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by Brenda Shoss   At the University of California, Davis, Dr. Kenneth Britten annually receives$220,000 to anchor restraining devices to the heads of rhesus monkeys andgraft coils into their eyes. In 2001, Emory University acquired about

$118,185,010 for researchers such as Garret Alexander to route electrodes intothe brains of macaque monkeys. Locked in restraint chairs, fluid-deprived mon-keys do behavioral drills to earn juice rewards. Later, they’re embalmed alive.

Dr. Madeleine Schlag-Rey of UCLA and Dr. Richard Andersen of the CaliforniaInstitute of Technology also install devices into primates’ brains. Since 1985Dr. William Newsome has steadily replicated Dr. Britten’s primate tests, in oneof many ongoing studies that earned Stanford University around$107,272,736 in 2001 alone. At Yale University Charles Bruce has collected anear $3.4 million in endowments, to perform remarkably similar primate tests.

Who pays for these duplicative projects? Your tax dollars are funneled into fed-eral agencies that subsidize animal experimentation. During fiscal 2001 youhelped National Institutes of Health (NIH) bankroll roughly 29,441 separate testson primates, dogs, cats, rats, mice, hamsters, and guinea pigs for an estimated

$8.5 billion. As the nation’s major funding apparatus, NIH awards each univer-sity or private lab over $100,000,000 in any given year, asserts Michael Budkie,founder of the Ohio-based Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN). Budkie obses-sively tracks federal databases to expose an industry “shrouded in secrecy. Wecannot just walk into most laboratories and start asking questions.”

The list of carbon-copy experiments is endless. Presently, over 60 NIH grantsrepeat drug addiction studies in primates; 70 grants finance eyesight tests inmacaque monkeys; 170 projects examine neural data in macaque monkeys

and 90 others rehash the same study in cats.

In 2000 the USDA’s Animal Welfare Enforcement Report listed 1,416,643animals as research subjects. This tally doesn’t include rats, mice, birdsand other non-mammals currently omitted from the Animal Welfare Act. Ialso doesn’t itemize animals confined for breeding or offset under-report-ed facilities. Budkie compares CRISP (Computer Retrieved Information onScientific Budkie compares CRISP (Computer Retrieved Information onScientific Projects) numbers with other records and undeclared-animaestimates to up the yearly toll to 20,000,000 animals in laboratories.

 ANIMAL TESTINGYOU PAID FOR IT

ACTION • EDUCATION • ANIMAL DISASTER AID NETWORK 

KinshipCircle.org 8 KinshipCircle.org/disasters 8 info@kinshipcircle.org

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Budkie compares CRISP (Computer Retrieved Information on ScientificProjects) numbers with other records and undeclared-animal estimatesto up the yearly toll to 20,000,000 animals in laboratories.

The animals caught in this thicket of bureaucratic apathy are invariablydosed with toxic substances, radiation, and addictive drugs. They endureelectric shock, food/water deprivation, bone destruction, invasive surger-ies, and intensive confinement for often immaterial studies.

For example, Arizona State University cut funds for Michael Berens’ braincancer experiments after 470 dog deaths and a 95% failure rate. Berens

relocated to new environs, where he continues to inject cancer cells intobeagle fetuses and replant the tumors into the brains of puppies. Blind dogssuffer unremitting cycles of radiation and chemotherapy. “When it can’t takeit anymore,” Berens’ has claimed, one puppy is killed to move on to the next.

Pain is warranted as long as animals fulfill the intent of the research grant.“The goal is to insure that the experiment proceeds—at any cost,” Budkiesays. Humans lose more than cash when they pay for futile science.Behaviorist psychologist Dr. Roger E. Ulrich attests to the long history of ani-mal-to-human error: "We create false data which, combined with the differ-ences among species, make our efforts to apply the results to man, useless.”

  Animals cannot predict how we will react to a disease, drug or surgery.Every species is so anatomically, physiologically, immunologically, geneti-cally and even psychologically different from another, it is impossible toreliably extrapolate animal data to humans. Mice produce about 100 timesmore cancer-fighting vitamin C than humans, an oversight which led Dr.Richard Klausner of the National Institute of Cancer to conclude: “We havecured mice of cancer for decades—and it simply didn’t work in humans.”

For every animal who dies in a laboratory, there is a humane alternativeto use in his or her place. But until in vitro cell/tissue cultures; clonedhuman cells; virtual and manufactured organs; computer and three-dimensional models; diagnostic scans and many more non-animaloptions receive ample funding--they will languish on paper.

So the next time you find yourself in a rant over wasteful governmentspending, write a letter to your federal legislators. Ask them to increasefunds for non-animal research that directly impacts human health. Who

knows? With enough money for studies that apply to the human species,somebody might cure cancer in humans — instead of mice.

WHAT YOU CAN DO1. Ask U.S. government regulators in ICCVAM (Interagency CoordinatingCommittee on the Validation of Alternative Methods) to accelerate vali-dation of non-animal research tools. ICCVAM's committee clings to cus-tomary, but old-fashioned animal experiments that haven't undergone thor-ough scientific analysis. Urge ICCVAM to keep pace with strides in biology andcomputer automation that let researchers gather data relevant to PEOPLE.

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR ALL ICCVAM REPRESENTATIVES:http://iccvam.niehs.nih.gov/about/agencies/ni_Reps.htm

2. Ask your federal Senators and Representatives to:

• Advocate legislation mandating the use of animal-free tests.• Allocate funds to ICCVAM so informed scientists can develop non-animal

models as their European counterpart (ECVAM) does. Urge Congress toenact funding so ICCVAM can do its job.

• Extend the minimum protections established under the Animal Welfare Actto include rats, mice, birds and all species.

• Request that Animal Welfare Act regulations ban the use of electric shock,food/water deprivation, and extreme confinement and restraint devices.

• Conduct a General Accounting Office (GAO) audit of the NIH for duplicationand waste within the animal experimentation system.

To identify your federal legislators and find contact info, try:www.Congress.org • www.senate.gov • www.house.govCongressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121

UPDATESd 3/11/09: European Union outlaws cosmetics testingon animals anywhere in the EU, with few exceptions.

d 2009: University of Michigan drops dog labs from itsAdvanced Trauma and Life Support courses,   joining New York Medical College, Washington University School Of Medicine,Saint Louis University, University of Rochester, University of

Illinois...and over 90% of US/Canadian facilities that use human-focused simulators alone in surgical training courses.

d 2/18/08: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NationalToxicology Program and National Institutes of Health form a“Memorandum of Understanding” to expand nonanimaltests and phase out animal toxicity tests for new chemicals, drugs.

d 2008: Since the U.S. Interagency Coordinating Committeeon Validation of Alternative Methods became a permanentgovernment body in 2000 — ICCVAM's panel has approved  just 4 non-animal tests (from 185 reviews)! The EuropeanCenter for Evaluation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) has 34human-focused methods in place, with 170 more under evaluation.

d Fiscal 2007: USDA-APHIS lists a total 1,027,450 animalssubjected to experimentation: 72,037 dogs; 22,687 cats;69,990 primates; 109,961 farm animals; 236,511 rabbits; 207,257guinea pigs; 172,498 hamsters; 136,509 other covered animals.List excludes birds, rats, mice, and farm animals used in agricul-

tural research — all of whom are not protected under the Animal

Welfare Act, even though they comprise 90% of animals experi-

mented upon. Statistics from Licensing and RegistrationInformation System (LARIS) database are incomplete. Some facili-ties fail to submit timely reports. For others, USDA notes: “attempt-ed inspections could not be performed because personnel were notavailable.” www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/ 

d Fiscal 2007: USDA charts how animals feel pain/dis-

tress and relief: NO PAIN,NO DRUGS: 392,213; WITH PAIN/WITHDRUGS:557,471; UNRELIEVED PAIN/DISTRESS: 77,766. Pain with-out relief is perfectly acceptable if pain-relieving drugs or othermeans are shown to interfere with the results of research or test-

ing. 2007_AC_Report.pdf — aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare

d Estimated animals experimented upon in the U.S.annually tops 20 million. This figure does not count animalsconfined for conditioning or breeding. I.E., USDA reports 57,000+primates in labs; total is closer to 120,000. U.S. labs have nevercollectively reported totals. Species without AWA safeguards (rats,mice, birds, etc.) are not figured in at all. Animal Experimentation 

in the U.S. (2007), all-creatures.org/saen/fact-anex-2007.html

d Fiscal 2005: U.S. Government-funded animal experi-

ments cost U.S. taxpayers $12+ billion annually.  Animalusage in federally-funded projects has jumped 59% in last 10years. Animal Experimentation in the United States (2007), SAEN 

d Fiscal 2005: Same experiments over and over… DRUG  ADDICTION: 1200 projects ($495,600,000). NEURAL INFORMATIONPROCESSING: 778 projects, 11 species, $321,314,000...The govern-ment pays for redundancy and multiple institutions profit. SAEN 

Univ of CA, S.F.: $203,196,000U Univ of CA, L.A.: $194,110,000Johns Hopkins: $256,886,000 Harvard: $441,273,869 Yale: $199,066,000 Stanford: $164,374,000  Vanderbilt: $170,982,000 Emory: $239,303,364Duke: $162,309,000 Baylor: $173,047,000... etc.