Vigil Schedule for July...Behind the Walls of UCSF

July 10, 2004

Dear Animal Activists, Vigilers, Companions, Guardians, Lovers and Liberators,

Following is the vigil schedule for July.

Berkeley Vigil - July 20, Tuesday, at 7pm, above the underground lab, known as the Northwest Animal Facility, Corner of Oxford Street & Berkeley Way, UC Berkeley; Info: East Bay Animal Advocates, 925-487-4419 or info.

There will be no vigil/protest scheduled re UCSF for the month of July. However, there may be a protest in early August - will keep you posted.

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BEHIND THE WALLS OF UCSF: Sifting through the recently received minutes and reports of UCSF's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), with the help of Michelle Tsai, I found out a few things I thought you'd like to know (words in quotes are from IACUC's minutes/reports):

Stephen Lisberger continues to get approval from the IACUC and funding for a research project (in its third year) re "Neural Control of Eye Movements, Cortical Plasticity System"... - likely meaning continued cruel experiments on rhesus monkeys.

The Association of Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) will soon award full accreditation to UCSF - as a result of the university's efforts to acquire AAALAC's approval for the past year - no doubt to improve UCSF's poor reputation re its care and (ab)use of animals.

Dogs may still be used in painful experiments regarding the implantation of pacemakers as a Principal Investigator submitted a protocol, titled "Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation in Canine Models," to UCSF's IACUC in December of 2003 for its approval. Although the project was not approved, it may have been resubmitted (and approved) since then.

"Rodent overcrowding" is an ongoing problem at UCSF. To resolve the problem, the university is moving rodent cages from its old facilities to its new Mission Bay facility (MB), which just opened last year. As of January, 4,200 cages have been moved to MB. By early 2005, MB is on track to have "40,000 mouse cages, 15 large animal rooms, and both teaching and experimental surgery facilities."

Deficiencies in veterinary care seem to have resulted from the rodent overcrowding as there is "not enough veterinarian intervention with the rodent populations," and "many mice with skin lesions are identified," according to a report by the IACUC in January 2004. Thus 2 additional staff have been assigned to "rodent surveillance," and veterinary staff have been directed to "provide IACUC with guidelines for appropriate endpoints in animals with skin lesions." [Endpoints, in this context, likely means a determination as to whether a mouse should be euthanized based on the severity of its skin lesions.]

The above is but a small fraction of experiments involving animals and problems re their care and use at UCSF. There are many more projects and problems surrounding the use of animals at UCSF - I just don't have the time and energy to inform you of them all here. (The latest protocols, reports, and minutes received from UCSF totaled 501 pages on dozens of research projects using animals.) These experiments involve lambs, kittens, puppy dogs, pigs, guinea pigs, mice, rats and more - many of the projects funded by our tax dollars, with over $159 million granted to UCSF through the National Institutes of Health in 2002. That's the bad news. The good news is that persons like ourselves continue to oppose this cruelty to our fellow beings of the earth through our work in legislation, demonstrations, and education. I commend you for your great work! And I

contend - we shall prevail.

And remember: As Henry James (so I am told) said, "Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And, the third - is to be kind." Or, as "Uncle Rat" once scrawled: "Compassion is the key to humanity's harmonious existence with other life forms on the planet."

Hoping to see you at an upcoming vigil, I am -

Yours sincerely,

Bob O'Brien

(for the Vigil)