Deep Roots: Animal Rights Blog

For years, animal rights activists have argued that testing on animals provides skewed data at the cost of millions of lives. Well it seems that the National Institute of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency have finally came to the same conclusion.

“There are differences between species. We are not rats and we are not even other primates, and so that [the] desire here is to see if we could do better,” said Francis Collins, director of the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. “Ultimately what you are looking for is [whether] this compound does damage to cells.”

Federal scientists have decided to collaborate on a new toxicology testing program that uses stem cell research and computer modeling rather than animal testing. The collaboration is the result of an agreement among the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Chemical Genomics Center under the National Human Genome Research Institute, and EPA National Center for Computational Toxicology.

From KOMO TV:

Researchers implant coils on the monkeys’ eyeballs, thread wires up the skull and put a metal cylinder - sometimes two - into holes drilled in the monkey’s skull.

Through public disclosure requests we obtained thousands of pages of internal e-mails and reports from the UW and federal agencies. Some of the surgeries were approved, many more were not. We found evidence that some monkeys underwent a dozen or more surgeries, as the eye coils and head chambers were removed and replaced, again and again.

From StopAnimalTests.com:

Prompted by a complaint from PETA, federal investigators opened a formal inquiry at the University of Washington, Seattle (UW). New information from the ensuing investigations has confirmed widespread violations of animal protection regulations. The animal suffering involved in these cruel experiments is shocking. Experimenters cut off the tops of monkeys’ skulls, insert electrodes into their brains, and implant wire coils in their eyes. The monkeys are then restrained in experimentation chairs, with their heads bolted in place so that they can’t move while experimenters track their eye movements. They are kept hungry or thirsty much of the time so that they’ll comply during tests to get a sip of water or a bite of food.

I never got a chance to mention that we were interviewed on WFHB a couple weeks ago. I’ve included our interview below. For the full show, visit the WFHB News site. Its always weird to hear yourself speak, especially when your words have been cut down from an hour to 17 minutes, but its a decent interview. Gets to the basics of what we are about and where we are coming from.

After several hours of writing, editing, layout and coding, our newsletter is now officially launched. Our print version is only available at our tabling events (and to prisoners), but you can easily subscribe for free and receive our newsletter directly in your email each month! You can subscribe by visiting our newsletter page. There you will also find the full web version of the March 2008 newsletter.

Yay! If you are interested in writing an article for the newsletter (or a letter to the editor), go ahead and send it to me at chris(at)deeprootssanctuary.org.

In other news, I apologize for the lack of posting here on the blog. There was a lot going on (within the sanctuary and personally), but things are getting back to a nice equilibrium so I should be back to regular posting.

The Pet Safety and Protection Act is in danger! This act prohibits experimentation facilities from buying dogs and cats from Class B dealers. It was passed as an amendment to the Farm Bill by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. However, as the Senate and the House work out differences between their bills, animal experimenters are pressuring Congress to drop the pet-safety provisions altogether.

Class B animal dealers, also known as “random source dealers,” often acquire animals through theft and deception and are known to sell lost and stolen cats and dogs to laboratories.

Please contact your senator today and ask him/her to keep the Pet Safety and Protection Act in the Farm Bill.

from PETA