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Articles and
Reports
Military Experiments -- The War on Animals
The
Department of Defense (DOD) is one of the most infamous abusers of
animals in laboratories, and was the subject of congressional
investigative hearings in the early nineties. While minor changes
have led to increased accessibility to information (there is not an
internet accessible database of DOD animal research projects),
independent oversight has not increased. The USDA, the federal agency
required to enforce the Animal Welfare Act within U.S. laboratories,
does not have the authority to inspect facilities owned by other
federal agencies. This leaves the animals totally at the mercy of the
very individuals who are experimenting upon them.
Recently
leaked government reports have given us a look inside the labs of the
DOD, and what we have found is very disturbing. DOD labs subject
animals to radiation, laser injuries, microwaves and chemical weapons.
The
currently available information is incomplete because it does not
contain data relevant to several of the DOD’s largest labs including
the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute, Walter Reed Army
Hospital and Fort Detrick. In the past these facilities collectively
used over 100,000 animals per year in some of the DOD’s cruelest
experiments.
One
of the facilities which we know the most about is the Air Force
Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio,
TX. AFRL use of animals in experimentation has long been a cause for
concern due to the types of experiments performed as well as the
extremely long term nature of the projects involved.
2004 experiments at AFRL
utilized 2091 animals including dogs, rabbits, pigs, monkeys (rhesus
and other species), mice, frogs, rats, and snakes. 907 (43.4%) of
these animals were used in painful experiments without benefit of
anesthesia. This may be the highest level of experiments with
unrelieved pain of any laboratory in the U.S. Fifteen of the animals
experiencing unrelieved pain were dogs, five were primates, 685 were
mice, and 202 were rats.
The type of
experimentation conducted at Brooks AFB clearly reveals the reason for
the highly painful nature of these protocols. DOD information
discusses the use of primates in projects involving laser injuries,
microwaves and radiation. Pigs are used in munitions research and
wound research. Rabbits and guinea pigs are used in radiation
research. Rabbits are also used in microwave experiments. The nature
of these experiments clearly reveals why AFRL is probably the most
painful lab in the nation.
The DOD Biomedical
Research Database reveals that the AFRL receives $5,359,870 per year
in funding for 34 separate projects. These research projects do not
appear to be unique in nature. Medical literature searches on the
pubmed website, which is used to search medical journal articles,
shows that many of the projects at the Air Force Research Laboratory
are potentially duplicative. This website lists citations for 1717
research projects involving radiation in macaque monkeys. This same
website lists 3546 publications that examine wounds in pigs. While
Brooks is among the only labs currently studying laser eye injuries in
macaque monkeys, other labs studied this area dating back to the
1970’s. Similarly, microwaves have been studied at other military
labs and in other research facilities. The researchers at AFRL are in
the business of producing protocols in areas that are already being
investigated thoroughly by other researchers.
Documents
obtained from the Air Force and Government databases illustrate that
the protocols at Brooks AFB appear to be very long lived. Experiments
which are similar (if not identical) to current experiments date back
into the late 1990’s and beyond. How much longer will these
experiments be allowed to continue? How many more animal lives will
be swallowed up by experiments that have already spanned decades and
wasted millions of tax dollars? At a time when US military personnel
have to pay for their own equipment (i.e. Kevlar vests) it is
absolutely criminal to waste over $5 million per year on unnecessary
experiments.
Other
laboratories owned by the Department of Defense also use large numbers
of animals. Fort Bragg in North Carolina uses over 2700 animals per
year in medical training programs. The Uniformed Services University
of Health Sciences in Maryland uses over 800 animals in similar
procedures.
Please
write to your legislators to ask for more independent oversight of
Military labs, and an investigation of DOD experiments for
redundancy. You can obtain the contact information for your elected
representatives at:
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