Lifelong Animal Advocate Hoped to Stem the Flood of Animal Welfare Violations at Facility by Helping Researchers Study Cancer in a Human Body

For Immediate Release:
March 5, 2009 

Contact:
Kathy Guillermo 757-622-7382

New York -- Longtime PETA supporter Judith Yeargin fought hard not only in her long battle with breast cancer but also against the use of animals in laboratory experiments. That's why Yeargin, who died on March 2, left her body to the New York University Langone Medical Center (NYUMC)--a notorious violator of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Yeargin hoped that if her body were used for cancer research, it might spare countless animals from having tumors implanted in their bodies and from being maimed during surgeries and abused in painful, deadly, and wasteful experiments. She knew that the progression and treatment of cancer in humans cannot be effectively studied in animals because of the vast differences in physiology and disease development between humans and other animals. 

"Throughout her entire illness, she always maintained that, had she been given the option of accepting any kind of cure based on animal research, she would never, ever accept it," wrote Yeargin's husband to PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "The enormous pain so often found in animal research rarely mitigates the 'devil's bargain,' and its concomitant suffering, that cancer treatments frequently bring." 

NYUMC, which houses and experiments on monkeys, rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, and birds, has been cited numerous times for violations of animal protection laws.  The USDA slapped NYU with a $450,000 fine in 1996--the largest fine ever assessed against a research institution in the history of the AWA. NYUMC experimenters grow cancers in animals, even though animals' bodies are not good models for humans. In one experiment, they even surgically damaged the vision of baby monkeys. Some animals are killed after the first experiment, while others are subjected to a lifetime of painful experiments.  

"Cancer patients deserve the best that medicine can offer, and that means researching how the human body develops and reacts to cancer," says Newkirk. "Not only is it cruel to confine, maim, and kill animals in laboratories in order to study the effects of cancer in humans, it's also bad science." 

For more information, please visit PETA's Web site StopAnimalTests.com