World Laboratory Animal
Liberation Week
World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week
is the week that surrounds April 24th every year - It's
a national week of protests, media events, etc. at laboratories to stop testing
and research on animals
Media Coverage - 2002
NIH Audit Reveals
Massive Waste Of Research Money At Oregon Lab
by Coalition to Abolish Animal Testing 7:29pm Fri Apr
26 '02 (Modified on 8:46pm Fri Apr 26 '02) |
phone: 503-972-CAAT caatinfo@mac.com
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NEWS CONFERENCE Friday / April 26,
2002
Elaine Close 503-972-CAAT / Michael Budkie 513-575-5517
HILLSBORO - April 26th, 2002. Today, Elaine Close, of
the Coalition to Abolish Animal Testing (CAAT), held a news briefing in
front of the Oregon Regional Primate Center to release an independent
audit of the National Institutes of Health, authored by Michael Budkie, a
national research analyst with Cincinnati-based SAEN. The Oregon Regional
Primate Center is among dozens of research laboratories named in an
independent audit of the National Institutes of Health that suggests there
is a massive "waste" of tax money - including nearly $110 million at the
ORPC alone - on useless, redundant studies.
The audit estimates the cost to taxpayers for the wasteful spending could
be as much as $1 million an hour. The report details examples where the
identical research - all funded by the NIH - is duplicated needlessly in
scores of labs.
Mr. Budkie notes that the number of experiments on animals that are
duplicated excessively is increasing. As of 2001, NIH-funded research on
animals included about 30,000 separate projects at a cost of $8.5 billion.
That's an increase, Mr. Budkie said, of more than 18 percent since 1997
and 37.3 percent since 1991.
One example in the audit cites 450 NIH grants studying cocaine use in
rats, mice or macaque monkeys at a $130 million annual cost to taxpayers.
Another study of neural information processing costs millions a year but
is duplicated in nearly 200 identical projects.
If asked, the NIH would surely point out small differences between each
study and assert that the data collected is unique, thus valuable. But,
Close points out that research should be judged by the benefits these
animal studies provide. She asks, "How has all this helped sick people?"
"Is this a good use of billions of dollars when millions of people in this
country don't have healthcare?"
One study Ms. Close cites involves studying the cardiac effects of cocaine
in mice with the animal equivalent of AIDS. In order for results to be
predictive, Close says human and rodent cardiac systems would need to be
the same. They're not. An essential component of discovering a remedy for
a medical problem is charting its path of "infection." Mice don't get
AIDS. Mice don't use coke.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says there are over
700,000 pregnant women who abuse illegal substances. Yet the Oregon
Primate Center is addicting pregnant monkeys to cocaine to study the
effects on the fetuses. Impregnating monkeys. Addicting them to coke.
Killing the babies. This is science? When there are hundreds of thousands
of human children who could be studied and given much-needed medical
attention in the process?
"A radical restructuring of the NIH grant approval system, and the Animal
Care & Use Committee system are necessary prevent further waste of federal
tax dollars," said Mr. Budkie, who called for Congress to commission a
General Accounting Office audit of the NIH grant system, and correlate
research contract data to examine the issue of duplication within the NIH.
Copies of the NIH audit, entitled "The Animal Experimentation Scandal," is
available upon request and at
http://www.all-creatures.org/wlalw/report-anexp-pdf.html.
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