The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has ordered the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) to pay more than $12,000 in fines for its cruel, incompetent—and sometimes fatal—treatment of animals, citing the institution for 10 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) in its laboratories between 2008 and 2010. Two of the citations in the penalty were the result of a 2008 complaint filed by PETA.

Learning the Hard(-Hearted) Way

After PETA submitted information about archaic and deadly medical training exercises in which rabbits at UCHC had needles repeatedly stabbed into their chests, the USDA found that the facility didn't properly seek non-invasive alternatives nor did it adequately document how the animals were used. The other violations for which UCHC was cited and fined include rabbit deaths caused by improper anesthesia and poorly trained employees.

UCHC was previously fined $5,500 by the USDA in 2007 for AWA violations, including injecting unapproved substances into a monkey's brain and an incident in which a monkey was dragged so roughly by a metal collar that his eyes bled. That penalty resulted from complaints filed by PETA Associate Director Justin Goodman, who was then a UConn grad student leading a successful campaign to end experiments on primates at the school. Not only were the experiments permanently shut down, but following a PETA complaint, the laboratory was also ordered to return $65,000 in federal funding.

And that's not all: In 2001, UConn's main campus paid $129,000 in USDA fines for 99 violations of animal welfare laws. You'd hope the university would have learned its lesson by now, but as long as animals are suffering in school laboratories, PETA will be working to stop the violence.

Rabbits are frequent victims of animal experimenters because they are mild-tempered and easy to handle, confine, and breed—more than 241,000 of them are abused in U.S. laboratories every year.

What You Can Do

Last year, the University of Connecticut's Health Center and main campus received more than $63.5 million from the National Institutes of Health, of which more than 40 percent will be spent on animal experimentation. Please ask the federal government to stop funding cruel and antiquated animal experiments and to put your tax dollars toward modern, humane, and superior research methods.

For more than two decades, experimenters at the National Institute on Aging (NIA, part of the National Institutes of Health) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison) starved caged monkeys—depriving them of a whopping 30 percent of needed calories—to see if this would increase their longevity. Now, the vivisectors at NIA have announced that the extreme, prolonged deprivation had no effect on the monkeys' life span.

Hungry, Lonely, and Scared

The NIA studies, funded by taxpayers, started in 1987, and the UW–Madison studies began in 1989. At both facilities—and also at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, where similar experiments are being conducted—the monkeys, in addition to being kept chronically hungry in a semi-starved state, were imprisoned in tiny barren cages and condemned to a lifetime of isolation, without even the simplest benefit of any cage mates. As journalist Gina Kolata described in The New York Times:

For 25 years, the rhesus monkeys were kept semi-starved, lean and hungry. The males' weights were so low they were the equivalent of a 6-foot-tall man who tipped the scales at just 120 to 133 pounds. The hope was that if the monkeys lived longer, healthier lives by eating a lot less, then maybe people, their evolutionary cousins, would, too.

When the studies at UW–Madison were first made public in 2009, PETA filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the university's egregious violations of the Animal Welfare Act. In addition, PETA complained to the UW–Madison Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, but our concerns were dismissed.

Failing Animals, Science, and Humanity

Now, after decades of condemning intelligent, sensitive monkeys to protracted suffering, the vivisectors have admitted that their experiments not only failed to make their point but also were poorly designed: The monkeys were fed a diet that was 28.5 percent sucrose (i.e., empty calories). So, in addition to being ethically inexcusable, the experiments were scientifically nonsensical.

But no matter what the experimenters were trying to prove, it was wrong to cage and starve these monkeys. All so-called "calorie-restriction experiments" (that's vivisector lingo for "starving animals") should be banned now. Primates are extremely intelligent animals who form intricate social relationships, experience the same wide range of emotions that we do, and exhibit a capacity for suffering similar to ours. Rhesus macaque monkeys have been shown to use tools, count, and communicate complex information. Monkeys can also express empathy, and they possess a sense of fairness—something that many experimenters seem to lack.

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What You Can Do

We each have a role to play in helping monkeys and other primates suffering in laboratories. Please urge the federal government to stop wasting our tax dollars on cruel and pointless experiments on animals.

In response to a series of significant animal welfare violations and complaints filed by PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken the rare step of fining the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) almost $12,000 for repeated violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. ONPRC imprisons, sickens, terrorizes, and mutilates thousands of monkeys each year in experiments with impunity, so it's good to know that the facility will be punished for causing animals to suffer more by failing to uphold even minimum standards.

A Record of Recklessness

The violations, which took place in 2009, included the escape of nine monkeys from the facility as well as the deaths of five other monkeys from a variety of causes, including from dehydration, being injected with unapproved compounds, and improper procedures performed by an inadequately trained employee. Following the escape, PETA called on the USDA to investigate and issue a fine to ONPRC.

In 2007, PETA conducted a shocking undercover investigation, which exposed horrific laboratory conditions at ONPRC. The next year, the USDA issued an "official warning"—the precursor to a fine—to ONPRC. Internal documents obtained by PETA had revealed that a sick pregnant monkey died after being denied veterinary care, that a surgical sponge was left in a baboon—causing an abscess—and was discovered only after he was killed for an experiment, and that experimenters mistakenly performed surgery on the wrong monkey. After repeatedly finding negligence and callous disregard, federal investigators are finally speaking the only language that ONPRC understands: dollars and cents.

What You Can Do

Take a stand for the animals imprisoned at ONPRC. Ask the National Institutes of Health to stop funding cruel and useless nicotine experiments on animals at ONPRC and elsewhere.

PETA protesters wearing monkey masks and holding signs reading, "Deplane Monkeys," recently held demonstrations outside the Chicago headquarters of United Airlines and the U.S. headquarters of Air France in New York. PETA is urging the airlines to commit to a ban on shipping primates to laboratories, as almost every airline in the world already has, including Delta, American, US Air, and China Airlines.

No-Fly Zone

PETA demonstrators also dropped a banner from a busy overpass next to United HQ, generating a lot of views and picture-taking:

United Airlines, which recently acquired Continental Airlines, is now the last U.S. air carrier without a policy prohibiting the transportation of primates to be abused and killed in crude, painful, and archaic experiments in laboratories.

Think Flying Coach Is Tough?

The cruelty involved in laboratory experiments on primates and other animals should be self-evident: After hearing from PETA about the horrors that cats and dogs endure in labs, for instance, Nippon Cargo Airlines, which had been shipping dogs and cats from the United States to Japanese labs, implemented a worldwide policy against shipping any animals to labs.

When primates are shipped to laboratories, they're first separated from their families and locked inside dark, terrifying cargo holds for as long as 30 hours. Then they're delivered to facilities that will poison them, cut them up, and kill them. Many monkeys who are shipped to laboratories were first ripped from their homes in the wild.

Help Stop Primates From Being Shipped to Laboratories

Please join PETA in telling airlines that still transport monkeys to U.S. laboratories to adopt a policy against the transportation of nonhuman primates for use in experiments.

It shouldn't happen to intelligent, sensitive cows, but it does: With holes cut into their sides, they are used as sideshow-like attractions to lure children and prospective students to university events and fundraisers. Distraught attendees at some of these recent events sent PETA these disturbing photographs:

The cows are part of common experiments that involve permanently removing a chunk of the animals' abdomens to expose their stomachs. Experimenters feed the cows various foods and then reach into the hole to take samples, even though there are modern non-animal methods for conducting these kinds of studies.

The "fistulated" cows are then often put on display at events, with patrons invited to "touch a cow's stomach" or "put your hand inside a cow." PETA often hears from upset students and parents who have witnessed such a display. Unfortunately, the only law that protects animals used in experiments, the Animal Welfare Act, does not extend to animals used in agricultural experiments, meaning these cows have no legal protection from cruelty.

Each time PETA hears about these hideous mutilations, we contact the school (and the group that visited the display) to ask them to stop the experiments and remind them that there are much more humane ways to teach students about science and animals than having them gawk at a mutilated cow. PETA also offers parents, teachers, and administrators resources to help students at every educational level achieve scholastically and compassionately. Visit TeachKind.org to download or order a wealth of free materials.

Navy veteran Bob Barker was appalled at what he saw in undercover video footage of U.S. Coast Guard trauma training leaked to PETA. In the video, live goats are stabbed, have their internal organs pulled out, and have their limbs cut off with tree trimmers. The goats moan loudly and kick while they are being mutilated, a sign that they were not sufficiently anesthetized, while an instructor cheerfully whistles and a soldier jokes about writing songs about mutilating the animals.

As a proud vet, Bob wants members of the armed forces to have the best possible training—and that means replacing archaic and cruel animal exercises  with superior lifelike human simulators that can bleed, breathe, have their bones broken, and even "die." The simulators are already in use at many military facilities, and military regulations even require that non-animal methods be used when available. But the policy isn't being enforced.

Bob wrote to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on PETA's behalf to urge them to improve military trauma training by mandating that all programs use only advanced human simulators.

What You Can Do

Join Bob in asking Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security officials to comply with federal regulations and replace all use of animals with human simulators.

Thanks to a brave whistleblower, PETA has obtained horrific undercover video of live animals whose limbs were cut off for an archaic military training drill. The course was held earlier this year in Virginia Beach, Virginia, by private contractor Tier 1 Group. 

In the shocking video, instructors repeatedly crack and cut off the limbs of live goats with tree trimmers, stab the animals with scalpels to cause internal injuries, and cut into their abdomens to crudely pull out their organs. Some of the goats moan loudly and kick their legs during the mutilations, which veterinarians who viewed the video say are signs that the goats were not adequately anesthetized and may have even been feeling pain.

The disturbing video footage shows a callous course instructor who cheerfully whistles while dismembering goats as well as members of the Coast Guard who joke about writing a song about mutilating the animals.

According to the whistleblower, later in the day the goats were shot in the face with pistols and were hacked apart with an ax while still alive. 

Today, there are high-tech humanlike simulators available specifically for military training that can breathe, bleed, cry, talk, and respond to medications. These human-based methods are obviously more humane and effective than cutting apart, blowing up, shooting, and killing thousands of animals every year. One shockingly realistic simulator is a special suit designed to be worn by a human actor that enables military personnel to safely perform emergency surgical procedures on a live human without any injury to the person.

Last year, PETA helped end an Army course that involved poisoning monkeys with chemicals, and we've saved ferrets and cats from other cruel military training courses by convincing military officials to switch to modern simulators. 

The evidence of the superiority of these state-of-the-art simulation methods is so overwhelming that Congress has introduced legislation to phase out the use of animals in military training in favor of non-animal methods.

We Need All Hands on Deck

Military medical experts, veterans, and civilian physicians are joining PETA in urging U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other military officials to immediately end the use of animals in military trauma training exercises. And we need your help, too! 

In light of Merck's record of failing to provide even the most minimal care to animals used in its experiments, PETA has filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical giant for violating PETA's shareholder rights and refusing to include a proposal by PETA—a Merck stockholder—among the 2012 proxy materials that are being considered at the company's upcoming annual meeting. PETA is asking the court to order Merck to include the proposal and give shareholders the chance to cast an informed vote on it.

What Is Merck Trying to Hide?

PETA's proposal simply requests an annual report on Merck's "procedures to ensure proper animal care, including measures to improve the living conditions of all animals used in-house and at contract laboratories"—but the drugmaker has refused, apparently preferring to conceal from shareholders how Merck and its contractors have repeatedly violated federal animal welfare laws. Since 2008 alone, Merck's violations have included caging primates in isolation, inadequate anesthesia procedures and housing of animals, and lack of veterinary care and personnel training, just to name a few.

Merck's record is especially disturbing since, in the last three years alone, it has used tens of thousands of primates, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, and guinea pigs in experiments—including more than 16,000 animals in painful tests, thousands of whom were given no pain relief whatsoever. Shareholders have a right to know what the company is doing to prevent further violations of animal welfare laws, don't you think?

A big "Thank you!" is due to the Gratiot County Board of Commissioners for taking an important step toward ending the betrayal of homeless animals in Michigan.

You may recall that this past winter, the University of Michigan ended a cruel cat laboratory after PETA revealed that the school was purchasing homeless cats from R&R Research, a notorious Class B dealer. PETA also discovered that R&R obtained many of the cats from the Gratiot County, Michigan, animal shelter. Local citizens joined PETA in calling for reform, and the commissioners have now passed a resolution to strictly limit the number of animals that it releases to R&R Research.

He is of one of the cats who ended up at the University of Michigan and was killed

The End of an (Appalling) Era

Gratiot County couldn't completely ban the release of animals to R&R because of a contract that runs through February 2014, but the commissioners voted to release only one animal to R&R in each of the next two years. While it's disappointing that two animals will still fall into R&R's hands, the commissioners are making the best of a bad situation—especially when you consider that, last year, the county animal shelter handed more than 30 animals over to that torture pimp. In addition, the county voted to end the barbaric use of gassing as a method for euthanasia at the shelter.

Mecosta County—the only other county in the state whose shelter was releasing animals for use in experiments—confirmed that starting July 1, its shelter will no longer do so. So when Gratiot County's contract with R&R expires, it will mark the complete end of pound seizure in the state of Michigan.

How You Can Help Animals Exploited by Animal Dealers

Please ask your congressional representatives to prohibit Class B dealers from selling lost, abandoned, and stolen animals to laboratories.

What do you get when you mix PETA, a company that tests on animals, and a roomful of eco-friendly executives? A round of applause, which is what happened when an animal advocate stood up during the Industry Water Award Ceremony in Stockholm and asked Nestlé Chair Peter Brabeck-Letmathe when its tea brand, Nestea, will stop carrying out painful and deadly experiments on animals and switch to cruelty-free non-animal testing methods.

A few weeks ago, Nestlé USA CEO Brad Alford got the same surprise inquisition at the Grocery Manufacturers Association Conference in Colorado Springs.

Experimenters working for Nestea have injected mice with toxic chemicals in order to give them diabetes, then force-fed them tea ingredients before killing them. In another experiment, mice were force-fed tea extracts and then had their leg muscles cut open before being decapitated. In still another test, mice bred to suffer brain damage and rapid aging were locked in dark chambers, and painful shocks were administered to their sensitive feet before the mice were killed.

Not only are these tests not required by law, the results also aren't even admissible as proof of tea's health benefits—the very reason that Nestlé claims it conducts the experiments. You can give Nestlé executives a surprise of your own by visiting PETA's new website, NesteaCruelTEA.com and e-mailing AlfordCEO of Nestlé S.A. Paul Bulcke and to ask them to call off the killing.

Written by Michelle Sherrow