Cruel, Redundant Tests for U.S. Government Aimed at ‘Proving’ What Millions Have Known for Decades: Nicotine Is Addictive

For Immediate Release:
March 27, 2007

Contact:
Alka Chandna, Ph.D. 757-622-7382

Toronto — PETA, the world’s largest animal rights organization, is calling on University of Toronto (U of T) President David Naylor to immediately implement a policy requiring that U of T’s animal care committee be allowed to exercise oversight in all animal experiments performed by U of T faculty—no matter where the experiments take place. PETA’s request comes in light of the cruel and deadly nicotine experiments that a U of T animal experimenter recently performed on squirrel monkeys. Because the tests were conducted at a U.S. government facility in Baltimore, they bypassed U of T’s animal care committee. In a letter fired off to Naylor today, PETA points out that if the consent of the committee had been required, these wasteful and cruel tests may have been stopped.

During the experiments, Le Foll tied squirrel monkeys to chairs inside tiny chambers and repeatedly injected them with nicotine so that they became addicted to the drug. Le Foll concluded that "it is the desire to obtain nicotine that is an important drive of smoking behaviour." He further suggests that nicotine replacement therapy "may be useful to decrease motivation to take tobacco in smokers." The monkeys were killed at the conclusion of the experiment. PETA reminds Naylor that smokers, health officials, government agencies, and companies that market nicotine patches and other smoking cessation aids have been aware of nicotine’s addictive properties for decades.

Squirrel monkeys are extremely curious and highly social animals who live in large, lively groups. They spend their days foraging, playing, and huddling together during times of rest. By contrast, primates in laboratories endure privation, isolation, and psychological trauma—even before they are subjected to gruesome experiments.

"Bernard Le Foll’s abuse of animals is a black eye on the University of Toronto and should be stopped immediately," says PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. "Every smoker in North America knows about the addictive properties of nicotine. The fact that Le Foll has gotten away with tormenting primates in order to ‘prove’ something that every 15-year-old in North America already knows only proves the cruelty and absurdity of animal experimentation."

PETA’s letter to University of Toronto President David Naylor is available on request. For more information, please visit StopAnimalTests.com.