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Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!
S. A. E. N.
"Exposing the truth to wipe out animal experimentation"

Newsletters
The Defender
From the Summer 2007 Issue

Wake Forest University and Duke University - NC Animal Abuse

Wake Forest University (WFU) currently experiments on approximately 2200 animals per year (not counting rats, mice, & birds) including over 1300 primates.  WFU wastes over $11 million per year for primate experimentation alone.  Worse yet, this facility has also recently received a $3 million grant for expansion.  WFU officials have expressed an interest in becoming the 9^th National Primate Research Center, which would bring WFU tens of millions in additional funding from the National Institutes of Health. 

Wake Forest’s primate experiments utilize restraint chairs and eye coils.  Restraint bars and recording cylinders are attached to the skulls of rhesus monkeys with orthopedic bone cement and/or titanium screws.  Primates are subjected to the abuses of alcohol, cocaine, and brain mapping projects.

Duke University confines over 3600 animals for experimentation every year.  Duke performs experiments that are very similar to those at many other universities, including Wake Forest.    

Duke researcher Michael Platt performs extremely invasive experiments on rhesus monkeys.  This researcher restricts rhesus monkeys to “controlled” access to water -- receiving liquids only when participating in the experiment leaving them without liquids for the majority of the day.  These unfortunate animals are fitted with restraint bars and recording cylinders which are both attached to the skull and coils which are inserted near the eyes.

A photograph of Platt’s work from Duke’s website is reproduced here to give you an idea of what his experimentation does to rhesus monkeys.  The small tube, which the primate is licking at so thirstily, is for the delivery of his/her reward of a few drops of water.

SAEN has taken action against these offensive laboratories by filing an official complaint with the USDA.  Our complaint requests an investigation of these facilities regarding the provision of adequate water to primates, the possibility of unapproved surgical procedures, environmental enhancement for primates with special considerations (i.e. restraint chair confinement), and dishonest reporting.  During 2005, the most recent year for which information is available, these labs filed documents with the USDA stating that no primates experienced any unrelieved pain or distress.

The procedures performed on these animals are heinous, treating primates as though they are household appliances to which we simply attach electrical probes to ascertain if they are functioning properly.  While it is undeniable that these experiments must be ended, it is also totally astounding how any rational person could possibly say that this experimentation does not cause pain or distress to the rhesus monkeys who endure it.
 

Please contact the President of Duke University to ask that the experimentation of Michael Platt be immediately terminated.  This project utilizes the highly invasive practices listed above, including depriving primates of water, and is clearly duplicative of other projects, as nearby as Wake Forest.   President Richard H. Brodhead Office of the President Duke University 207 Allen Building Box 90001 Durham, NC 27708-0001 president@duke.edu (919) 684-3050 (fax) (919) 684-2424

Go on to University of Pennsylvania - the Worst Lab in the Nation
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