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 ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and Spanish.
