Volunteering

Volunteer to Encourage Ethical Research

1.Ask the March of Dimes’ sponsors to support charities that do not fund experiments on animals.
By educating corporate sponsors about the March of Dimes’ inhumane animal experiments, we can encourage sponsors to end their support of the March of Dimes or at least restrict donations to non-animal programs. Use our sample letter to get started. View the list of national sponsors or download the list of local sponsors.

2. Promote the Humane Charity Seal of Approval.
Support charities that have the Humane Charity Seal of Approval. These charities have committed to providing direct services and care to patients or to funding state-of-the-art medical research without the use of animals.

Use PCRM’s Humane Seal stickers. If you are solicited by a charity that does not have the Humane Seal of Approval, apply our “I only support charities with the Humane Seal” sticker to the solicitation and send it back to the charity.

Distribute Humane Seal booklets. You can help promote non-animal research by passing out these booklets at pet stores, veterinarians’ offices, animal shelters, dog parks, pet walks, “blessing of the animals” ceremonies, or any other animal-friendly event or location.

To obtain stickers, booklets, or any other Humane Seal materials to share with your friends, family, and community, please contact info@humaneseal.org or 202-686-2210, ext. 369

3. Encourage your school to use dissection alternatives.
Students of all ages are concerned about animal dissection—and rightly so. There’s no need to use animals in the classroom when so many alternatives exist. There are many things you can do to educate your teachers, school administrators, and fellow students about the drawbacks of dissection and the effective and humane alternatives to the use of animals.

4. Encourage your state legislature to pass a dissection choice law.
Currently, nine states have choice-in-dissection laws. These laws allow students to refuse to participate in classroom exercises—particularly dissections—that are harmful to animals. Schools in these states are also required to offer humane alternatives to those students who want them. 

Find out who your elected officials are.

5. Ask Ohio State University to cancel its spinal cord injury techniques course.
Also known as “Cruelty 101,” this inhumane course requires participants to expose the spinal cords of mice and rats and systematically injure them by major surgery and blunt trauma. More than 200 animals will be injured and killed during this course. Please contact OSU officials at the addresses below and urge them to replace this cruel teaching method with more effective and humane alternatives. See our letter writing tips for advice on writing these officials. If you are an OSU graduate, please join our boycott by contacting research@pcrm.org or 202-686-2210, ext. 335.

Jacqueline C. Bresnahan, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Basic Research
Department of Neuroscience
The Ohio State University
4190 Graves Hall
333 W. 10th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210
bresnahan.1@osu.edu

Karen A. Holbrook
President
The Ohio State University
205 Bricker Hall
190 North Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210-1357
Fax: 614-292-1231
holbrook.79@osu.edu

6. Contact medical schools that continue to use live animal labs.
While 90 percent of medical schools in the United States have replaced inhumane live animal labs with modern and humane alternatives, these medical schools continue to use live animals to teach basic concepts in human physiology, pharmacology, and/or surgery. If your local universities or alma mater are on this list, please write school officials to express your concerns about these crude exercises.

7. Thank medical schools that no longer use live animal labs.
Many schools no longer use live animal labs to train medical students. If your local universities or alma mater are on this list, please thank school officials for their humane policy.

8. Help stop animal-to-human organ transplants.
You can help stop dangerous and cruel animal-to-human organ transplants by becoming an organ donor. Encourage your friends and relatives to do the same. PCRM can supply you with organ donor cards. For more information, please contact research@pcrm.org or 202-686-2210, ext. 329.

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