ANTI VIVISECTION HEROES

Whenever vivisection labs have been shuttered and whenever we and our supporters were part of making that happen we were always happy to give credit where credit is due. In the past few months White Coast Waste has managed to accomplish what anti vivisection groups like ours and many other activists have been working on for years – shutting down brutal, NIH funded government vivisection labs.

Collaborating with compassionate politicians in Congress, and with the support of members of the Trump administration, WCW has closed the NIH’s in-house Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. In this notorious vivisection lab vivisectors perpetrated brutal experiments, including forcing tubes into beagles’ bodies so they could pump pneumonia-causing bacteria into their lungs. They perpetrated these and cruel septic shock and organ failure experiments on over 2,000 beagles. Those horrific experiments are now history.

After pressure from WCW, Elon Musk, Laura Loomer, military veterans, and dozens of bipartisan lawmakers, the Secretary of the Navy terminated all the department’s testing on cats and dogs. The Navy’s $10 million cat lab where crippled cats were electro-shocked for constipation and erectile dysfunction tests is closed. Rand Paul Festivus Report said about these experiments, “These cats were then subjected to even more electric shocks, sometimes for up to 10 minutes at a time, before having their spinal cords severed to paralyze their lower bodies. And just for good measure, the shocks continued for another 10 minutes.”

WCW helped pass bipartisan House legislation to defund the Pentagon’s cat abuse. They have our overwhelming gratitude for their incredible success.

We agree with these legislators who deserve our gratitude for their support – Senator Roger Marshall (R-KN) “It is a ‘horrific practice’ and testing on any dog, of any breed, for any reason, must be outlawed.” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) said, “Having led years of efforts to end the NIH’s cruel and unnecessary experiments on dogs and cats, I applaud President Trump’s NIH for finally cutting the agency’s horrific in-house septic shock tests on beagles. Other supportive members of Congress were Rand Paul (R-KY) and Jared Moscowitz (D-FL).

WE MUST CONTINUE TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE FRAUD OF VIVISECTION

The experiments listed above are clearly the actions of psychopaths who many members of the public believe are dedicated scientists working to find cures and improve human health. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one knows better than animal experimenters that vivisection, otherwise known as biomedical research, is scientific fraud. Experiments on animals cannot be extrapolated to humans because of differences in physiology, metabolism, genetic, biochemistry, diet, and environment. It does not work. It is not science. It does not bring about cures. It continues because vivisectors, labs, and universities receive private funding and grants from the NIH which wastes our tax dollars on useless, cruel experiments. Vivisection and the massive breeding facilities that supply vivisectors with millions of victims are a billion dollar a year industry.

We continue to educate members of Congress regarding the fraud of vivisection to prevent them from caving in to the vivisectors when loss of their funding causes them to scream to the media that “lives will be lost,” “no cures will be found” because they cannot vivisect animals. Members of the public and our public servants must be made to understand that those desperate assertions are outrageous lies.

BETRAYED – THE NIH RENEWS FUNDING FOR THE CRUEL NPRC LABS AT OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY

Many AV groups believed head of the NIH Dr. Jay Bhattacharya when he declared the NIH was phasing out vivisection. We were not convinced. Others in his position have talked the talk but never walked the walk. A few days ago he renewed NIH funding for the NPRC lab in Oregon for another year to the tune of $13.7 million. This is the kind of betrayal and hypocrisy we have come to expect from NIH directors. Another AV group excused the action saying the lab was always supposed to receive funding until 2029. We don’t buy it. This was a renewal that did not need to happen. Unless we are not aware of a different definition for the word renew, the NIH has a choice whether to renew grants or not. Grants can be cancelled. Unfortunately it is extremely rare for vivisection grants not to be renewed in perpetuity even though the vivisectors have absolutely nothing to show for the thousands of animal experiments they perpetrate.

Activists working with several organizations in Oregon and across the country have worked relentlessly to close the NPRC lab in Oregon. If activists were to be successful it would be the second NPRC lab to close. In 2015, Harvard University was forced to shut down their NPRC lab after their horrendous abuse of primates was made public.

Here is a link to our site that lists all the NPRC labs and how to contact them. https://kindnessandscience.org/help-us-shut-down-the-nprc-vivisection-labs/

In NPRC labs the following experiments are legal – confining monkeys to cages only slightly larger than their bodies, using starvation and dehydration to compel monkeys to complete a task, embedding devices in their skulls and eyes, restraining them for long periods of time in order to take blood and tissue sample, tearing infants away from their moms and leaving them alone in an incubator 23 hours a day. in addition to this constant abuse the primates are the victims of various other experiments including electroshocks and injections of toxic chemicals. Thousands of primates have died in the past 60 years in these NPRC labs.

Oregon Health and Science University now has 5,000 macaques and other monkeys in their vivisection labs under sentence of torture by vivisectors. The lab also has a thriving business breeding monkeys to sell to other vivisection laboratories. We are only one group of many that has been pushing to shut down this lab. PCRM has been very active in this regard, and Oregon governor Tina Kotek is also pushing OHSU to close the lab. She wants them to “complete their research obligations and move toward shutting the center down in a humane and responsible manner.”

Additionally, three Democratic members of the Oregon State House of Representatives – Rep. David Gomeberg (D-Otis), Farrah Chaichi (D-Beaverton), and Mark Gamba (D-Milwaukie), have introduced House Bill 3978 that would prohibit research on monkeys at the primate center starting May 1, 2029 when their current long term NIH grant ends. Of course OHSU is fighting back with the usual predictable lies – “We stand with our dedicated workforce and the scientific community in strongly opposing misguided and misinformed efforts to close the center which would prevent groundbreaking discoveries to advance human health.” “Groundbreaking discoveries to advance human health?” It takes a lot of chutzpah to tell such a bald faced lie.

Since Dr. Bhattacharya shows no inclination to shut down this lab, we can only hope that politicians in Oregon will pass bill 3978 which the governor will be eager to sign.

You can share your thoughts with Dr. Bhattacharya regarding the Oregon NPRC lab at this email link https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/contact-us/ask-nih

IMPORTANT PROTEST ON SATURDAY, JUNE 21ST 10am TO 12pm

If you have not yet attended a protest at the zoo for Billy and Tina, this is one you do not want to miss. It is being sponsored by In Defense of Animals, Los Angeles for Animals, Elephant Guardians, and Voice for the Animals. Representatives from Non human Rights Project will be there and give us updates on their lawsuit in the LA Court. It is urgent that we be there to support them and let them know we back them all the way – if all goes well, all the way to Tennessee.

Motion 25-0446 introduced in the City Council by Councilmember Blumenfield before Billy and Tina were stolen out of the zoo by Mayor Bass, is still viable. If brought to the entire council there would be open debate on where to send Billy and Tina. Right now, Councilmember Jurado is refusing to vote it out of a committee where it has been sitting for weeks. Jurado needs to hear from you at 213-473-7014. Councilmember Harris-Dawson, as president, has the power to bring it out of committee himself. He must be encouraged to do so. 213-473-7008

We are hearing from people who are calling councilmembers again and again. We are grateful for your dedication and passion. One minute of your time can change Billy and Tina’s lives forever.

As long as you’re alive we will fight for you.