President Obama Urged To Eliminate Outdated and Wasteful Experiments During World Week for Animals in Laboratories

Watchdog organization highlights federally-funded experiments including effects of cocaine on quail, stress on voles, and nipple preference in infant monkeys

San Rafael, Calif.—Millions of dollars are wasted on unnecessary and ridiculous animal experiments, the research watchdog organization In Defense of Animals (IDA) charged today at the outset of World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL), April 18-26, 2009. At issue are experiments like those that dosed Japanese quail with cocaine or examined the effects of a high fat diet on mice (it made them fat and sleepy), and other equally absurd and wasteful experiments funded by a fundamentally broken federal grant award and peer review system.

WWAIL was initiated 23 years ago to call international attention to the tens of millions of dogs, cats, primates and other animals who suffer and die each year in research laboratories. This year, over 50 events worldwide will include public outreach, protests, debates and other public education events.

"Your new administration has vowed to scrutinize the federal budget to eliminate wasteful spending," said IDA president Elliot M. Katz, DVM in a letter to President Obama at the onset of WWAIL. "In these dire economic times, it is essential to eliminate the waste of federal funds on cruel and unnecessary animal experiments and fix the broken research funding system that perpetuates them."

Recent studies published in prestigious journals like Nature and The Chronicle of Higher Education have documented researchers themselves citing an "old boy's network" at the helm of the federal research funding system that concentrates grant awards in the hands of aging "cash cow" researchers while leaving younger, innovative investigators struggling.

In the letter, IDA cited just a few examples of thousands of wasteful experiments that have been funded with taxpayer dollars. Among them are studies that looked at:

  • Nipple preference in nursing infant monkeys.
  • Effect of male hormones on yawning behavior in monkeys.
  • Binge-like alcohol exposure in 4-9 day old rats (impairs learning ability later.)
  • Rats subject to uncontrollable stress developed greater dependence on nicotine
  • Effect of stress and isolation on voles. (Prairie voles had less anxiety than meadow voles.)
  • Effect of mouse social separation on wound healing. (Affected monogamous mice, not polygynous mice.)
  • Effect of exercise on rat health. (Rats who exercised were healthier.)

The move to eliminate wasteful animal experiments coincides with calls from government agencies, expert panels and scientists to move away from animal models toward modern scientific research technologies. In addition, a bi-partisan group in Congress has introduced The Great Ape Protection Act that would end invasive research and testing on an estimated 1,000 chimpanzees remaining in U.S. laboratories. Bans or severe restrictions on experiments using Great Apes are already in place in the Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Austria.

Read IDA's letter to President Obama