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

Newsletters
The Defender
From Fall 2008 Issue

SAEN Exposes Dog & Rabbit Abuse at Loyola University (IL)

Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! is currently obtaining government inspection reports for every laboratory in the U.S. so that we can thoroughly assess both the functioning of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act as well as conditions within each and every laboratory in the nation. This process has allowed us to reveal terrible abuses within many facilities, such as the horrific situation at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, where a baboon was recently dissected before death had occurred.

Information which we recently received from the USDA revealed a ghastly situation at Loyola University in Chicago, IL. Negligence at this laboratory has cut short the lives of many dogs and rabbits.

From March of 2006 - November 2007, Loyola racked up 22 separate violations of the Animal Welfare Act. The Loyola Animal Care and Use Committee was responsible for 18 of these infractions. Other violations included fraudulent reporting and inadequate veterinary care.

The inspection report, dated November of 2007, related an incident where an apparently untrained technician botched a procedure which resulted in taking the life of a rabbit. On October 31, 2007, a procedure was done to procure a bone marrow sample from rabbit #2630. This procedure was bungled so badly that the rabbit’s leg was fractured, and the animal had to be euthanized on the following day. All together, three rabbits died as a result of this incompetence.

Another procedure was performed on a different group of rabbits that injected them with bacterial agents. Three of these rabbits died. The inspector said:

“The significance and severity of the lesions found at necropsy requires the PI to reassess the procedures, methods, and agents being used.”

Dogs were also dying at Loyola due to negligence. The experiment in which these dogs suffered and died involved a tissue graft. However, the real issue was inadequate post-surgical monitoring of the animals. Apparently, the animals were not monitored overnight. In fact, at one point, five out of seven dogs used in the procedure died (two were found dead in the morning, and three had to be euthanized the day after surgery). After initial recovery from anesthesia, these animals were not monitored for anywhere from 10.5 – 15 hours.

On Monday, July 21^st, SAEN released all of the horrible details of Loyola’s negligence to the Chicago news media, and the response was amazing. The Associated Press ran a story that appeared in over 35 media outlets across five states. Both Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times ran major stories. Over 1.2 million people read these two newspapers every day. The news about Loyola was also covered by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR radio station.

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