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News programs have been airing ghastly
video footage from Afghanistan that shows dogs dying agonizing
deaths in al-Qaeda military experiments. One tape shows a dog
trapped in a room with vapor rising. The dog begins licking his
lips (increased saliva is one of the first signs of poisoning),
loses control of his hindquarters, and is eventually seen lying
on his back, moaning. However, these cruel experiments are nothing
new—nor are they confined to Afghanistan. The war on animals
is an international one.
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From Tel Aviv to Tehran to Texas, dogs and other animals are being poisoned and otherwise tortured in chemical, biological, and conventional warfare experiments. PETA has equally barbaric, secretly shot footage, from 1977, of Israeli soldiers injecting— and killing—dogs with what appear to be nerve agents.
No matter where you stand on international conflicts, it is a painful fact that the Israeli army has also blown up unanesthetized pigs with Scud missile explosives and conducted other painful experiments on dogs, monkeys, doves, mice, toads, and guinea pigs. An article in the March 17, 2000, issue of Ha'aretz, Israel’s most respected daily newspaper, reported that experiments carried out by the Israel Defense Forces on animals were so horrific that the soldiers forced to conduct the experiments had to seek psychological counseling.
The United States military has a long history of conducting cruel animal experiments.
Uncounted Casualties
Each year, at least 320,000 primates, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, cats, and other animals are hurt and killed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in experiments that rank among the most painful conducted in this country. Because these figures don’t include experiments that were contracted out to non-governmental laboratories or the many sheep, goats, and pigs often shot in wound experiments, the total number of animal victims is actually much higher. The cost to taxpayers for these military experiments is estimated to be in excess of $100 million annually.
Top Secret
Military testing is classified “Top Secret,” and it is very hard to get information about it. From published research, we do know that armed forces facilities all over the United States test all manner of weaponry on animals, from Soviet AK-47 rifles to biological and chemical warfare agents to nuclear blasts. Military experiments can be acutely painful, repetitive, costly, and unreliable, and they are particularly wasteful because most of the effects they study can be, or have already been, observed in humans or because the results cannot be extrapolated to human experience.
Sample Experiments
Burns and Blasts: As far back as in 1946, near the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, 4,000 sheep, goats, and other animals loaded onto a boat and set adrift were killed or severely burned by an atomic blast detonated above them. The military nicknamed the experiment “The Atomic Ark.”
At the Army’s Fort Sam Houston, live rats were immersed in boiling water for 10 seconds, and a group of them were then infected on parts of their burned bodies. In 1987, at the Naval Medical Institute in Maryland, rats’ backs were shaved, covered with ethanol, and then “flamed” for 10 seconds.
In 1988, at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, sheep were placed in a loose net sling against a reflecting plate, and an explosive device was detonated 19 meters away. In two of the experiments, 48 sheep were blasted: the first group to test the value of a vest worn during the blast, and the second to see if chemical markers would aid in the diagnosis of blast injury (they did not).
Radiation: At the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland, nine rhesus monkeys were strapped in chairs and exposed to total-body irradiation. Within two hours, six of the nine were vomiting, hypersalivating, and chewing. In another experiment, 17 beagles were exposed to total-body irradiation, studied for one to seven days, and then killed. The experimenter concluded that radiation affects the gall bladder.
At Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, rhesus monkeys were strapped to a B-52 flight simulator (the “Primate Equilibrium Platform”). After being prodded with painful electric shocks to learn to “fly” the device, the monkeys were irradiated with gamma rays to see if they could hold out “for the 10 hours it would take to bomb an imaginary Moscow.” Those hit with the heaviest doses vomited violently and became extremely lethargic before being killed.
Diseases: To evaluate the effect of temperature on the transmission of the Dengue 2 virus, a mosquito-transmitted disease that causes fever, muscle pain, and rash, experiments conducted by the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, involved shaving the stomachs of adult rhesus monkeys and then attaching cartons of mosquitoes to their bodies to allow the mosquitoes to feed.
Experimenters at Fort Detrich have also invented a rabbit restraining device that consists of a small cage that pins the rabbits down with steel rods while mosquitoes feast on their bodies.
Wound Labs: The Department of Defense has operated “wound labs” since 1957. At these sites, conscious or semiconscious animals are suspended from slings and shot with high-powered weapons to inflict battle-like injuries for military surgical practice. In 1983, in response to public pressure, Congress limited the use of dogs in these labs, but countless goats, pigs, and sheep are still being shot, and at least one laboratory continues to shoot cats. At the Army's Fort Sam Houston “Goat Lab,” goats are hung upside down and shot in their hind legs. After physicians practice excising the wounds, any goat who survives is killed.
In 1992 and again in 1994, doctors with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine testified before Congress on military animal use and worked with the General Accounting Office in an investigation of Michael Carey’s experiments at Louisiana State University. Carey shot 700 restrained cats in the head to “model” human injuries. As a result of the investigation, Carey’s cat-shooting experiments were halted.
Other forms of military experiments include subjecting animals to decompression sickness, weightlessness, drugs and alcohol, smoke inhalation, and pure oxygen inhalation.
Animal Intelligence
The armed forces conscript various animals into intelligence and combat service, sending them on “missions” that endanger their lives and well-being. The Marine Corps teaches dogs “mauling, snarling, sniffing, and other suitable skills” needed to search for bombs and drugs.
A series of Navy tests of underwater explosives in the Chesapeake Bay in 1987 killed more than 3,000 fish, and habitats for hundreds of species have been destroyed by nuclear tests in the South Pacific and the American Southwest.
Military Reform
The military’s tracking system lists approximately 725 military experiments using animals. Such tests are as misleading as they are cruel. Animals often respond to chemical agents and antidotes differently than humans. A rat’s respiratory system differs greatly from that of a human, and rats are more susceptible to toxins because they are unable to vomit. Mice have a genetic tendency to develop lung tumors, rendering much of the research on physiological effects of exposure invalid. Regarding skin tests, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report said, “Since laboratory animals have fur and do not have sweat glands on most of their body, they do not provide optimal models for dermal exposure.”
Mustard gas, first used in World War I, continues to be a favorite agent for Department of Defense animal experimenters. A 2005 research article highlighting the collaboration between University of Maryland at Baltimore (UMB) and Department of Defense experimenters in an experiment involving mice is entitled "Development of Formulation for Preventing Half Mustard Induced Damage to Skin."
The article's summary notes the following: "UMB and Department of Defense researchers have developed a novel formulation that offers substantial prevention against 2-Chloroethy-ethyl sulfide induced tissue damage in animals. Because of the similarity in the mechanism of CEES action with actual sulphur mustard, it is predicted that the formulation will also be effective in offering prophylactic as well as post-exposure prevention against tissue damage caused by sulphur mustard." The military should use this treatment, which "inactivates the toxic agent, reduces inflammation, and promotes tissue healing," and stop conducting needless mustard gas tests on animals.
Under the banner of defense use, animals have been used to test bullet trajectories when blocks of gel are better, as they allow military weapons experts to permanently freeze the bullet trail, something that doesn’t happen with a sheep or dog; they’ve even been put in slings and shot so that medics could practice cutting away dying tissue, when there are far superior ways to train medics.
Innocent Victims
Animals don’t wage wars; why should they suffer because humans do? All nations must reject chemical and biological weapons tests on animals. It makes no difference to the dog writhing in convulsions whether the man administering the poison gas was Afghan, Israeli, or American. All citizens of the world should come together for the peaceful purpose of condemning and demanding an end to this form of terrorism on innocent animals.
You Can Help
In 1993, the General Accounting Office (GAO) began an investigation of the military’s animal experimentation program. Ask your Congressional representatives to contact the GAO and express support for a thorough and complete investigation.
If you don’t know their contact information, please call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-225-3121, provide your state or zip code, and ask to be transferred to their offices or click here to obtain the information through a Web page.
Please also ask them to urge the DoD to implement alternatives to live-animal experiments.
Please contact President George W. Bush and demand an immediate end to U.S. military experiments on animals:
The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20515
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