Where do Animals for Research Come From?  And Where Do They Go?

Written by: Elizabeth
Excerpts: Animal Welfare – Oath Of God’s Perspective

 

“We have moved away from studying human disease in humans,” he lamented. “We all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. With the ability to knock in or knock out any gene in a mouse—which “can’t sue us,” Zerhouni quipped—researchers have over-relied on animal data. “The problem is that it hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem…We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.” (NIH Record, “Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research”)

The former Director Zerhouni has admitted that animal research has not worked yet the money continues to be pumped into the machinery to continue this artificial stimulus program for unmerited research. 

 

Lethal Medicine – Part 2
Research on Animals

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The Greed:

Avarice and systematic methods steeped in research tradition are also contributing factors to NIH’s irresponsibility. The NIH receives a continual glut of proposals for research grants from both universities and other research labs.  It spends an estimated 14.5 billion dollars on animal research which is almost 50% of its entire annual budget of $30.2 billion. (15)  In these myriad experiments, monkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, cats, mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits and other animal models are used most of which die painful deaths.   

According to the NIH “More than 80% of the NIH’s funding is awarded through almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state and around the world. About 10% of the NIH’s budget supports projects conducted by nearly 6,000 scientists in its own laboratories, most of which are on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. (16)

Grant money helps to pay for the high paid salaries of tenured professors and the various department overheads in universities across America. “Between 45 to 50% of every research grant won by the faculty member is labeled “indirect costs” and retained by the university. This can be an astounding amount of money (at least $112,500 on a typical $250,000 a year NSF grant) and goes to the university to pay for general expenses like electricity and providing an office staff.  This is a high rate, and as such, the “indirect costs” also re-pay a part of the researcher’s start-up package.  In a faculty member’s career, however, one can see how they could pay for their start-up costs several times over if they maintain a number of grants over their lifetime, allowing the university to profit in addition to any work done by the professor in the classroom or committees.  (17) 

 

Republican Congressman Tom Marino & Republican Strategist Glenn Beck
Yes! – They Really Get It! – click on gold link

 

Even Elias Zerhouni, former (NIH) National Institutes of Health director admitted, “Even I shared, for example, in Congress that the $4 per year invested per person in the United States since the 1970s on cardiovascular research now results in $2.5 trillion of economic value every year. The problem with these kinds of statements is that you can easily make them, but you can’t easily prove them.” (18)  Dogs are frequently used in cardiovascular research where many of the experiments are highly repetitive and archaic. In the same speech, Zerhouni admitted that animal research hasn’t worked out and where billions have been lost yet he vaunts how research has boosted the economy.  The economic value experienced by Wall Street which directly benefits the pharmaceutical and biotech corporations, whether cures are found or not found, may not trickle down to the average tax payer who wants research to save lives not boost the economy through artificial stimulus programs.   

If the NIH were to stop this enormous money eating machine – job losses would ripple through the NIH, university staffs and research laboratories across America.  A reasonable portion of our tax dollars, however, would no longer be squandered on wasteful and cruel experiments.

 

Greed: Researchers Angry at Researchers
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Under sequestration, the NIH will see its budget cut 5.1 to 7.3 percent in 2013 and remain stagnant through 2021. The sequestration requires NIH to cut 5 percent or $1.55 billion of its fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget.  NIH must apply the cut evenly across all programs, projects, and activities (PPAs), which are primarily NIH institutes and centers. This means every area of medical research will be affected.  In the next three years, this reduction in R&D is projected to decrease the number of jobs by 600,000.(20)  For every six applications submitted to the NIH, only one will be funded. (21)  Therefore the NIH will need to exercise greater discretion when allocating its grant and research monies to researchers. 

Despite these budget cuts, the NIH is committed to spending $70 million over the next five years to develop “tissue chips” as an alternative to animal research. The chips are miniature 3-D organs made with living human cells which will help to predict drug safety and efficacy.(22)  Research hopes to prove that the chips will provide better models of human disease and biology than animals. This new direction is long overdue as many animals have been and continue to be used and oppressed in ways which were not intended by our Creator. Back To

 

Lethal Medicine – Part 2
Research on Animals
 
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Spending Your Tax Money:

According to Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans.” (23)   It is reasonable to believe that if mice are not perfect models to cure disease in humans, then humans cannot be perfect models to cure disease in mice. We can say the same for the chimpanzees, dogs, cats, goats, sheep, non-human primates, who have been used in cruel experiments for many decades.

 His entire paw was burned off.  His face, eyes and necked were severely burned.
There is no AWA protection for this animal model.  No anesthesia.
Pigs and Dogs have been burned in experiments as well.

Although mice and humans are completely different from one another, researchers continue to use them for experimentation not because there’s scientific evidence showing the need for this model but because mice are small, cheap and disposable.  The mouse brings in a great deal of grant money issued by the NIH to the researcher.  The more experiments that can be financed through NIH”s funding the more secure the staffing jobs remain.  Along with birds, rats, and amphibians, the mouse doesn’t come under the protection of the AWA Animal Welfare Act. Anything can be done to them using our taxpayer dollars. They can starve them to death, burn their skin off, inflict enormous pain without raising red flags, drown them in experiments, severe finger digits to identify them, smash them against walls and gas them.  Because it is easy and there’s no accountability.

This is only tiny sampling of a wide spread problem.  This is brief snapshot of how your taxpayer money is wasted and how the animals also experience enormous pain and suffering.

– Boston University drilled holes into female mice’s skulls, burned lesions into their brains, and recorded the amount of time the mice spent sniffing male rats’ urine samples.  The models were subsequently killed. (24)    Taxpayer cost was $1,505,173

– University of California-Berkeley cut holes into female hamsters’ skulls, pumped hormones into their brains, sexually stimulated them with brushes, and measured their sexual receptivity. (25)    Taxpayer cost was $1,817,502

– Johns Hopkins University cut the skin off live mice and rats’ penises and pierced the right corpus cavernosum with a 30-guage needle attached to a PE-50 tubing connected to a pressure transducer.  The organs were electrically stimulated for five minutes, and the animals were injected with chemicals to see if they could sustain an erection. (26)   Taxpayer cost was $2,792,144

– Texas Women’s University injected female rats with antidepressants because 30-50% of all human women on antidepressants experience some form of sexual dysfunction.  The female rats were subsequently placed with male rats.  Their interaction was observed and measured.  Their ovaries were removed.  They were injected with sex hormones and their behavior was observed again. (27)   Taxpayer cost was $2,024,949

– University of Michigan & University of Western Ontario cut open rats’ skulls, implanted tubes in their brains.  Experimenters administered chemicals to block sexual pleasure.  The male and female rats were observed together and sexual activity was measured.  The experimenters killed the rats and dissected their brains for further study. (28)   Taxpayer cost was $4,547,605

– Effects on Rat Sexual Behavior of acute MDMA (ecstasy) Alone or in Combination with Loud Music was filed with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) which is part of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the (NIH) National Institutes of Health by Italian researchers.  The value of its conclusion indicates a worldwide pattern of questionable experiments

Its summary indicated that environmental conditions, e.g. acoustic stimulation typical of the “rave scene” can influence the toxicity of the ecstasy.

In other words, to increase the heightened effectiveness of ecstasy, an illegal drug that produces both stimulant and psychadelic effects in a human, a person simply needs to turn up the loud music. 

Killing the Mouse after Experimentation can be accomplished using various methods.  Should a mouse or rat survive the experiment it is almost always killed. There is nothing preventing a technician from crushing its head or throwing it against the wall to kill it. Some institutions try to follow proper protocol to euthanize using any of the following techniques: cervical dislocation, decapitation, ex-sanguination is used to ensure death subsequent to electrical stunning, microwave Irradiation, or carbon monoxide. Decapitation of post-natal rodents (>14 days of age) without prior narcotization or anesthesia is conditionally acceptable. This names the most frequently used euthanasia methods. (29)   Back To Top

Rat Intelligence – How Amazing!
Click the above link

 

Footnotes: As they appear in main article

15. Feds Spend Up to $14.5 Billion Annually on Animal Testing, Daily Caller, Michael Bastasch, 10/05/2013
16. National Institute Health, NIH Budget, Research for the People, website
17. i09, Here’s What It Actually Costs to Run a University Science Lab, Keith Veronese, 08/10/2011
18. Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research, NIH Record, By Rich McManus, June 21, 2013, Vol. LXV, No. 13
19. Sequestration Will Take Big Bite from Medical Research Funding, Los Angeles Times, Alana Semuels and Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2013
20. Fact sheet: Impact of Sequestration on the National Institutes of Health, Sequestration, National Institute of Health, News & Events, June 13, 2013
21. Fact sheet: Impact of Sequestration on the National Institutes of Health, Risk to Scientific Workforce, National Institute of Health, News & Events, June 13, 2013 
22. NIH Funds Development of Tissue Chips to Help Predict Drug Safety, NIH, News & Events, DARPA and FDA to Collaborate on Groundbreaking Therapeutic Development Initiative, June 24, 2012, NIH website
23. Cancer Drugs Face Long Road From Mice to Men, Los Angeles Times, May 6, 199, Arlene Cimons, Josh Getlin, & Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff
24. Forthcoming
25. Gonadotropin-Inhibitory Hormone Reduces Sexual Motivation, But Not Lordosis Behavior In Female Syrian Hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus), David J. Piekarski, Sheng Zhao, Kimberly J. Jennings, Takeshi Iwasa, Sandra J. Legan, Jens D. Mikkelsen, Kazuyoshi Tsutsui, Lance J. Kriegsfeld, Neurobiology Laboratory Department of Psychology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, PII: S0018-506X(13)00128-1, DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.06.006, Reference: YHBEH 3585
26. Cyclic AMP-dependent phosphorylation of neuronal nitric oxide synthase mediates penile erection, Joseph Hurt, Sena F. Sezen, Gwen F. Lagoda, Biljana Musicki, Gerald A. Rameau, Solomon H. Snyder and Arthur L. Burnett, May 2, 2012
27. Sprague-Dawley and Fischer Female Rats Differ in Acute Effects of Fluoxetine on Sexual Behavior, Chandra Suma J. Miryala, MS, Cindy Hiegel, MA, and Lynda Uphouse, PhD Department of Biology, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, USA, DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02981.x
28. Natural and Drug Rewards Act on Common Neural Plasticity Mechanisms with FosB as a Key Mediator, The Journal of Neuroscience, February 20, 2013 • 33(8):3434 –3442 Kyle K. Pitchers, Vincent Vialou, Eric J. Nestler, Steven R. Laviolette, Michael N. Lehman, and Lique M. Coolen
29. Forthcoming

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