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NEAVS and Tufts University Students Ask Tufts to Save Dogs' Lives: "Turn Over a New Leaf" for the New Year

(Boston, MA) Dec. 29, 2003 -- past several months some 30
students from Tufts University's School of Veterinary Medicine, including veterinary and graduate students, have been trying to negotiate with their institution to prevent the planned killing of dogs currently being used in research at the University. Officials have been willing to meet but as yet have refused to not kill the dogs. Students want Tufts to "turn over a new leaf" for the New Year by agreeing to spare the dogs' lives.

Tara Turner, a Tufts graduate student in the vet school's Masters' Program in Animals and Public Policy, learned about research involving 6 dogs whose back legs were both broken as part of a study to examine how different applications of a product compared in the dogs' healing. The students have
been informed that one dog has already died from "infection." The remaining 5 are scheduled to be "sacrificed" as early as the end of December.

While all 30 students are determined to prevent the killing of the remaining 5 dogs, some differ in their willingness to take the issue public. Tufts has encouraged internal dialogue, but four students are now feeling it is to no avail and is wasting precious time as the clock ticks toward the scheduled killing.
Dana Zenko, another graduate student, notes, "To date, the University's response to our legitimate concerns has been to over-intellectualize the issue and do nothing. They have offered us meetings with several different factions of the school that proved unproductive in changing the outcome of this unconscionable study."

Dr. Theo Capaldo, President of the Boston based New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS), was approached by two members of the student group. She stated, "In response to the students' concerns, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) asked them to find alternatives to the study when actually the IACUC should have demanded that the researchers do a better job of finding alternatives to this egregious study in the first place. The IACUC should never have approved a study that involved: such severe injury to healthy dogs; the need for days of heavy pain killers; and the killing of the dogs in the end. The research should never have met the approval of this committee. The students are absolutely right to call into question this unjustifiable research and its egregious end point."

Turner adds, "I was proud to be admitted to Tufts, which I saw as a leader in ethical veterinary education, but I am now saddened by my University's funding and involvement in research like this. I was going to apply to vet school, now I'm not sure."

Diana Goodrich, also a graduate student, states, "When we did the literature review they asked us to do, we were hopeful when we found promising alternatives. We realized that the literature and research was there. There are other ways to measure the results without killing anyone. So we are asking a simple but vital question: 'why is it OK to kill them just because they are dogs?'"

Michelle Johnson, the fourth student, commented "I don't think the public, Tufts' supporters or their clients will approve of killing dogs for such a frivolous reason as testing how a product is applied when they could have used dogs who already had broken legs and turned the study into a 'help' for animals rather than a death sentence."

These four students agree, "If the school will not be accountable to its students, maybe it will be accountable to the caring public."

In support of the students, Capaldo noted, "If Tufts is unwilling to allow its own students to insist on the ethical imperative to find alternatives to such awful research, then they need to be challenged. After all, the students involved represent those interested in helping and healing animals and those interested in changing public policy about how animals are treated in our society. In prohibiting these students from doing this work at
their own University, Tufts is not only being inhumane to the dogs but to the students as well. How can the University not allow them to do what they are there to learn to do: make the world a better place for animals? It's a very disheartening contradiction."

The four students will be attending another meeting in early January with school officials though to date they have received little cause for hope. They have requested in addition to not killing the dogs that the University allow the dogs to be adopted and not used for any further teaching or research.

The students are appealing to the public to join them in asking that the dogs be allowed to live. Please call or write:

Dr. Carl Kirker-Head, IACUC Chair
200 Westboro Rd.
No. Grafton, MA 01536
508 839 5395 ext 84827
carl.kirker-head@tufts.edu

Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine is funded by both private donors/foundations and public money from the New England states.

For more information, please contact NEAVS at
617-523-6020 or info@neavs.org

NEAVS
333 Washington St.
Suite 850
Boston, MA 02108

617-523-6020
info@neavs.org
www.neavs.org

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