PCRM's Campaign to end "Cruelty 101"
Over the past year, PCRM and many of our members have called
upon Ohio State University (OSU) to stop teaching cruel spinal cord
injury research techniques as part of its Spinal Cord Injury Research
Techniques summer course.
Nicknamed “Cruelty 101”, the course recruits technicians,
graduate students, and researchers from various institutions and
trains them to injure the spinal cords of mice and rats. During
each summer course, taking place this summer from July 10-30, nearly
270 animals are subjected to serious injuries. This involves exposing
the animals’ spinal cords by laminectomy and injuring the
cord through blunt trauma. The animals’ skin, muscle, and
other tissue is peeled away, vertebra are removed, and a machine
drops a weight onto the animals’ spinal cords that, depending
on the force exerted, can bruise, crush, or tear the spinal cord.
Postoperatively, animals develop complications ranging from impaired
bladder function to paralysis. Animals with spinal cord injuries
are often in pain, and some even respond by chewing into their own
skin and muscle. The animals are only checked for pain twice per
day.
After a short “recovery”, the animals are led through
a series of neurobehavioral exercises designed to test the extent
of their injury. The animals’ ability to reflexively withdraw
limbs and right themselves if dropped upside down, as well as their
ability to sense touch and hot temperatures are tested. Their ability
to swim, stand, and move on various surfaces such as a treadmill,
an open field, an elevated runway, an increasing inclined plane,
a rotorod, and a raised wire grid are also tested.
In its attempts to train new scientists to conduct spinal cord
research, OSU is actually proliferating the outdated research methods
using animals that forward-thinking scientists are working to replace.
Using established alternatives and investing in the development of new ones is the key to easing
the burden of spinal cord injuries in humans—not hundreds
of painful animal experiments.
Despite repeated pleas from the public, PCRM physicians, paralyzed
persons, and prominent neurologists, OSU insists on continuing to
teach course participants these cruel and outdated methods, instead
of teaching students to develop and use research methods that will
truly help spinal cord injury patients.
 |
PCRM press event in Columbus,
OH, in late May 2005 |
PCRM has tried to meet with OSU administrators and Institutional
Animal Care and Use Committee (ILACUC) members numerous times, even
holding a press event in Columbus, OH, in late May 2005. To no avail.
OSU administrators have forced PCRM to file suit in Ohio State Supreme
court to obtain videos and photographs of the procedures.
Right now, PCRM needs you to
write to OSU President Karen Holbrook, and the State of Ohio Board
of Regents. Tell them what you think!
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Action Alert: Help Stop Inhumane Spinal Cord Classes at OSU
