Programs & Campaigns

It's Midnight On April 15th - Did You Know Your Federal Tax Dollars Are Killing Cats?

(Boston, MA) April 15, 2002 - The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) today released an investigative summary documenting the suffering and death of hundreds of cats and kittens in ongoing, cruel and wasteful experiments over several years in New England.

The summary exposes the activities of federally funded vivisectors - animal experimenters - at institutions including Boston University, Harvard and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. According to NEAVS President Dr. Theodora Capaldo, a psychologist, "Universities and laboratories in Massachusetts alone have received approximately $15 million tax dollars in the last three years just for cat experiments - money that would have been better spent on human studies, treatment, and prevention."

NEAVS released its investigative report to coincide with tax time, when Americans are acutely aware of how their tax dollars are being spent - and wasted. "Some career researchers included in the investigation have performed wasteful experiments for 20 or 30 years, and they are still asking for more money," says Ann Stauble, NEAVS Director of Research and Investigations, who helped prepare the summary.

Adds Stauble, "In fact, even after the publication of his supposedly definitive book on the visual cortex of cats, Boston University researcher Bertram Payne remarked that '… investigators still … require the cooperation of granting agencies.' For career researchers, there is never an end in sight."

Payne, who is among the researchers discussed in the NEAVS report, has been conducting experiments on cats and kittens for more than a decade. His research has included damaging fetal, newborn and older cats' brains. One of his experiments included sewing the ears of fetal kittens to their mother's uterus and then suctioning out parts of the kittens' brains. Although Payne is neither a physician nor a veterinarian, he has received more than $3.6 million in taxpayers' money since 1986.

Other New England researchers included in NEAVS' report are J. Allan Hobson of Harvard University, whose research includes breaking cats' skulls and implanting electrodes to study sleep. Hobson has received approximately $3.5 million since 1992. Rhode Island Hospital's Piero Biancani received $2.1 million to do experiments which include pouring acid into a cat's esophagus to cause inflammation. At the University of Massachusetts Medical School, David Paydarfar, who has received approximately one million tax dollars since 1999 places cats' heads in vises and then exposes and crushes their nerves.

NEAVS has prepared a report and a brochure describing these and other cat experiments

currently being funded in New England. The brochure will be mailed to cat shelters throughout New England, appealing to thousands of cat advocates and rescue workers. Copies of the brochure and investigative report also are available from the NEAVS office.

In addition, the public and NEAVS supporters are being encouraged to contact the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to redirect funds from cat experiments into human, clinical and epidemiological studies.

Says Stauble, "Our goal is to let the NIH and area vivisectors know that we don't want our tax dollars going to cruel and wasteful animal experiments which are also poor models for studying human health and disease."

NEAVS points to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics to support its arguments. Capaldo notes that although the United States spends a higher portion of its gross national product on its health system than do 191 other WHO members, the U.S. is ranked only 37th in health system performance by WHO and only 24th for "healthy life" expectancy. In fact, even though Massachusetts alone has more biotech firms than 48 other states and all of Western Europe, residents of Western European countries including France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Greece, Norway, Luxembourg, and Germany generally live longer and healthier lives than do their U.S. counterparts, according to WHO statistics, Capaldo says.

"The animal research industry is fixated on the dangerous myth that profit-driven animal research is necessary," notes Capaldo. "Rather, it clearly is not the best 'fix' for understanding or treating human health and disease.

"The anti-vivisection message is gathering momentum as more and more people become convinced that animal experimentation is not only bad ethics but bad science. NEAVS is committed to an ongoing campaign that will spare cats and, ultimately, ALL animals from undergoing pain and suffering in laboratories. We are also determined to protect humans from flawed and inaccurate animal experiments and to invest tax dollars in science that really helps people."

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The State of the Anti-Vivisection Movement in America