The March of Dimes has funded a series of controversial experiments, including brain damaging and freezing newborn ferrets, injecting pregnant animals with cocaine, nicotine, and alcohol, tethering pregnant monkeys to cages by monitoring cables running through the mothers' uteruses and into their fetuses’ bodies, sewing shut the eyelids of newborn kittens, subjecting pregnant sheep to severe dehydration, and deliberately injuring the lungs of newborn lambs. These are just a few of the March of Dimes’ ineffective, unethical experiments on animals that do not help mothers or babies – the most significant advances in understanding the causes of birth defects have come from human-based research.
Although the rates of almost all birth defects have either remained steady or increased, the number of preterm births has risen steadily since 1969, and the rate of maternal mortality has not improved since the 1980s, March of Dimes president Jennifer Howse takes in an annual salary of nearly half a million dollars. This exorbitant nonprofit salary comes at the expense of funding for programs, and contributes to the full one-quarter of MOD’s budget that goes toward fundraising and administrative costs.
The March of Dimes has funded a series of controversial experiments, including brain damaging and freezing newborn ferrets, injecting pregnant animals with cocaine, nicotine, and alcohol, tethering pregnant monkeys to cages by monitoring cables running through the mothers' uteruses and into their fetuses’ bodies, sewing shut the eyelids of newborn kittens, subjecting pregnant sheep to severe dehydration, and deliberately injuring the lungs of newborn lambs. These are just a few of the March of Dimes’ ineffective, unethical experiments on animals that do not help mothers or babies – the most significant advances in understanding the causes of birth defects have come from human-based research.