HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 265 
In the National Capital area alone, comprising Washington, northern Virginia, 
and nearby Maryland, 8 million animals give their lives annually in research. 
One laboratory spokesman predicted that by the year 2000 the procurement 
of experimental animals would be an industry equal in magnitude to the livestock 
industry. 
This staggering expenditure of life and suffering goes on without a single 
governmental check or control. Moreover it is costly. The medical research 
industry receives a major part of its support from Federal funds. 
Outside of the laboratories, big business in general must submit to some control 
of law. The stock market, the common carriers, the food and drug industry and 
the broadcasting industry, among others, have all been made subject to regula- 
tion in the public interest. The laboratories today need regulation in the 
name of conscience, decency and humanity. 
INDIFFERENCE, CALLOUSNESS, FILTH, NEGLECT 
Dogs and cats are confined year in and year out in cages so small that 
the larger dogs are unable either to stretch out or to stand up. Monkeys have 
been photographed chained by an 18-inch chain to a wall. Resting boards 
are rarely provided ; the animal has to sleep on the wire mesh flooring of its 
cage. Sometimes its feet are cut and bleeding from walking on the wire ; some- 
times the wire mesh is so coarse that the animal cannot stand at all, but must 
spend its entire life lying down. 
Some medical research institutions have taken every effort to keep their 
animals in healthy and comfortable condition. A large proportion have failed 
signally ; hence the lives of countless animals are wasted through gross negli- 
gence. Emaciation is common, vermin are common, in the animal quarters of 
supposedly great medical schools. Dogs go to the operating board in a state of 
debilitation from hookworms and other parasites. The lives of countless animals 
are wasted through negligence, despite the cry raised by medical researchers that 
they cannot obtain enough animals. 
A veterinary student working in a Chicago medical school wrote : “The animals 
here are not conditioned in any way preoperatively ; their state of nutrition is 
unbelievably poor. They cannot possibly stand the shock of major surgery, much 
less major butchery.” She said that of 50 dogs that underwent the heart-lung 
operation in that school in 4 months, not one survived. 1 
“blackest spot in the history of medical science” 
The late Dr. Robert Gesell, professor of physiology at the University of Michi- 
gan, stated in the Annals of Allergy for March-April 1953: “We are drowning 
and suffocating unanesthetized animals — in the name of science. We are deter- 
mining the amount of abuse that life will endure in unanesthetized animals — in 
the name of science. We are observing animals for weeks, months or even years 
under infamous conditions— in the name of science. This may well prove to be 
the blackest spot in the history of medical science.” 
Today animals in research laboratories are burned, baked, frozen, crushed, 
starved, strangled, and skinned alive, sometimes with anesthesia but often with- 
out. Conscious animals are pounded to death in revolving drums to test their 
reaction to shock. Cans of dynamite are tied to the heads of dogs and exploded 
to study concussion. The list could go on, and on, and on. 
Claire Boothe Luce, author and columnist, former Congresswoman and former 
Ambassador to Italy, has called the laboratories “the Buchenwalds, the Auseh- 
witzes and Dachaus of the animal worlds.” 2 
SCIENTIFIC BOONDOGGLING, REPETITIOUS WASTE 
Many scientists, ambitious to publish something in the journals and apparently 
short on original ideas, stage elaborate experiments in order to “prove” the ob- 
vious. For instance, it has been observed for centuries that human beings subject 
to prolonged starvation, such as shipwreck survivors, react with painful and 
dangerous symptoms when suddenly fed. 
1 Margo Nesselrod in Popular Dogs. February 1960. 
2 Private letter. Aug. 17, 1960. 
