Stanford Demonstration for Compassion

[Guest guest]

Demonstration for Compassion

Friday, Nov. 4 at 12:00 noon

Palo Alto

Intersection of El Camino and Quarryy

Map: http://tinyurl.com/b4lxt.

 

 

Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF!) commemorates the Dalai Lama’s visit to

Stanford University by urging compassion for the tens of thousands of

animals used in experiments on our campus. Join us for a demonstration

against animal testing, this Friday, November 4 at 12:00 noon at the

intersection of El Camino and Quarry Road (http://tinyurl.com/b4lxt).

For more details, or to get involved in the campaign against

vivisection, email arfstanford. See below for more facts on

animal experiments at Stanford.

 

 

“According to Buddhism the life of all beings—human, animal or

otherwise—is precious, and all have the same right to happiness. For

this reason, I find it disgraceful that animals are used without being

shown the slightest compassion, and that they are used for scientific

experiments.”

-The Dalai Lama, Beyond Dogma

 

 

__________________________

According to a report filed by Stanford in 2002 with the US Department

of Agriculture (the agency charged with implementing the Animal Welfare

Act), Stanford used the following animals for experiments: 32 dogs, 172

hamsters, 376 rabbits, 323 nonhuman primates, 110 sheep, 541 pigs, 2

goats, 9 ferrets and 471 gerbils (2,036 total animals). Because USDA

does not require reporting on mice, rats, birds, and amphibians, the

actual number of animals used at Stanford is much higher. Nationwide,

rats and mice make up approximately 95% of animals used in research.

Using this statistic, we estimate that Stanford’s RAF uses as many as

40,000 animals. The Research Animal Facility at Stanford University

received over $146 million in federal funding in 2003 for animal

experimentation, ranked 21st in the country.

 

Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF) has discovered other disturbing facts:

one Stanford researcher systematically deprives mice, rats, and monkeys

of sleep to determine the relationship between sleep deprivation, body

weight, and energy expenditure (Role of Hypocretin in Metabolic Effects

of Sleep Loss, NIH Grant #5R01MH073435-02); another separates infant

primates from their mothers to test the resultant psychological effects

(Maternal Availability and Postnatal Brain Development, NIH Grant

#5F32MH066537-03); another induces anxiety and fear in

parasite-infested rats (Parasite/Host Interactions and the Neurobiology

of Fear, NIH Grant #1R21MH070903-01A1); another conducts gene-therapy

research on the livers of rats, rabbits, and dogs (Transferring

Integrase Technology to Animals, NIH Grant #5R01HL068112-05); another

researcher has spent the last 15 years conducting invasive brain

studies, maternal deprivation experiments, and stress studies in

squirrel monkeys (Model of Hypercortisolism for Major Depressions, NIH

Grant #5R01MH047573-14); another researcher induces stress in

adolescent squirrel monkeys primates, then addicts them to cocaine

(Early Chronic Stress and Prefrontal Development, NIH Grant

#5R01DA016902-03); the list goes on and on.

 

ARF has also gleaned the following information from the research

facility’s newsletters: the labs’ “animal caretakers” filed over 421

morbidity reports in 2001 (Comparative Medicine News, Jan. 2002); the

University maintains a colony of inbred mice, “obtained after 20 or

more consecutive generations of brother x sister mating” (Comparative

Medicine News, Dec. 1999); RAF has been infested with mites, which

cause self-mutilation and “blisters, crusts and warty lumps on the

ears, eyes and nose” (Comparative Medicine News, Apr. 2002); the

facility’s euthanasia procedures include CO2 gassing, followed in some

cases by exsanguination (bleeding to death), cervical dislocation, or

decapitation, and “[t]horacotomy (making an incision into the chest

cavity) after apparent death from CO2 is widely used as a way to ensure

the irreversibility of the procedure.” (Comparative Medicine News, Oct.

2003).