Laboratory animals: rodent and bird verdict reversed
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1994:
The U.S. Court of Appeals in late
May struck down a 1992 federal court ruling that
Congress meant the Animal Welfare Act to
apply to rats, mice, and birds, exempted by the
USDA since 1971. Declining to hear arguments,
the court held that the Humane Society of the
U.S. had no standing to bring the case because it
could not prove it is harmed by the USDA policy
in question. ““We intend to petition the Appeals
Court for a rehearing based on errors in the rul-
ing,” said Martin Stephens, Humane Society of
the U.S. vice president for laboratory animal
programs. Stephens dismissed the precedential
import of the verdict on standing, but Valerie
Stanley of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the
lead attorney in the case, told the Chronicle of
Higher Education that it means, in effect, that
no animal protection organization may sue to
protect laboratory animals.
The Michigan Court of Appeals
ruled 3-0 on May 25 that workers who contract-
ed herpes B via monkey bites while working for
the International Research and Development
Corp. may seek for worker’s compensation, but
may not sue for damages. One of the plaintiffs,
Thomas McGeorge, died on June 20, 1989.
The other, Scott Lennox, is still sick.
Canadian Council on Animal Care
publications are notably less vitriolic since a
recent change of CCAC leadership. One recent
issue even debunked “the stereotype that animal
rights advocates buy leather shoes and eat at
Burger King between demonstrations,” citing a
recent study by Harold Herzog of Western
Carolina University that found “nothing to sug-
gest that animal rights activists as a group are in
any way psychiatrically disturbed or misanthrop-
ic.” The same issue said 2,115,006 animals were
used by Canadian laboratories in 1992. Fish
made up the greatest number, followed by mice.
Excavation for a new sewer line a t
Mt. McGregor State Prison in Wilton, New
York, has turned up nearly 1,000 glass jars
filled with the pickled remnants of fetal animals
used to test tuberculosis drugs, buried and for-
gotten circa 1945. The find made headlines
when a cub reporter misunderstood the word
“fetal” to mean “aborted human remains.”
The Animal Alliance of Canada
seeks letters urging Ontario premier Bob Rae to
authorize the New Democratic Party caucus to
pass a bill banning cosmetic testing on animals
before the next election, in 1995. Rae and the
NDP are not expected to be re-elected. Address
Rae c/o Legislative Bldg. Room 281, Queens
Park, Ontario, Canada M7A 1A1.
Forty top medical institutions sur-
veyed by Citizens for Alternatives to Animal
Labs Inc. of Long Island, New York, reported
indicative differences in their use of cats for intu-
bation practice. All 12 anesthesiology residency
programs train residents in endotrachial intuba-
tion of newborns or infants, but none use ani-
mals, according to CAAL attorney Elinor
Molbegott. All 16 pediatrics residency programs
provide similar training; six use no animals, two
rarely use animals, and six use animals routine-
ly. Of seven emergency medical service pro-
grams, all provide the same kind of training;
five use no animals, one rarely uses animals,
and one does routinely. Of the five undergradu-
ate medical schools, three do not provide train-
ing in intubating newborns and infants. The
other two provide the training without animal
use. Get details from Molbegott, 419 Latham
Lane, East Williston, NY 11596.
Earth 2000, an 18-member high
school group from Reading, Pennsylvania,
won the American Anti-Vivisection Society’s
first annual Young Activists Campaign Contest
on June 9, worth $250, with activities including
vegetarian meals for AIDS patients, lobbying
efforts, and an anti-whaling demonstration in
Washington D.C. Runners-up were the Humane
Education and Living Project, of Deer Park,
New York; Activists for a Healthy Future, in
West Lafayette, Indiana; and the Grassroots
Coalition for Environmental and Economic
Justice, in Clarkesville, Maryland.
New York City is planning school
curriculum revisions, to take effect next year.
Letters suggesting the use of non-animal scienti-
fic study methods may be sent to School
Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines, 110 Livingston
St., Room 512, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
Of the 50 largest corporate users of
animals in research and testing, 15 are clients of
Burson-Marsteller, an international public rela-
tions firm notorious for whitewashing military
dictatorships and controversial industries (includ-
ing the fur trade, for a time, until the furriers
couldn’t pay the BM bills).
The Visible Human Project e x p e c t s
to have both male and female cadavers online in
tiny slices by October. The program, requiring
use of special computers costing $50,000 each,
will replace many dissection exercises in medical
teaching and training.
A paper by Dr. Maryls Witteand col-
leagues at the University of Arizona charged in
the June 8 edition of the Journal of the American
Medical Association that a misreading of animal
test data led to serious errors in a 1992 Science
report by Dr. Robert Gallo of the National
Cancer Institute––and that Science tried to cover
up the evidence. Gallo postulated that a com-
pound from soil bacteria might be used to stop
the growth of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a purple skin
cancer common in AIDS patients.
For a detailed list of gruesome
University of California at San Francisco bio-
medical research projects that might be
involved if UCSF is allowed to take over the
Letterman Hospital research facility in the
Presidio National Park, contact Sandy Barron at
In Defense of Animals, 816 West Francisco
Blvd., San Rafael, CA 94901.
The Scientists Center for Animal
Welfare has moved to Golden Triangle Bldg. #1,
7833 Walker Dr., #340, Greenbelt, MD 20770;
telephone 301-345-3500; fax 301-345-3503.
Friends of Animals published a
detailed resume of bizarre vivisection projects
funded by the March of Dimes in its summer
1994 newsletter, but wrongly listed the Cancer
Fund of America, of Knoxville, Tennessee, as
a cancer charity that does not fund animal-based
research. In fact, the Cancer Fund of America
has been in repeated trouble with regulatory
authorities for alleged fraudulent accounting,
and apparently funds little or no cancer research.
Contrary to an indication in the
June issue of ANIMAL PEOPLE, the Michael
Sargeant who buys dead cats from animal shel-
ters has no association with Sargent-Welch bio-
logical supply, of Buffalo Grove, Illinois,
according to San Bernardino Animal Control, of
southern California, which was formerly one of
Michael Sargeant’s suppliers. Two weeks after
the World Society for Animal Protection exposed
a Mexican cat theft ring that supplies cats for dis-
section to U.S. firms including (indirectly)
Sargent-Welch, whose involvement was discov-
ered by Boston Globe reporter Scott Allen,
Michael Sargeant sought to buy dead cats from
the Los Angeles Animal Regulation
Commission. He said he was based in Auburn,
California, with facilities in Texas and else-
where in southern California––and told San
Bernardino officials he had a facility in
Utah––but the only facility registered to his name
on the current USDA list of Class B animal deal-
ers is Sargeant’s Wholesale Biological in Loomis,
California. A Robert Sargeant is listed at
Ramona, California. If such facilities don’t han-
dle live animals, however, they need not have
Class B permits. There are no other Sargeants
registered (by any spelling) in the southwest.
