PCRM Doctors Deliver “Cruelty 101” Petitions to OSU Board
More than 300 neurologists and neurosurgeons asked Ohio State
University officials to implement alternatives to an inhumane spinal
cord injury course in petitions delivered to OSU President Karen
Holbrook at the school’s February 1 board of trustees meeting.
Neurologist and PCRM research advisor Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H.,
along with Daran Haber, M.D., a New Jersey-based anesthesiologist,
presented the petitions to Holbrook. They asked her to demonstrate
compassion and good science by canceling OSU’s Spinal Cord
Injury Techniques course, which is scheduled again for this summer.
The petitions contained the signatures of 301 neurologists and
neurosurgeons, including several OSU alumni and a professor emeritus
at the university.
 Dr. Akhtar told the board about the cruelty inflicted on the animals
in the course. The animals are subjected to pain so excruciating
that they commonly chew through their own muscle. Dr. Akhtar also
explained that experimenting on animals is not an effective way
to understand human spinal cord injury. There are profound differences
both in the type of injuries humans and animals incur and in the
way our nervous systems work. Researchers have spent more
than 40 years injuring the spinal cords of thousands of animals,
and they have not yet discovered a single proven effective therapy
to reverse human spinal cord injury, according to Dr. Akhtar.
Dr. Akhtar and Dr. Haber’s delivery of the petition made
the front page of OSU’s student newspaper, The Lantern,
and was featured on several local news stations.
Dr. Akhtar said that having over 300 signatures on the petition “speaks
to the strength of our position. The course is cruel and unnecessary
and needs to be replaced.”
The course is conducted every summer. OSU has a five-year grant
for the course, and even if officials refuse to cancel the class
before the grant expires, Dr. Akhtar hopes that at the very least “we
will have put enough pressure for them to think twice about renewing
the grant.”
PCRM Online,
February 2006
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