Laboratories
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:
Residents of Cranberry and
Hampton Township, Pennsylvania, got a
close-up view of the realities of vivisection on
May 7 when the tailgate of a truck taking 2.5
tons of dead rats from Zivic-Miller Laboratories
to a landfill broke twice, littering two streets
with rat remains. Zivic-Miller, of Zelienople, a
Pittsburgh suburb, sells rats to research institu-
tions. The dead rats were unsold surplus, owner
Bill Zivic told Associated Press.
1990 University of Minnesota animal
intake records obtained by the Animal Rights
Coalition under the Minnesota Data Practices
Act indicate that the university purchased for
research use at least 139 of 248 dogs who were
individually identified in a 1992 USDA com-
plaint filed against Class B animal dealers Julian
and Anita Toney, of Lamoni, Iowa, for failing
to keep records on animal acquisitions. The
USDA charges, now four years old, are still
pending, while the Toneys remain the primary
suppliers of dogs to the university––which has
been suspected of using stolen dogs ever since
the late Lucille Moses traced dog thefts through
local suppliers to UM in the early 1960s.
The animal care and use committee
at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb in
April recommended that two sloths held by biol-
ogy professor Virginia Naples be moved to a
zoo. The committee found no evidence that
Naples had produced publishable research
involving the sloths since 1989, while their
yearly upkeep costs about $3,700. Naples then
took the matter to the Illinois Human Rights
Commission, claiming she was the victim of an
attempt to ruin her professional reputation.
The USDA apparently cannot forbid
U.S. dissection supply firms from buying cats
who are stolen, drowned, and preserved in
Mexico (see “Mexican pet thieves supply U.S.
schools,” May 1994), because the Animal
Welfare Act applies only to live animals. Firms
apparently involved include Fisher Educational
Material Division, Southwest Scientific, and
Sargeant-Welch––the latter apparently owned by
Michael Sargeant, who offered to buy dead cats
from the Los Angeles Department of Animal
Regulation in April via another of his firms,
Sargeant’s Wholesale Biologicals, after the
World Society for the Protection of Animals
exposed the Mexican pet theft racket on March
25.
The National Institutes of Health
announced May 4 that it will scale down its
$1.2-billion-a-year internal research program.
The effect on animal-based research may be nil,
as more work would be contracted out to other
facilities.
The International Association
Against Painful Experiments on Animals and
the American Anti-Vivisection Society s e e k
signatures on a petition asking the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization to hold an inquiry into both the sci-
entific validity of animal-based research and the
potential of non-animal methods. Call AAVS at
215-887-0816. All petitions are due by August.
The University of California at San
Francisco has proposed to use the now-closed
Letterman Army Institute of Research in the
Presidio National Park as a “space to showcase
animal experimentation and its contributions to
society.” In Defense of Animals urges oppo-
nents to write to Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt, 1849 C St. NW, Washington, DC
20240, and also to their federal legislators.
