"We called him Rodney.

He was a tall, gangly, flea-bitten shepherd mix. One ear stood up, shepherd style, and the other flopped over and bounced against his head like a rag doll when he ran. His head and feet were too big for his thin but muscular body. A stale, musty odor accompanied him from flea-infested skin and neglected ears. Altogether, he wasn't much to look at - one of thousands of dogs facing the world without the luxury of an owner.

I was in my third year of veterinary school, and he came from the local dog pound. For the next quarter, four of us students would practice surgery training. He was always happy to see us - tail thumping widly against the walls of his small steel cage.

Rodney hadn't much of a life, so a pat on the butt and a little walk around the college complex made his day.

The first thing we did was neuter him, a seemingly benign project, except it took us an hour to complete the usual 20-minute procedure, and an anesthetic overdose kept him out for 36 hours. Afterward, he recovered his strength quickly and felt good.

Two weeks later, we did an abdominal exploratory, opening his abdomen, checking his organ inventory, and closing him again.

This was the first major surgery for any of us, and, with inadequate supervision, we did not close him properly. By the next morning, his incision had opened and he was sitting on his small intestine. Hastily, we sewed him up again, and he survived. But it was a week or more before he could resume walks he had come to eagerly anticipated.

He would still wag his tail when we arrived and greet us with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

The following week, again when he was under anesthesia, we broke his leg and repaired it with a steel pin. After this, Rodney seemed in almost constant pain, his temperature rose, and he didn't rebound as he had in the past. His resiliency gone, despite antibiotic treatment, he never recovered completely.

He could no longer manage his walks, and our visits generated only a weak thump of his tail. The shine was gone from his brown eyes. His operated leg remained stiff and swollen.

The quarter was ending, and Rodney's days were numbered. One afternoon we put him to sleep. As the life drained from his body and his eyes lost their focus, my attitude toward animal research began to change.

I am a scientist weaned on the scientific method. ... But after 15 years in the veterinary profession, I now believe there are moral and ethical considerations that outweigh benefits.

Because we happen to be the most powerful species on Earth, we humans have the ability - but not the right - to abuse the so-called lower animals. The ends do not justify the means."

~ Peter M. Henricksen ~

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I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a [heart] donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when we removed the body to the operating room, the other chimp wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures.

~ Christian Barnard ~

Hospitals are allowing students and nurses to "practice" procedures on cats, kittens and ferrets!!
Please help stop this by signing this petition.
Stop hospitals from abusing cats and kittens!!!!

The following is a true story, told to a friend of a friend. Please do not copy this story without permission. I feel that you will be convinced to sign the above petition after reading this:

I am a nurse and when I was in school, I horrified to find out that we had to dissect animal. I am not talking frogs, these were monkeys, pig fetuses, and CATS!

I almost didn't finish my training because of this. But after going to the head of the biology Dept. and telling him how apposed I was to this he agreed to let me view films instead of working on the animals. I also had to work on the one "dummy" that they had in the Dept.

Then, after I started working, I specialized in Premature and sick infants and sick Moms. When I was studing to take a test to certify me as a intensive care nursery nurse, we had to learn to intubate babies. Although a nurse rarely, rarely, ever actually does this, we had to learn incase of an emergency. When I got to the class, I almost passed out WE HAD TO PRACTICE ON A LIVE CAT!! I am sitting here with tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Well needless to say I protested loudly.

The instructor, in an attempt to calm me down proceeded to tell me and the others that the cat was kept soley for that purpose, that he was well taken care of. He was healthy looking, but the fear in his pitiful eyes was more than I could take, they also said that he was not fed for 8 hours prior to being brought to class. Well while I was talking to one person and telling him that I could not do this, someone else was with another instructor, and began to started intubating this beautiful calico boy.

I'm sorry I'm having a real hard time writing about this, I have tried my best to put it as far back in my mind as I can. The poor little thing was moaning and when I turned to see why and saw that they were proceeding, the little thing started to vomit and choke. I ran screaming to his side to reasure him and was promptly removed from the class. When I got back to work the next day no one would tell me what happened after I left; so, I don't know if he survived.

I started a petition to stop this abuse, and it worked. After that we got "dummies" to practice on, so I did get certified.

I also found out that these cruel assanine idiots actually would go by the humane society and get a cat that was to put down and bring them in to practice on; so, everything they told me was a lie. I put a stop to that too. When I went before the board to voice my opinion, my daughter who was about 12 at the time sat crying beside me. I had not planned on telling her because of her being so young, but I had gotten physically ill over this and her Dad told her why. She collected signatures at school.

I am sitting here crying. This was 14 yrs ago and it still just rips my heart out. I wonder if they would have let us practice on them.

ANIMAL ALERT



NOT ONE CAT!

Click graphic to read updates and sign petition.

ANOTHER PETITION
Please sign, also.

UPDATE: The experiments are being done, as you read this. Please help save these innocent lives!! CALL President "Brit" Kirwan at 614-292-2424, tell him where you are from and how you feel about this.
More info available at http://home.att.net/~PoetWill/kitty.htm

PETA
(Comments and information)



Unless we do something to prevent it, scientists at OSU will infect 120 healthy cats and kittens with FIV virus and force them to binge on amphetamines and eventually euthanize them. Petitions have been unsuccessful. Please copy the one or both sample below and write letters or e-mails to help prevent this from happening. There is further explanation in the article below the sample letter.

SEND LETTERS TO:

Dean Glen F. Hoffsis ( hoffsis.1@osu.edu ) College of Veterinary Medicine
101 Sission Hall
1900 Coffey Road
Columbus, Ohio 43210-1092

FIRST SAMPLE LETTER:

Dean Hoffsis:

I am outraged to learn that the plan to infect 120 cats with FIV at OSU will be conducted despite public outrage and protest. FIV is NOT related to HIV! Treatments or cures for HIV patients who are taking methamphetamines are not going to be discovered by studying cats with FIV.

I plan to tell as many people as I can that The College of Veterinary Medicine, which is supposed to help animals, will be taking healthy cats and infecting them with a terminal disease for the purpose of useless research.

Sincerely,
(Please sign your name and state)

ADDITIONAL E-MAIL ADDIES TO SEND LETTERS TO (OSU ALUMNI MAGAZINE):

Editor:
bonenberger.1@osu.edu (Lynne Bonenberger)

Director of Membership:
teeters.9@osu.edu (Janelle Teeters Mead)

A complete list of contact info for the staff of OSU can be found at:
http://www.ohiostatealumni.org/shared/contact.php3

SECOND SAMPLE LETTER:

Send to:

bonenberger.1@osu.edu (Lynne Bonenberger)
teeters.9@osu.edu (Janelle Teeters Mead)
beja.2@osu.edu
overland.2@osu.edu
basford.2@osu.edu
holmes.115@osu.edu

We are writing in reference to the plan to infect 120 healthy cats with the FIV virus for the purposes of studying human HIV. The FIV virus is NOT related to the FIV virus and we are outraged that healthy cats will be purposely inflicted with this terminal disease. We are asking that you do everything in your power to prevent these experiments.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
(Please sign your name and state)

ARTICLE:

David Lore
Dispatch Science Reporter
  An Ohio State University drug study using cats has been approved by the National Institute on Drug Abuse despite local and national protests from animal-rights groups.

Michael Podell, associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences, said he was notified this week that the institute -- a unit of the National Institutes of Health --has approved $355,000 for the first year in what Podell expects to be a five-year, $1.68 million study.

Podell will use as many as 120 cats to establish an animal model for the effect of methamphetamines on humans infected by the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.

The cats will be infected with the feline immunodeficiency virus, or FIV, which also causes degeneration of the nervous system. The animals will undergo multiple surgeries and eventually will be euthanized. "There's direct benefit to (human) patients,'' he said yesterday.

"What we're looking at is how the virus sets up in the brain and sets off a cascading event of degeneration. What we're learning is what happens at the very earliest stages.'' The benefit, he said, is to gain knowledge allowing earlier and more effective treatments for drug users who contract HIV.

A Columbus group, Protect Our Earth's Treasures, or POET, began demonstrations and a letter-writing campaign in June hoping to block federal approval of Podell's research.

The group and its supporters have argued that the research could be done without the sacrifice of the animals -- if it needs to be done at all.

"FIV is not related to HIV, and that's the problem with the whole project,'' POET director Robin Russell said yesterday. "They're not going to find treatment or cures for HIV patients who are taking methamphetamines.'' But Russell said he isn't surprised the national institute approved the project because that institute first proposed using cats for the study. Russell said he doesn't understand why drug effects on the brain can't be studied through brain scans of human HIV patients.

But that's not feasible, Podell said, because when human subjects are infected, they can't be controlled, a necessary variable in a controlled experiment.

POET will continue its protest, hoping to draw public attention to Podell's research and other projects like it, Russell said. "We want the public to know this is the type of work that this university thinks is OK,'' he said.

Podell said he doesn't object to the debate, as long as it's based on the scientific merit. He noted that the project was recommended by a 20-member review panel of scientists at national institute, as well as by OSU's Laboratory Animal Care and Use Committee.

Letters and articles compliments of Love For Animals

If you would like to link to this page, please download the following graphic and link back to https://pink73.tripod.com/RODNEY.html

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For more information on animal testing for medical purposes, please visit the following sites:

Health Charities That Do And Do Not Fund Animal Experimentations

Vivisecn.Net

In Defense Of Animals and
Anti-Vivisection Campaigns

Physicians' Committee For Responsible Medicine

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