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Media Coverage Stanford students and community members protest use of tens of thousands of animals in Stanford labs From the Bay Area Independent media website: Bearing signs saying “Liberate Primates” and “Stanford Kills
Animals,” Stanford University graduate students, undergraduates, law
students, and community members protested the use of animals in
experiments at Stanford’s Research Animal Facility (RAF) on Friday,
October 21. During a busy Friday rush hour that coincided with Stanford’s “Alumni
Weekend,” the activists, members of Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF!),
convened on El Camino Real, a major thoroughfare bordering Stanford
University in Palo Alto. As passing vehicles honked enthusiastically in
approval of the protest, the activists waived signs and distributed
leaflets alerting drivers and pedestrians to the animal experimentation
conducted on campus. The demonstration was held in commemoration of
National Primate Liberation Week, and follows a recent on-campus press
conference by Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal
Exploitation Now (SAEN). Budkie presented his group’s findings on animal
research at Stanford. SAEN’s report details the use of hundreds of
primates at the RAF, which ranks 21st nationally in terms of federal
research dollars received. Word of Friday’s demonstration reached some Stanford researchers.
Several of the campus’s science buildings were closed early on Friday
because of the protest. An email was sent to biology students notifying
them of the closure, stating, “Due to a protest against research
involving animals that has begun on campus, we have been advised to lock
the Lokey building early today. The doors will automatically lock at
3:15.” According to another student, all the other biology buildings
were also locked and were being patrolled by police officers. “We had no
plans to protest at or near these buildings, so we’re a bit confused by
this over-reaction. We also find it troubling that some Stanford
researchers are threatened by free speech on campus,” said ARF member
and Stanford Law School student Matthew Liebman. This is the third time
the Stanford police have responded to peaceful and legal animal rights
events, according to Liebman. A Stanford police vehicle with a
windshield-mounted video camera also passed the protest on four separate
occasions. ARF! says it will continue to hold demonstrations against animal
experimentation at Stanford until the administration agrees to its
demands for transparency and accountability for animal tests conducted
at Stanford. ARF! has submitted a letter to the University
administration asking for a meeting to discuss animal research on
campus. According to a report
http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/ca/res-fr-ca-su-aphis-2002.html
filed by Stanford in 2002 with the US Department of Agriculture (the
agency charged with implementing the Animal Welfare Act), Stanford used
the following animals for experiments: 32 dogs, 172 hamsters, 376
rabbits, 323 nonhuman primates, 110 sheep, 541 pigs, 2 goats, 9 ferrets
and 471 gerbils (2,036 total animals). Because USDA does not require
reporting on mice, rats, birds, and amphibians, the actual number of
animals used at Stanford is much higher. Nationwide, rats and mice make
up approximately 95% of animals used in research. Using this statistic,
ARF estimates that Stanford’s RAF uses as many as 40,000 animals. The
Research Animal Facility at Stanford University received over $146
million in federal funding in 2003 for animal experimentation, ranked
21st in the country. Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF) criticizes, among other experiments,
the following: one Stanford researcher systematically deprives mice,
rats, and monkeys of sleep to determine the relationship between sleep
deprivation, body weight, and energy expenditure (Role of Hypocretin in
Metabolic Effects of Sleep Loss, NIH Grant #5R01MH073435-02); another
separates infant primates from their mothers to test the resultant
psychological effects (Maternal Availability and Postnatal Brain
Development, NIH Grant #5F32MH066537-03); another induces anxiety and
fear in parasite-infested rats (Parasite/Host Interactions and the
Neurobiology of Fear, NIH Grant #1R21MH070903-01A1); another conducts
gene-therapy research on the livers of rats, rabbits, and dogs
(Transferring Integrase Technology to Animals, NIH Grant
#5R01HL068112-05); another researcher has spent the last 15 years
conducting invasive brain-imaging studies, maternal deprivation
experiments, and stress studies in squirrel monkeys (Model of
Hypercortisolism for Major Depressions, NIH Grant #5R01MH047573-14). ARF has also gleaned the following information from the research
facility’s newsletters: the labs’ “animal caretakers” filed over 421
morbidity reports in 2001 (Comparative Medicine News, Jan. 2002); the
University maintains a colony of inbred mice, “obtained after 20 or more
consecutive generations of brother x sister mating” (Comparative
Medicine News, Dec. 1999); RAF has been infested with mites, which cause
self-mutilation and “blisters, crusts and warty lumps on the ears, eyes
and nose” (Comparative Medicine News, Apr. 2002); the facility’s
euthanasia procedures include CO2 gassing, followed in some cases by
exsanguination (bleeding to death), cervical dislocation, or
decapitation, and “[t]horacotomy (making an incision into the chest
cavity) after apparent death from CO2 is widely used as a way to ensure
the irreversibility of the procedure.” (Comparative Medicine News, Oct.
2003). For more information on the campaign against the Research Animal
Facility at Stanford University, contact
arfstanford@yahoo.com .
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