Letter From Darlene Kaiser about The Herald's Biased "Praise" of SNBL
Letters From All-Creatures.org and The Mary T. and Frank L. Hoffman Family Foundation

January 16, 2014
 
Published in the Letters Section
The Herald
P. O. Box 930
Everett, WA.  98206
 
Dear Herald:
 
Re: Life and Death in the Monkey Lab, Jan. 12
 
Do you call Amy Nile’s article balanced journalism??  It sounded more like an advertisement for SNBL! 
 
Why didn’t you give Michael Budkie of Stop Animal Exploitation Now equal space?!
 
SNBL’s vice president claims SNBL “embraces the same ethic that guides medical doctors – do no harm.”  A MONKEY WAS BOILED ALIVE THERE in 2008!!  SNBL’s Animal Care Supervisor was fired when she told federal inspectors that SNBL employees also were abusing primates, spraying them with acid, and intentionally slamming them on the floor!
 
Previously the USDA opened a series of federal Animal Welfare violation cases against SNBL after 19 monkeys died.  At that time the USDA spokesperson confirmed that SNBL “is on its risk list by having a pattern or non-compliances.”
 
Many doctors are against animal research.  The ex-director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, said in June (NIH record 6/21), “Researchers have over-relied on animal data.  The problem is that it hasn’t worked… We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.”
 
Dr. Robert Mendelsohn said, “The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn’t work.  It has no scientific value.  One cannot extrapolate the results of animal research to human beings and every good scientist knows that.”
 
Dr. Charles Mayo said, “About the abuses, the cruelty, and the horror of vivisection of living animals, I abhor it.  It ought to be abolished.  I know of no achievement, no scientific discovery that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty.  The whole thing is evil.”
 
The Animal Welfare Act does Not apply to lab animals.  No anti-cruelty to animal laws can help them.  Experimenters don’t even have to give them anesthetics!!
 
If SNBL’s animal labs are so wonderful, why can’t we see them??  We taxpayers fund them; we should be able to see the animals.
 
Sincerely,
Darlene Kaiser

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