OPINION & EDITORIAL
Animal torture: Another shameful UW insitution
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Also by Kyle Szarzynski:
- Legal system elitist, void of justice (April 30, 2008)
- 'War on drugs' cloaks oppression (April 23, 2008)
- Candidates betray King's radicalism (April 16, 2008)
- Media coverage favors U.S. interests (April 2, 2008)
- Irrational fears fuel crime focus (March 26, 2008)
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- Taser experiments will help save lives (April 7, 2005)
- PETA: Let my turkeys go (November 19, 2007)
- Cow huggers losing their relevance (October 9, 2002)
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by Kyle Szarzynski
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The University of Wisconsin has a long history of crimes against animals to answer for, a list of horrors which, quite shamefully, shows no sign of collecting dust any time soon. Recently ranked as the “worst animal laboratory” in the country by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, it appears we now have more to brag about than our interminable boozing. Such a distinction should come as no surprise given the millions — perhaps even billions — of student and taxpayer money that has paid for over a half century of “animal testing.”
UW professor Harry F. Harlow, a now infamous name in animal rights circles, is one of the more important figures in the history of this nefarious business. Beginning in the 1950s, he was responsible for torturing perhaps thousands of primates in his so-called psychological research. His methods involved impregnating monkeys via “rape racks” and then isolating the infant immediately after birth for several weeks, thereby inducing extreme fear and anxiety. Researchers would then give the mother back her offspring and observe. The mother usually ignored the crying baby primate, but the baby often faced much worse than neglect. According to Harlow, “One of their favorite tricks was to crush the infant’s skull with their teeth. … [Others] smashed the infant’s face to the floor, and then rubbed it back and forth.”
But such research, harrowing though it may be, must have produced valuable results for its human beneficiaries, right? Not so, according to Harlow. In his own reports, any useful findings always turned out inconclusive, though he was known to recommend “further research.”
UW came under scrutiny again in the 1970s, when the same Harlow began inducing depression in rhesus macaque monkeys by placing them in small vertical chambers, or “pits of despair.” He usually used infant monkeys for this purpose, isolating them for weeks until they stopped moving altogether and “assumed a hunched position in a corner.” Most animals did not recover and remained psychotic until their death. Who would have guessed?
Of course, UW has tortured and murdered countless animals over the years — the above examples are just a few of the better-known examples of abuse. Most of the details of these experiments remain unknown.
True to its reputation, UW has continued to utilize animals in its research. In 2005, UW once again faced criticism for testing Taser stun guns on pigs. Eric Sandgren, director of UW Research Animals Resource Center, ignored the criticism and allowed the testing to occur. The results: Tasering pigs produces no useful information about similar effects on humans.
Recent inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have revealed other abuses. Primates were reported to have been subjected to the “push-pull” method, whereby drugs are directly injected into the primate’s brain as it is locked in a restraining chair. The experiment lasts hours or even days. One animal expired as the researchers took a lunch break.
UW uses approximately 2,500 primates in experiments every year. The USDA has reported that hundreds of these animals, already subjected to depression from the unnatural conditions in which they are confined, are deprived of water and food. Descriptions of the restraining mechanisms leave a sensitive writer at a loss for words; only a visual image can come close to revealing the suffering that the animal endures.
A new wave of negative reports hit UW last month. Among other complaints, the USDA was concerned that many animals were not given painkillers during experimentation. Mr. Sangren, ever the apologist for animal cruelty, responded, “The USDA tells us what we could be doing better. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve broken the law,” according to a recent Herald report. It is this type of pathetic response to a breach in UW’s own protocol that UW has rightfully earned the reputation that it has.
The most heinous abuse would likely end if Mr. Sangren and his colleagues would alter the surreptitious nature of their enterprise and allow the public to know what’s really going on inside the facilities.
In recent years, UW even faced a lawsuit for conducting clandestine meetings and concealing other information about experiments from the public.
Regardless, “animal testing” is inherently abusive. It must involve ripping an animal away from its natural environment and confining it in a cage of some sort — the resulting unhappiness of highly intelligent and social animals like pigs and apes can never really be known. We do, however, have an understanding of mammalian physical pain receptors, and they are remarkably similar among species. That pigs and apes probably feel a level of discomfort similar to human beings when being shot with a Taser stun gun or punctured in the cranium is a harrowing thought, but this does not make it any less true.
Until we acknowledge that humans have no claim on the lives of animals, the atrocities will continue right here at
UW. The type of extreme exploitation illustrated above stems from a belief in human supremacy — a belief which not only ignores the intelligence of human infants and the mentally disabled, but also justifies any use of animals for any human end. Only when we cast this idea into the same dustbin of history into which so many other prejudices have been at least formally discarded will billions of public dollars finally be put to better use.
Kyle Szarzynski (kszarzynski@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in history and Spanish.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 2:15am):
taser saves lives everyday
But Amnesty International and liberal weenies in general keep screaming for more tests. So if researchers need to test on pigs to satisfy the weenies, when given pigs, make bacon.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 7:42am):
PETA people should be used for all testing, instead of animals.
There, everybody happy now?
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 8:41am):
Kyle, have you actually read the NIH's standards for humane treatment of laboratory animals?
Or are you just another brainless PETArd?
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 8:43am):
I agree with Kyle, theyy should only torture the ugliest of animals. Leave the cute fuzzy ones alone.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 11:20am):
Test tasers on the OTHER pigs--the ones who ultimately use them.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 11:23am):
good article kyle...but i'm a bit surprised you're not blaming this all on israel and the jews.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 12:25pm):
Capitalist's pigs...Wait is that a pun?
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 12:39pm):
Anonymous comments may be looked on as cowardly ploy, but may quickly become the only method of commenting on instances of animal cruelty or in this case, Legalized, government funded institutional Animal Abuse, in view of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which relegated all animal advocate/rights/protection, etc. groups as "Terrorists." Anyway, thanks for the article, keeping this important area of cruelty to animals up front- maybe some of the readers will investigate for themselves, and find the vile truth of pain and suffering of animals behind the protected doors of research labs.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 3:07pm):
I like my place on the food chain.
If the PETA people want to step down, then they should.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 4:43pm):
What a load of inflammatory garbage. If the author took half as much time he wasted writing and looked up peer-reviewed journal articles produced by researchers at this very institute in the past decade he may be able to see the issue with scientific understanding.
Do any researchers get pleasure from euthanizing the animals? No, of course not. However, reducing human suffering and improving the quality of life are major issues for our species. I have lost any shred of respect I had for the herald in that they would allow such a blatantly one-sided and uninformed article to be printed.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 5:02pm):
There are already rules in place from the NIH to prevent primates from being 'tortured'. Are you sure you want to take medication which was never tested in primates before?
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 5:46pm):
Thank you Kyle, it is such a struggle just to get people to see the cruelty, and so sad when nothing is done to change things. (last week, the video from Hallmark slaughter house on torture of downed dairy cows) The Isthmus articles on the horror in the monkey house-UW primates by Leuters caused a lot of concern for a brief moment, and then people just forgot, too hard to think about I guess. Kyle keep the momentum, you speak for many who do not know how to express this or are afraid to.
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 5:55pm):
RE: Webster's taser experiments on pigs--His "research" was approved by UW Sandgren's animal ethics committee--hailed as "the first objective study outside of the industry" and later found to have someone from the taser co on the grant proposal as a paid consultant! UW quickly swept this under the rug. The approved experimental protocol was later called into question because Webster was telling the press he was going to taser the pigs on and off street drugs but did not mention this in the application to Sandgren's committee
Anonymous (February 6, 2008 @ 11:50pm):
Kyle, isn't this somehow the fault of jews?
Anonymous (February 7, 2008 @ 3:00am):
Good Lord, this is horrific! I grew up in Wisconsin, but I was not even aware UW did animal testing. Please go to my website at myspace.com/MagicStarER and look under petitions for the one to ban animal testing. Maybe Russ Feingold can do something about this.
Anonymous (February 7, 2008 @ 8:52am):
This was an outstanding essay about an important topic. It was well researched and accurate (the only slight error was the reference to apes; there are no apes on the UW campus other than humans.)
Critics seem left with only childish quips and unfounded assumptions and false claims. I doubt that one of them has much knowledge of the actual facts. One of them claimed that NIH has rules in place that prevent primates from being 'tortured.' The word 'torture' does not occur in any federal regulations concerning the scientific use of animals. The Animal Welfare Act stipulates that it is not intended to bar any experimental procedure; thus, as long as Sandgren's crew approves, anything is allowed. This is why Terasawa was allowed to restrain monkeys for days at a time and pump chemicals deep into their brain and suck out the perfusate. Strapping anyone into a chair for days at a time is torture. The veterinarian's notes regarding the animals that went through these procedures say that they were all abnormal afterwords. All this was done for curiosity's sake. That was torture.
The same critic asks whether the author would take a medication that had not been tested on primates. But FDA has no requirement that medications must be tested on primates. And, little if any, pre-clinical drug testing is done at the UW, almost all the experiments using monkeys are basic research, exploring such things as the effect on fear responses when various parts of thier brains are burned with acid (Davidson (that compassion-filled buddhist), Kalin, Shelton), or the long-term effects to monkeys when their mothers, while pregnant with them, are subjected to repeated startling (Coe), or the effects to the offspring of pregnant mothers carring female fetuses and are injected with testosterone (Abbott). The list goes on and on. Its all torture.
A significant body or research from the primate labs themselves demonstrates clearly that just keeping monkeys in typical lab conditions is extremely stressful and can result is severe psychopathies. Indvidual housing of primates is common throughout the labs, including UW. Research from the New England Primate Center (one of UW Primate Center's sister facilities) has shown that essentially all monkeys held in this manner are severely distressed with a significant percentage mutilating themselves. This is torture and the norm in the primate labs.
And all the supporters of this endless suffering can do is to make jokes about it or spout claims that are meant to confuse and mislead.
David Mitchell (February 7, 2008 @ 11:17am):
An excellent article indeed, and certainly so in view of the fact that (i)many animal experiments are duplicates of those already
done, (ii)how many of those illnesses for which treatments are produced are actually easily avoidable, and (iii)how many of the
treatments are merely copy-cat versions of those already available.
Moreover, many only arise because of the publish or perish syndrome of academia.
Pro-vivisectionists continually assert this
barbarity is necessary for successful treatments, although they rarely appear,
and if they do, they invariably have
major adverse reactions when applied to
humans.
If the moronic anti-animal statements here
are typical of the humanity that vivisection
claims it wishes to save, perhaps it may be
better that treatments are not found by
any method.
Anonymous (February 7, 2008 @ 2:57pm):
Just in:
Moderate prenatal exposure to alcohol and stress in monkeys can cause touch sensitivity
A new study on monkeys has found that moderate exposure to alcohol and stress during pregnancy can lead to sensitivity to touch in the monkeys babies. In human children, sensitivity to touch is one of a number of characteristics of the approximately 5 percent of children who over-respond to sensory information. Since these characteristics can lead to behavioral or emotional problems, early identification and treatment are important. Children who are sensitive to touch have unpleasant and sometimes painful reactions to otherwise pleasant or neutral forms of touching.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, appears in the January/February 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.
Our results with monkeys have important implications for preventing childhood disorders, according to Mary L Schneider, professor of occupational therapy and psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the studys lead author.
Researchers studied 38 5- to 7-year-old rhesus monkeys born to mothers who either drank a moderate dose of alcohol every day during their pregnancies, were exposed to a mild 10-minute stressor during their pregnancies, drank a moderate amount of alcohol and were exposed to the stressor during their pregnancies, or were undisturbed while they were pregnant. A moderate dose of alcohol for the monkeys was defined as the equivalent of two drinks a day for a human.... (more)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/sfri-mpe020108.php
Laura Yanne (February 7, 2008 @ 5:43pm):
Sandgren ought never to have approved the Taser experiments, when epidemiological studies using human data, applicable to humans, and not pigs in labs, could have been conducted. Pathologists, bioethicists, epidemiologists (including UW professor Terry Young) agreed. Every effort was made to persuade Sandgren, as well as Webster and Chancellor Wiley, that Tasering pigs was a bad idea, but the Decider insisted on staying the course.
It took animal activists to identify the paid Taser employee/UW experiment consultant on the approved grant application--but still, there was no stopping the runaway federal grant gravy train, and the pigs were killed.
Taser took their self-funded experiment with cocaine-dosed pigs to Cleveland Clinic, which itself was soon to have the light shone on them. A whistleblower had alerted activists that a doctor at the Clinic was about to conduct an unauthorized, lethal, medical sales demonstration on a dog. Activists faxed over an alternative non-animal method and said the use of the dog was in violation of their own policy. But the dog was killed, and a media firestorm ensued.
Animal Care & Use Committees are incapable or unwilling to police themselves. What will it take for the established administrations to listen? Whistleblowers, undercover investigations, colleagues and students speaking out.
The entire system for approving animal experiments is arrogant and flawed. Certainly non-animal methods are not adequately considered, and countless animals (mice, rats, birds are not counted) continue to be used almost by default.
Kyle is right to invoke the hideous experiments of Harlow, whose legacy continues at UW with the likes of Terasawa. Not much has changed since Harlow, has it, but animal activists are not going away, and we are not the terrorists.
Anonymous (February 7, 2008 @ 7:53pm):
great article kyle! enough said. ignore the people who use peta as scapegoat for their inability to think for themselves. animal research is rooted in the same forms of injustice and dominion that slavery and homophobia is rooted in. until every cage is empty.
Anonymous (February 8, 2008 @ 8:11am):
Kyle, awesome article, we need more writers and people like you.. keep sharing your brilliant ideas and work!
Anonymous (February 8, 2008 @ 10:47am):
Wow. This is probably one of the most uneducated opinions I have ever read. Kyle Szarzynski is the epitome of media inflammation. He uses his special little place in the campus newspaper in an attempt rip apart a just man, Eric Sandgren (which, by the way, was repeatedly spelled incorrectly throughout the article), who is compassionate and hard-working. Have you ever set foot into RARC? Like he asked in his response, have you ever been to an ACUC meeting? I handle protocols submitted by investigators every day, and the most rigorous, strict rules are applied to the research. A researcher is not allowed to obtain animals until he or she specifically answers every question and justifies over and over everything from species to the number of animals to the need for use of a living creature. There is no "torture" involved, and the utmost care is given to assure that the animal never feels pain or discomfort. The UW Research facilities are infinitely more structured and humane than your "People for Ethical Treatment of Animals." I'm shocked at the ignorance of this article. Do some research.
Anonymous (February 8, 2008 @ 4:00pm):
"There is no "torture" involved, and the utmost care is given to assure that the animal never feels pain or discomfort."
"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." -- Lenin
"Significant decreases in the protein levels of potassium-chloride co-transporter 2 (KCC2) were detected in the ipsilateral spinal dorsal horn 4h following loose ligation of the sciatic nerve. These decreases were associated with a change in hindlimb weight distribution suggestive of pain behavior." [Miletic G, Miletic V. Department of Anesthesiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. "Loose ligation of the sciatic nerve is associated with TrkB receptor-dependent decreases in KCC2 protein levels in the ipsilateral spinal dorsal horn." Pain. 2007 Nov 30.]
Grant Number: 5R01DK066349-05
Project Title: Neurovascular and Behavorial Response to Cystitis [in mice]
PI Information: BJORLING, DALE E. bjorlind@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu PROFESSOR AND CHAIR: "This research will investigate the durability of changes that occur in response to a common clinical problem and elucidate the ways in which a "simple UTr' may create a cascade of changes in the bladder physiology and function, neuroregulation, pain perception and behavior that underlie the complex clinical face of IC."
Pain seems to me a part of the two projects listed above.
Vivisectors wish fervently to redefine common U.S. vocabulary, but if what is done in the labs was done in my garage, there would be unanimous public agreement that it was torture.
As much research has and continues to demonstrate, simply keeping a monkey in a laboratory cage causes profound discomfort.
Anonymous (February 8, 2008 @ 6:56pm):
On first reading, I thought the piece was submitted by a PETA employee. Then I realized Kyle is on staff at the paper! Does the paper have an editor? Kyle sources PETA as if their data is reliable?! He cannot even correctly spell the name of the faculty member he is criticizing.
The journalism school and the paper should really be embarrassed
Anonymous (February 8, 2008 @ 10:06pm):
"The journalism school and the paper should really be embarrassed." That's a laugh given the fact that no vivisector is embarrassed by their ludicrous claims and cruelty. They can't even recognized torture yet believe themselves competent to judge animal experimentation. They are classic sociopaths.
Anonymous (February 9, 2008 @ 12:48pm):
Where did this Harry Effing Harlow come from? Frankenstein's lab? I hope this SOB rots in hell soon for what he has done to the animals. What a sadistic bastard, getting off on torture!
Anonymous (February 28, 2008 @ 9:28am):
Ever been hunting kyle?
Anonymous (August 10, 2008 @ 2:15am):
If you don't like the research that goes on. Write to your representative, governor, senator, be polite but to the point. If they don't want to change the laws protecting animals in research, don't vote for them. Vote for people that care about animals. Also educate them about the research that is being done, know the facts and present them. Our taxes pay for most of this research, tell USDA, AWA, NIH, and any other government agencies that approves animal research how you feel and what you want.
Personally I have lost my confidence in medical research.
Wanda Perry
Anonymous (August 10, 2008 @ 2:16am):
If you don't like the research that goes on. Write to your representative, governor, senator, be polite but to the point. If they don't want to change the laws protecting animals in research, don't vote for them. Vote for people that care about animals. Also educate them about the research that is being done, know the facts and present them. Our taxes pay for most of this research, tell USDA, AWA, NIH, and any other government agencies that approves animal research how you feel and what you want.
Personally I have lost my confidence in medical research.
Wanda Perry
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