260 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
suffering. We certainly wish to do everything we can to prevent ani- 
mals suffering. 
We admit that accidents and abuses occur in every field of human 
endeavor. But I would still feel that it would be wiser for the Fed- 
eral Government to encourage grants to improve the conditions under 
which animals are housed than to deprive our citizens and our future 
generations of the advances in knowledge which can come speedily 
from animal experimentation, freely undertaken by capable people. 
Now, I know that is qualifying, “freely undertaken by capable 
people,” but experiments cost money, and obtaining Federal funds is 
not easy. We have to outline our experiments, we have to show that 
this is good. The process of obtaining funds can act as a control, 
both for misuse of funds, and I think it could well act as a control 
against the misuse of animals. 
Thank you, sir. 
(Dr. Taussig’s prepared statement is as follows :) 
Statement of Db. Helen B. Taussig, Peofessoe of Pediatbics, 
Johns Hopkins Hospital 
Mr. Chairman, as a vice president of the American Heart Association and as 
a professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, and also as a 
physician who has devoted her life to the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease 
in children, and as the doctor who first conceived the operation to help blue 
babies, I am naturally deeply concerned with the laws which affected investiga- 
tive work. 
The Moulder and Griffiths bills (H.R. 3556 and H.R. 1937) are recommended 
in order to obtain humane treatment of animals. That we do not oppose, but I 
do believe that both bills limit medical investigation. Both bills demand that no 
animal experiments be undertaken unless proved that it cannot be done on in- 
vertebrate animals. If literally followed it would delay a lot of work. If not, 
why mention it. Thereafter, experiments on animals shall be kept to a minimum. 
Furthermore, the Moulder bill requires that the person who is at the head of the 
new bureau be a “lawyer, who is not and never has been connected with a 
laboratory.” In other words a person with no experience in laboratory investiga- 
tion is the man who ultimately judges the importance of an experiment and the 
ability of the investigator. 
Both bills demand that prior to any experimental work, the entire problem is 
outlined step by step “including the procedures to be employed with respect to 
living animals.” Just what does that mean? The penalty for failure to comply 
is very severe and doctors certainly wish to keep within the law. If every step 
can be outlined, the experiment is often not necessary. Let me for a moment re- 
view what would have happened in 1942-44 had this law been in effect. 
I suggested to Dr. Alfred Blalock that increasing the circulation to the lungs 
would help many cyanotic children who suffer from lack of oxygen. He wanted 
to prove the principle was true, but the condition did not exist in animals. First 
he tried to create a pulmonary stenosis. That did not work. Then he changed 
the circulation and directed some blood which was meant to go to the lungs to 
the body, a very different procedure from what he had originally planned. But 
that experiment did not make the animal suffer (which incidentally is prohibited 
in these bills) . The condition was not similar to what children suffered. Finally, 
he removed part of one lung in addition to altering the circulation. That was a 
totally different procedure from what he had originally planned. It would have 
required a new application. Applications take time and cost money and it costs 
the Government money to review the application. It does impede medical 
progress. 
Nevertheless, and rightly so, until Dr. Blalock was convinced that the idea was 
sound and the technique was good, he would not operate on children. The re- 
markable success of the operation and his initial low mortality rate from the 
operation show how right he was. The operation has saved thousands of lives 
throughout the world. It opened up the field of cardiac surgery. 
Dr. Henry Bahnson is filing his report of the vital need for animal experimenta- 
tion in cardiac surgery. Suffice it here for me to say that animal experimentation 
