions, launched online advocacy campaigns, and called for an end to this barbaric practice in popular and academic publications.
The end is in sight, but we must not stop until all chimpanzees are out of laboratories. Please sign PETA's petition asking Congress to retire all federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries.
Some exhilarating news from our neighbors (aka "neighbours" or "voisins") to the north: The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) will allow Air Canada to ban shipments of primates destined for pain and misery in laboratories.
This leaves United Airlines as the only North American airline—and one of the few left in the world—to continue this bloody business.)
Following pleas from PETA, other organizations, and members of the public, Air Canada first sought the CTA's permission for the ban last year, stating that the proposed ban was "both to align our policies with those of many other major international carriers and in response to widespread public concern." Following objections from animal experimenters, the CTA initially did not approve the ban and scheduled a hearing on the issue. PETA immediately filed comments as a "party of interest," which were included in the official record, in support of Air Canada's proposed ban.
The CTA just released its decision in this matter, ruling entirely in favor of Air Canada and against the animal tormenters. In its lengthy decision, the CTA pointed out that the airline had received "over 47,000 letters from the public protesting its practice of transporting non-human primates for research purposes" and that Air Canada "cannot ignore the overwhelming volume of letters in opposition to the transport of non-human primates destined for research."
What You Can Do
As the CTA decision makes clear, this victory was made possible because of the appeals of concerned people—including the almost 19,000 PETA supporters who took action through this website. That's why it's so critical to make sure that your voice is heard—please join PETA in urging the few remaining airlines still willing to ship primates to laboratories to stop contributing to this cruelty.
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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