Tag: Primates

Bill Maher Calls/E-Mails Columbia Researchers Urging Them to Abandon Animal Research

In early May, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ Bill Maher made phone calls and spammed Columbia University researchers urging them to stop animal research there. PETA has been harassing Columbia president Lee Bollinger for several months and has filed a complaint with the New York County District Attorney’s Office seeking to have criminal charges brought against animal researchers at Columbia.

Maher’s e-mail read,

Dear Columbia Employee,

I recently heard from my friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that baboons and other primates are being subjected to some very strange experiments in laboratories at Columbia University. In one experiment, pregnant baboons are pumped full of nicotine and morphine and their babies are operated on in utero. Now, I might have thought that the point was to figure out the effects of cigarettes and morphine on pregnant women and their babies, but fetuses don’t normally smoke and shoot up, even if their parents do play self-esteem tapes before they’re born. Haven’t these experimenters heard that cigarettes are called “cancer sticks”? That’s right—they’re bad for you! Who knew? As for morphine, Edgar Allen Poe knew 100 years ago that it was addictive and just about—but not quite—as dangerous as animal experimenters with too much money and too little accountability. Even Poe in a morphine-induced nightmare couldn’t have dreamed up anything as scary as this.

Although we might all know that certain drugs and compounds are addictive, exactly how they tend to result in addiction is, in many cases, still a mystery and animal research has offered a number of surprises. For example, it is known that cocaine stimulates certain receptors in the brain leading to the obvious hypothesis that the brain becomes addicted to having those receptors stimulated. But research on mice performed at Columbia demonstrated that the animals became addicted to cocaine even when genetically modified to be missing the specific receptor that cocaine acts on. The actions of addictive, dangerous drugs are far more complex and more poorly understand than Bill Maher’s non-sequiters let on.

Forget drugs—maybe they should study infections at Columbia, because apparently, this kind of thing is catching. Another experimenter is trying to study the effects of stress on women’s menstrual cycles by implanting metal pipes into the skulls of rhesus monkeys. One hundred million women in America with PMS, and this guy’s Frankensteining monkeys? It’s just a wild guess on my part, but wouldn’t he learn more from talking to actual women under stress than from plumbing monkey heads? Anyway, most women have the old-fashioned kind of stress, like money troubles and tough jobs, rather than having pipes fall out of the sky and lodge in their skulls.   

Here Maher is both lying and extremely cruel to women and their partners who struggle with infertility caused by irregular menstrual cycles. Columbia University researchers study rhesus monkeys in order to better understand the various roles played by hormones in causing regular menstrual cycles and the effects that environmental conditions, such as stress, can have on those hormones.

It’s a little disturbing to me to know that this Brian De Palma film is playing not in some dugout in Iraq, but at Columbia—not exactly your local city college. The guys playing the monkeys like cards in a poker game aren’t Osama. One’s a neuroscientist, one’s a physiologist, and—get this—one’s a pediatrician. Wouldn’t you want to take little Johnny to this doc for a sore throat? At least there was one decent human being in these labs: the veterinarian who called PETA to report her colleagues’ work habits. When she saw one of the experimenters take out a monkey’s eyeball to cause a stroke, she had a Network moment—she got mad as hell and decided that she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Maher forgets to mention that when Columbia was first notified of possible problems in 2002, they initiated an in-house review of animal research as well as notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The university made a number of changes to its procedures. As for the stroke research, this is being conducted by E. Sander Connolly whose animal research has led to a number of intriguing findings, including the fact that antioxidants can cross the bloodstream/brain barrier and possibly reduce damage caused when a blood clot plugs an artery.

Which is pretty much the way I feel right now. Tossing millions of dollars of tax money out the window is one thing—think searching for ice on Mars—but wasting money to cause strokes in, disfigure, and terrorize animals puts Columbia in an ugly and embarrassing position. I’m asking Columbia to stop this now and forever, and I’m asking you to join me. You can find out more and see the pictures at ColumbiaCruelty.com or by calling PETA at 757-622-7382.

Maher, of course, couldn’t care less whether or not any of the research at Columbia could lead to life saving treatments for human beings. As Maher once told Us magazine,

To those people who say, ‘My father is alive because of animal experimentation,’ I say ‘Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.Â’ Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade off.

Source:

E-mail to Columbia University researchers. Bill Maher, May 2004.

PETA Protests at Civil Rights Speech

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protested outside a speech given by Columbia University president Lee Bollinger to honor the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka that found segregation in schools unconstitutional.

PETA activists have been protesting Bollinger’s public appearance since October in an effort to get Columbia to drop primate research at the university. PETA’s Alka Chandna connected animal rights with civil rights, telling The Memphis Flyer (emphasis added),

There are terrible things happening to the primates at Columbia. In one experiment, a researcher cuts out the left eyes of baboons and then induces a stroke by inserting a clamp into the eye socket, closing three critical arteries . . . We understand from a veterinarian who was working at Columbia that the animals were not given sufficient pain relief during or after the experiments.

Lee Bollinger has an excellent track record as far as civil rights are concerned, but we’d like him to also see that primates are complex and intelligent being with a social structure similar to our own. They shouldn’t be deprived of basic rights either. That a person of his caliber cannot understand that is shocking to us.

Perhaps if Chandna and other PETA activists were of the same caliber as Bollinger, they might understand.

Source:

Fighting for their rights. Bianca Phillips, Memphis Flyer, February 12, 2004.

Animal Rights Activist Sentenced to Two Months in Jail in UK

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty activist Kerry Whitburn, 34, was sentenced to two months in jail in January for breaking into a UK pet store. He actually only served one month and was released on January 30.

Whitburn pleaded guilty to breaking into The Fish Specialist after seeing a television documentary which included footage of the shop. Whitburn broke a glass door with a crow bar in order to steal two marmoset monkeys that he noticed in the footage.

The monkeys were not in the pet shop when he broke in, however, and Whitburn managed to cut himself on the glass leaving behind plenty of evidence of his involvement. Despite previous animal rights-related convictions — including a 2001 conviction for an anti-Huntingdon Life Sciences protest — Whitburn received the light sentence.

And Whitburn is very aware that law enforcement in the UK is unwilling or unable to do more than slap his wrists for such crimes. While in jail he wrote a letter to supporters,

“HI EVERYONE!” Hope everyone out there is fine and well, and living a positive cruelty free life. Course you are! So, here I am again! For those who don’t know, I’m serving a 2-month sentence for attempting to ‘steal’ 2 marmoset monkeys from a tiny, bare cage in a grotty pet shop in Nottingham. I won’t go into detail, as those who know me will confirm that if I give the whole complex story I’ll be writing a novel, not a short article. Oooh, I nearly broke into a waffle then, during that last sentence. So, for Jo-Ann’s sake, all I’ll say is the pet shop appeared on an undercover T.V. documentary, and was voted 2nd worse in the UK.

So, went to court on Jan 5th and received 2 months but will only serve one. Hell, this animal rights lark can really get you in trouble, can’t it! Maybe I’m expected to come to prison and learn my lesson, don’t you think? Hmmmm, nah – maybe I won’t! Besides, I’m illiterate when it comes to the law concerned with the abuse of animals! Sorry, your honour.

Yeah, the British government is really doing everything it can to deter animal rights crimes, isn’t it?

Sources:

Letter from Kerry Whitburn. Kerry Whitburn, January 28, 2004.

ELP November 2001 Newsletter. Earth Liberation Prisoners Network, November 2001.

Pets Raid Man Faces Prison. Nottingham Evening Post, December 10, 2003.

Nepal's Rhesus Breeding Program Draws Opposition

Nepal and the Nepal and the Natural History Society of Nepal recently reached an agreement whereby that country will host a rhesus monkey breeding program designed to supply the United States and other countries with rhesus monkeys for animal research programs. The agreement has drawn the ire of animal rights activists and groups.

The Washington National Primate Center is working closely with the Natural History Society to set up the breeding program. The Washington National Primate Center has helped start similar breeding programs in Indonesia and Russia to supply monkeys to for biomedical research in the United States.

Back in 2002 when this idea first was considered, the International Primate Protection League urged its supporters,

Please send a letter to the officials whose addresses are listed below requesting that Nepal not establish a biomedical breeding and research facility in conjunction with a laboratory funded by the US Government. Postage from the United States to Nepal costs 80 cents per ounce.

Request that Nepal not build a monkey laboratory and that it not export monkeys at a time when there is an increased demand for monkeys to be used in painful and lethal experimentation into biological warfare and other infectious disease agents.

According to the IPPL, almost 19,000 primates were imported into the United States in 2002.

Sources:

Nepal Plans a Monkey Lab: Please Protest. Press Release, International Primate Protection League, November 2002.

Nepal Activists Say No Monkey Exports for Lab Tests. Keshab Poudel, OneWorld, February 2, 2004.

Utah Student Wins Lawsuit for Access to Primate Experimentation Records

In January, the Utah State Records Committee ruled unanimously that the University of Utah had to provide student animal rights activist Jeremy Beckham with information about primate research at the university.

In Fall 2003, Beckham filed a request for records pertaining to primate research under the Freedom of Information Act. The University denied the request on the grounds that researchers could become the target of harassment if it released the information and that the research protocols needed to remain secret until the conclusion of the research projects.

But the State Records Committee agreed with Beckham that he has a right to access to the records — although the university will also have the right to redact confidential and/or proprietary information.

Some states, including California, also have regulations that require release of experimental protocols. Mary Hanley, executive vice president of the National Association for Biomedical Research, was absolutely right when she told The Salt Lake Tribune that universities should make such information public. Hanley said,

Most lab researchers are not accustomed to this kind of attention. They don’t want to fight back publicly. They’re scared. Sometimes the institutions have to do it for them. [But] the public is paying for this stuff so they have a right to see it. I’d tell them, ‘Here’s what we do, here’s who we are and we’re damn proud of it.'”

Beckham says that once he obtains the records he plans to post them to the web site of the his Utah Primate Freedom Project organization.

Sources:

Primate debate: U. won’t detail monkey experiments. Linda Fantin, Salt Lake Tribune, January 13, 2004.

Precedent established in primate case. Cara Wieser, Daily Utah Chronicle (University of Utah), January 16, 2004.

Student demands truth about animal testing. Cara Wieser, Daily Utah Chronicle (University of Utah, January, 15, 2004.

HSUS Wants End to Research Involving Chimpanzees By 2005

The Humane Society of the United States’ Kathleen Conlee wrote an account of a session at the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science conference about chimpanzee research in which she articulates the HSUS’s desire for a ban on chimpanzee research in the United States by 2005.

Conlee writes that the presentation by a National Institute of Health official noted the importance of chimpanzee research in the past and the likely importance of research utilizing the animals in the future. According to Conlee,

When the session came to an end, I had one particularly burning question to ask the speaker: “What is NIH doing, if anything, to address the fact that various countries have decided to ban the use of chimpanzees in research?”

I wasn’t expecting the response that I got—at least not in public. The official said he could foresee a time in the future—he couldn’t say when—when chimpanzees are no longer used in research in the United States. He then pointed out that public opinion has had an influence on this issue.

Like the morning fog that eventually lifts from Puget Sound, that sinking feeling from earlier in the day was gone. I felt there was hope that chimpanzee research in the U.S. will end—that the 1,300 chimpanzees currently used, held, bred or purchased for use in federally supported or conducted research might one day soon have a better life. I also felt that The HSUS must peek its head inside the door that was cracked opened that day in Seattle.

Conlee continues that HSUS is now firmly behind that effort because it views chimpanzee research as inherently inhumane,

Documentaries and accounts of chimpanzee families in the wild have shown us their complex natures: We’ve seen their various emotions, such as anger, joy and jealousy; their use of tools; and how they can be deceptive to obtain something they want. I worked with chimpanzees at a sanctuary and observed such behaviors firsthand.

Now consider those same complex chimpanzees living alone in a small laboratory cage (5x5x7 feet) with little to do, nothing to look forward to, and occasionally suffering from the research they have been subjected to. The bright eyes of the wild chimpanzee are nowhere to be found.

The lucky ones have social partners and live in larger enclosures, but they still live behind bars and are used as subjects for research. We have to ask ourselves, “Is the price of chimpanzee research too high?” The Humane Society of the United States argues that it is. That is why we are urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the parent agency of NIH, to create a plan to end chimpanzee research by 2005. We sent a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson (as well as two NIH officials) to that effect in November.

The NIH responded to HSUS’ letter by saying it had no plans to change its approach to non-human primate research.

Conlee argues that the elimination of research involving chimpanzees would have only limited affects on the progress of biomedical research because most such research is unnecessary and alternatives could likely be created for the rest,

Some argue that chimpanzees must be used in biomedical research in an attempt to cure human diseases. However, many of the research areas for which chimpanzees are used also involve the use of other experimental approaches and models. Therefore, phasing out chimpanzee experiments would have limited impact on the pace of biomedical progress.

The HSUS also argues that alternatives to chimpanzee use haven’t been adequately explored. Why isn’t funding dedicated to finding these alternatives? Scientific results from any type of research conducted on apes are compromised as a result of the animals’ captivity-related suffering. Development of alternatives should be a priority; the chimpanzees, however, cannot wait for this—they must be retired from research as soon as possible, and we believe 2005 is a realistic time period.

Sources:

Conference Call: Remark Leads HSUS to Publicly Call for Ban on Chimp Research. Kathleen Conlee, Humane Society of the United States, January 2004.

The HSUS Calls on Federal Government to End Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical Research. Press Release, Humane Society of the United States, December 11, 2003.