Rick Bogle,
Primate
Freedom
October 2018
All the images in the little booklet Love Animals? Support Animal Research are intended to deceive the public; there isn't any other rational explanation for using pictures of seemingly happy and well-cared for animals rather than pictures actually illustrative of what is happening in the labs and in the breeding sheds.
Vivisectors love animals and other lies the shitheads tell...
"Love
Animals? Support Animal Research" booklet from the Foundation for Biomedical
Research (FBR)
In Vivisectors Love Animals - Part One and Part Deux, I reported on the
nature of the event that led to me picking up the little booklet -- "Love
Animals? Support Animal Research" -- from the Foundation for Biomedical
Research (FBR), paid for by 176 companies including a number of taxpayer-funded
laboratories and institutions.
In Vivisectors Love Animals - Part 3A, I began looking at how FBR and the
little booklet's 176 co-sponsors attempt to bamboozle the public. Nowhere in
the little booklet is there an honest representation of what is done to the
animals used in the labs.
In Vivisectors Love Animals - Part 3B, I also pointed out the little
booklet's misleading claims regarding the federal and local oversight of the
labs and FBR and the little booklet's 176 co-sponsors continuing use of
intentionally misleading images.
The presentation in Mount Horeb by three "experts" brought in for the
occasion, was part of the industry's effort to defeat an amendment to the
village's public nuisance ordinance making it illegal to breed dogs or cats
for research or to transport dogs or cats bred for research through Mount
Horeb. Ridglan Farms, a beagle breeding farm, is in Mount Horeb.
Last year, animal rights activists gained entry to the buildings and videoed
what they saw. You can read an in-depth article about their efforts and the
use of beagles in research here, it includes numerous pictures and video
clips.
Here is an image from "Love Animals" (the middle one, as if that needs
saying), and two from inside Ridglan:
All the images in the little booklet are intended to deceive the public;
there isn't any other rational explanation for using pictures of seemingly
happy and well-cared for animals rather than pictures actually illustrative
of what is happening in the labs and in the breeding sheds.
The claims, in the text accompanying the happy beagles, are equally skewed
and misleading. The entire book is clearly meant to mislead readers.
FBR and the little booklet's 176 co-sponsors write: "The number of dogs
involved in research is small (less than 1/2 percent)." Presumably, they
mean 1/2 percent of all animals used, but it is certainly an even smaller
percentage if all the invertebrates, fish, mice, and rats are included. But
so what? Why does the number of animals being hurt matter? Further more, the
largest consumer of dogs are the product testing labs like Covance in
Madison, which reported consuming 4,297 dogs in 2016.
FBR and the little booklet's 176 co-sponsors pose the question, "But can't
you just use rats and mice?" They say "No, not really. The path from concept
to cure is complicated." They make the tired claim that researchers begin
with cell cultures, tissue samples, and computers and then must add animal
models to their study. They say, "Most start with mice and rats. When they
get positive results, they advance to an animal model that more closely
resembles humans. That's where dogs usually come in."
But that is pretty much gibberish, a commonly told story told to quell alarm
and anger. Reality is much different.
A recent case in point is the outbreak of birth defects associated with the
Zika virus. On February 1, 2016, the World Health Organization declared that
the association between Zika and the cluster of birth defects in Brazil was
a public health emergency.
Within a few months of that news, vivisectors who had been (and are)
infecting monkeys with an AIDS-like virus began infecting pregnant monkeys
with the Zika virus. There was no gradual build-up to using monkeys, they
simply went right to them. This is a common pattern. In the 1950s,
scientists injected human tissue from people with Kuru into the brains of
two chimpanzees to see whether they would become ill; they did.
Having looked for about 20 years at the research conducted by vivisectors
around the county, it has become quite clear to me that the NIH-funded
scientists are not involved in some sequential series of steps as is claimed
in "Love Animals." Those whose work I've followed and examined have done the
same sort of experiments on the same species for decades; most of the animal
experiments taxpayers are forced to pay for is basic science that rarely --
essentially never -- gets translated into clinical care.
FBR and the little booklet's 176 co-sponsors also make the crazy claim that
dogs are used because humans and dogs share 4 out of 5 genes. That's sort of
true, but its like saying that because two concertos use many of the same
musical notes that we will learn the melody line of one from hearing the
other. Here's an interesting resource on comparative genomes.
And then, there's this caption and image:
"Did you know research with cats helped create cochlear
implants-those tiny devices that give chilren with hearing loss a better
chance of keeping up with other studenst and of fitting in? Well, now you
know :)"
I suggested previously that FBR et al's claim concerning dogs and muscular
dystrophy was probably motivated by Peta's campaign to stop Texas A&M's
hideously cruel experiments using dogs with an inherited mutation causing
them to develop severe symptoms reminiscent of the human disease. I pointed
out that FBR's income is generated by defending institutions and labs that
come under fire for the terrible things they do to animals.
I suspect that the allusion to cochlear implants and cats might be a similar
case. A few years ago it came to light that a vivisector at UW-Madison was
using cats in his research on hearing and that he had photographed some of
the cats who had undergone surgery to implant the cochlear devices and
hardware in their brain and screwed to their skulls. His name was Tom Yin.
(An aside, he had never used mice, rats, cell cultures, or tissue samples.)
This orange tabby used and eventually killed by Dr. Yin was aptly named
Double Trouble:
Can you see the difference? FBR and the little booklet's 176 co-sponsors
want the public to think about the cat with the cone around his/her neck
when they imagine cats being used in research. They too must believe that
were the public to learn the truth that their ilk might be driven out of
business or at least dramatically constrained compared to what they are
allowed to do right now.
The two images, the happy beagles playing together and the cat with the cone
around his neck make it abundantly clear that the reality of what is
happening in the labs is so terrible that those associated with the industry
will do everything they can to keep the reality hidden from the public. And
not just hidden; they aim to deceive. There isn't an easy alternative
explanation for publishing the little booklet.