Activists Rattle the Cages for Animals in Labs at Cambridge March & Protest

Boston, Mass. - Members of the Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition (MARC), In Defense of Animals (IDA) and other concerned citizens will protest on behalf of the animals suffering in the area’s many laboratories in observation of World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL). WWAIL is an international week of action against animal experiments:

When: Saturday, April 16, march 1:10 p.m., demonstration 2:30 p.m.
Where: March starts at Rogers Building 
MIT(77 Massachusetts Ave) and ends at the demonstration at Harvard Square, across from “The Pit” and outside Johnson’s Gate

Hundreds of concerned citizens have appealed to Harvard’s New England Regional Primate Research Center and other local facilities to terminate experiments on monkeys and other animals. Monkeys endure horrible conditions during the experiments while researchers implant electrodes into their brains and eyes; surgically attach permanent restraints to their heads with bolts; forcibly addict monkeys to alcohol, cocaine, heroin, speedballs, and other drugs; and destroy areas of the brains of live monkeys with neurotoxins. Man’s best friends fare no better. Harvard researchers force dogs’ hearts to beat 240 times a minute for 4-7 weeks until they die of painful heart attacks.

Ample evidence supports that animal models are poor representations of human pathologies. A dog’s heart is different from a human’s heart both anatomically and at the cellular level. A history of failed tests wastes not only money but animal lives and further substantiates that clinical and epidemiological observations, surgical and procedural results, autopsies, and human studies involving cardiac imaging and electrophysiological tests are more reliable sources of information.

More than 1,700 primates are imprisoned in Harvard University Medical School labs in Southborough, Mass. and over 400 primates died at Harvard between 2002 and 2003 alone.

Recent news reports around the globe are shedding light on the unreliability of animal experiments. In February, scientific director of Europeans for Medical Progress, Dr. Jarrod Bailey called for an end to “archaic” animal experiments which have either harmed humans or set research back by decades. 

“Studies done on chimpanzees, our closest biological relative, have failed to identify the risks of cigarette smoking and failed to produce a single case of AIDS,” says Dr. Elliot M. Katz, DVM. “Researchers acknowledge that there are no good models for such studies, yet go to great lengths to create artificial conditions which are convenient, rather than accurate. That is scientific fraud.”

WWAIL is an annual week of events to arouse concern for animals in laboratories and educate the public about the scientific, moral, and economic objections to animal experimentation. Activists across the country join Boston animal advocates in organizing protests, vigils, and other educational outreach events. For more information please visit wwail.org.