March of Dimes-Funded Animal Experiments: Commonly Asked Questions
Animal Welfare
1. Does the March of Dimes still fund shocking animal
experiments?
2. Is there any evidence for the poor treatment
of animals in March of Dimes experiments?
3. How can there be any pain or suffering involved
in animal experiments since there are animal protection laws which
regulate this?
4. Did the March of Dimes really fund experiments
in which kittens' eyes were sewn shut?
March of Dimes Claims of Advances From Animal
Experiments
5. Could these animal experiments save the lives
of human babies?
6. Was any useful information gained in the visual
experiments conducted by the March of Dimes which involved sewing
shut kittens' eyes?
7. What about the animal experiments of which the
March of Dimes boasts concerning diaphragmatic hernia?
8. Did surfactant therapy for premature infants
depend on animal experiments as the March of Dimes claims?
March of Dimes Claims Regarding the “Need”
for More Animal Experimentation
9. Drug and alcohol use are big problems today.
Don't we need to do the sort of animal experiments which the March
of Dimes has performed on drug abuse?
10. Don't we need to fund research on cross-species
transplants, as the March of Dimes has done, because there are
not enough donor organs?
March of Dimes Claims About the Utility of
Animal Experiments
11. Don't scientists need to observe the complex
interactions of cells, tissues, and organs in live animals?
12. What has been the role of animal experiments
in the fight against birth defects?
March of Dimes' Funding Priorities
13. Why would the March of Dimes spend money on
animal experiments if they did not feel that they were necessary?
14. The March of Dimes devotes only some of its
resources to animal experiments. Isn't there enough money to fund
animal experiments and other programs?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Animal Welfare
1. Does the March of Dimes still fund shocking
animal experiments?
In 2001, the March of Dimes provided nearly $200,000 to researchers
at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center to cause uterine
infections in healthy pregnant monkeys to try to trigger premature
labor. In these experiments, researchers insert monitoring cables
into the monkeys’ uteruses and into their babies’ bodies,
tethering the animals in cages that are too small to meet animal
care guidelines. When the babies are born, they are killed for further
study. This is despite the fact that physicians have known for decades
that bacterial infections are linked to pre-term birth.
Mriganka Sur, who along
with Douglas Frost published a paper describing notorious kitten-eyelid-sewing
experiments,1 received a $49,337 grant from the March
of Dimes for July 1, 1995, through June 30, 1996, to continue his
experiments on visual development. Sur has published papers acknowledging
March of Dimes funding at least as recently as 1998. These publications
describe inflicting brain damage in newborn ferrets.2
The March of Dimes has funded numerous studies giving cocaine and
nicotine to pregnant animals, including a long series of experiments
by Edward Levin,3,4 a Duke University toxicologist who has also
received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tobacco industry
and who made headlines announcing that his research shows that nicotine
has “benefits.”
In March of Dimes-funded experiments published in 1997 and 1998,
pregnant lambs were forced to give birth prematurely. The infant
lambs then had their breathing artificially manipulated, producing
severe injuries to their lungs. The lambs were killed at the conclusion
of the experiment.5,6
The March of Dimes has refused to stop funding research involving
any species of animal.
2. Is there any evidence for the poor treatment
of animals in March of Dimes experiments?
Almost all animal experiments involve psychological and/or physical
trauma to the animals. Primates in March of Dimes-funded experiments
have died due to the absence of an anesthesiologist during surgery,
lack of sufficient monitoring after surgery, technical failure of
stapling devices, inadequate obstetrical care, and from surgical
“technical problems.” There have been numerous wound
infection complications resulting in at least one death. March of
Dimes experimenters also restrained monkeys in chairs for many days
at a time, sewed cats' eyes shut, and gave ferrets and other animals
severe brain damage.
3. How can there be any pain or suffering
involved in animal experiments since there are animal protection
laws which regulate this?
Animal welfare laws are insufficient to provide even basic protections.
There are three main problems with the current laws. First, the
laws merely provide minimal standards for housing, handling, and
transportation of animals and do not control what goes on in the
laboratory itself. Experimenters can essentially do whatever they
want to an animal in an experiment, even perform painful, invasive
experiments without any anesthetics or analgesics. Second, most
animals subjected to experiments are not even covered by federal
law because the legislation specifically excludes rats, mice, and
birds. Third, numerous studies have shown that even these weak laws
are not adequately enforced.
4. Did the March of Dimes really fund experiments
in which kittens' eyes were sewn shut?
Yes. Although the charity
used to deny this, March of Dimes officials later admitted that
it did fund these experiments. A publication by the experimenters
states that, “[f]our cats were raised with monocular lid suture
from birth to one year or more”1 and cites support from March
of Dimes grant 5-417.
March of Dimes Claims of Advances From Animal
Experiments
5. Could these animal experiments save
the lives of human babies?
Birth defects are prevented and babies are saved when research
dollars go to effective and relevant research, which comes from
studying human problems and human babies, not from sewing kittens'
eyes shut or addicting rats to cocaine.
In one of the most significant findings of recent years in the
fight to prevent birth defects, human observations in England and
Wales suggested a link between folic acid and neural tube defects
(NTDs). Subsequent human clinical trials confirmed that women who
had previous NTD pregnancies could greatly reduce their risk of
another NTD-affected pregnancy by taking folic acid supplements.
The link between pre-pregnancy obesity and neural tube defects also
was uncovered by human, not animal, studies. Every penny spent funding
questionable experiments on ferrets or kittens is a penny that could
go to educating mothers, providing folic acid supplements, and directly
helping babies at risk.
By studying birth registry
data and human clinical trials, researchers recently made the stunning
discovery that magnesium sulfate can prevent two-thirds of all cases
of cerebral palsy and nearly half of all mental retardation in very
low birth weight babies. Again, we find that a major victory in
the war against birth defects involved absolutely no animal tests.
Animal experiments can give dangerously misleading results that
put human babies at risk. For example, the antibiotic streptomycin
was declared “safe” after it was tested on dogs, guinea
pigs, and mice. Tragedy occurred when many babies who were given
the drug were blinded, went deaf, suffered brain damage, and even
died.
6.
Was any useful information gained in the visual experiments funded
by the March of Dimes which involved sewing shut kittens' eyes?
Visual development experiments have been done for decades without
yielding anything of clinical relevance that could not have been
learned from human studies. In these March of Dimes experiments,
no mention is made of how the results of these studies might solve
a human birth defect problem. In addition, a veterinary ophthalmologist
commented that because cats and ferrets have much of the development
of their retina and brain projections after birth, while in humans
much of this development occurs prior to birth, the results of these
studies are meaningless for humans.
7. What about the animal experiments of
which the March of Dimes boasts concerning diaphragmatic hernia?
Diaphragmatic hernia is simply a hole in the diaphragm that allows
the abdominal organs to pass into the chest. Even though human studies
have already given us a good understanding of this condition, the
March of Dimes funded experiments on sheep in which a diaphragmatic
hernia was simulated by inflating a balloon in the chest of lambs
while they were still in the womb. No new discoveries about diaphragmatic
hernias were made from these experiments.
Experiments were also
conducted in which diaphragmatic hernias were created before birth
in lambs by making a hole in the diaphragm. Attempts to repair this
surgically created defect did not fully prepare surgeons for the
skills needed to correct the defect in humans because of the differences
between the defect in human infants and the artificially created
defect in lambs. Despite the practice on lambs, five of the first
six human babies who were operated on for diaphragmatic hernias
died either during the operation or of operative complications.
According to the surgeons themselves, these initial attempts at
surgery in humans taught them many important lessons.
8. Did surfactant therapy for premature
infants depend on animal experiments as the March of Dimes claims?
No. Surfactant is a natural compound that allows the lungs to operate
normally. It was discovered in experiments using animal and human
lung specimens in the late 1950s. Although some animal lung specimens
were used, human lung specimens could have been used alone. Three
years after its discovery, researchers demonstrated that premature
infants have no surfactant in their lungs, but that the substance
is present in the lungs of more mature infants, children, and adults.
Within a few years, trials had begun administering this substance
to infants with lung problems. Human studies continue today to improve
surfactant therapy for infants.
March of Dimes Claims Regarding the "Need"
for More Animal Experimentation
9. Drug and alcohol use are big problems
today. Don't we need to do the sort of animal experiments which
the March of Dimes has performed on drug abuse?
Nicotine and cocaine experiments on animals won't solve the problems
associated with drug and alcohol abuse. These experiments do not
give results that apply to humans, nor do they do anything to stem
drug abuse and its associated dangers to unborn babies. For example,
in one experiment, nicotine was given to pregnant rats, and then
the offspring were tested to see how they performed in a maze. In
another experiment, alcohol was given by injection to newborn opossums,
their sex organs were removed, and they then received first testosterone
and then estrogen implants. In yet another experiment, daily cocaine
injections were given to pregnant rats, and then the offspring were
tested in a maze. While some experimenters may find these exercises
to be intellectually appealing, they do not stop human birth defects.
10. Don't we need to fund research on
cross-species transplants, as the March of Dimes has done, because
there are not enough donor organs?
Cross-species transplants are not even close to being a reality.
In fact, no human who has received an animal organ has lived past
nine months. In March of Dimes experiments transplanting pig hearts
or kidneys into primates, most primates died in less than three
days. Animal organs can also carry dangerous, potentially lethal
viruses that could infect the transplant recipient and his or her
family, friends, and contacts. Strengthening human donor programs
and education initiatives on preventing organ disease will give
humans with organ dysfunction the best chance for survival.
March
of Dimes Claims about the Utility of Animal Experiments
11. Don't scientists need to observe the
complex interactions of cells, tissues, and organs in live animals?
Because animal physiology differs so greatly from species to species,
it is difficult to extrapolate from animal data to humans. Many
of these animal experiments are “basic science” and
do not even try to find cures or treatments.
Virtually all known developmental hazards were identified and/or
characterized through studies of human populations. Such population
studies have been responsible for identifying, among other things,
the association between alcohol use by pregnant women and the development
of birth defects, the association between cigarette smoking and
problems associated with pregnancy, and the association between
the hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES) given to pregnant women and
the development of cancer in their children.
12. What has been the role of animal experiments
in the fight against birth defects?
Virtually all known developmental hazards were identified and/or
characterized through studies of human populations. In fact, the
March of Dimes publishes a list of its “milestones,”
virtually all of which have been projects or events with nothing
to do with animal experimentation. Additionally, one of the most
popular reference sources among genetic counselors presents no animal
testing information at all, relying solely on human data. It is
clear that animal experimentation is not the road to answers in
the fight against birth defects.
March of Dimes' Funding Priorities
13. Why would the March of Dimes spend
money on animal experiments if they did not feel that they were
necessary?
It is hard to escape the conclusion that at least some March of
Dimes administrators do not have a good grasp of research priorities.
When PCRM doctors met with Michael Katz, M.D., Vice President of
Research for the March of Dimes, he stated that without animal experiments
we would not know about the dangers of smoking or alcohol in pregnancy.
The scientific literature proves that these dangers were discovered
in human clinical studies, not animal experiments. This ignorance
about which research methods have proven most effective in the fight
against birth defects results in money being inappropriately given
to animal experiments rather than to more promising programs.
14. The March of Dimes devotes only some
of its resources to animal experiments. Isn't there enough money
to fund animal experiments and other programs?
Every dollar wasted on
useless animal experiments is a dollar not spent on programs that
work. In 2002, the March of Dimes spent at least $10 million on
experiments involving animals. What would happen if they were to
spend that money on nonanimal research and programs? Reliance on
faulty animal tests puts human health in jeopardy and causes needless
pain and suffering for animals. Since 1970, the incidences of most
birth defects have risen substantially; only two have declined.
Animal experiments also divert millions of dollars from valuable
human studies and research programs. A national birth defects registry
is desperately needed to uncover the causes of many birth defects.
The largest registry in the United States, run by the Centers for
Disease Control, collects only limited information.
There is also an urgent need to improve prenatal care in this country.
Every year 1.2 million women receive insufficient prenatal care,
yet up to 25 percent of all infant deaths could be prevented if
this care were given to all mothers. About 12 percent of all pregnant
women smoke throughout their pregnancies. If smoking during pregnancy
were eliminated, infant deaths would decrease by up to 10 percent.
Alcohol abuse during pregnancy is the leading preventable cause
of birth defects and mental retardation.
Instead of giving alcohol to rats, we need to educate mothers and
offer help to those with a problem. Additionally, teenage pregnancies,
drug abuse, and AIDS remain major threats to unborn children. We
need to devote as many resources as we can to preventive measures
such as prenatal care, addiction treatment, and counseling. When
the March of Dimes gives money to experiment on animals, babies
suffer too.
What
You Can Do
Contact
the March of Dimes with your concerns about its continued funding
of animal experiments.
References
1. Sur M, Frost DO, Hockfield S. Expressions of a surface-associated
antigen on Y-cells in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus is regulated
by visual experience. J Neurosci 1988;8(3):874-82.
2. Angelucci A, Clasca F, Sur M. Brainstem inputs to the Ferret
medial geniculate nucleus and the effect of early deafferation on
novel retinal projections to the auditory thalmus. J Comp Neurol
1998;400(3):417-39.
3. Seidler FJ, Levin ED, Morgan M, Lappi SE, Slotkin TA. Fetal nicotine
exposure ablates the ability of postnatal challenge to release norepinephrine
from rat brain regions. Brain Res Dev Brain Res 1992;69(2):288-91.
4. Levin ED, Seidler FJ. Sex-related spatial learning differences
after prenatal cocaine exposure in the young adult rat. Neurotoxicology
1993;14:23-8.
5. Pierce RA, Albertine KH, Starcher BC, Bohnsack JF, Carlton DP,
Bland RA. Chronic lung injury in preterm lambs: disordered pulmonary
elastin deposition. Am J Physiol 1997;272(3 Pt 1):L452-60.
6. Albertine KH, MacRitchie AN, Young BJ, et al. Altered vascular
development in preterm lambs with chronic lung injury. Chest 1998;
114:6S-7S.
Media
Center | Health | Research
| About PCRM | Catalog
| Join Us | Search
| Site Index | Home
The site does
not provide medical or legal advice. This Web site is for information purposes
only.
Full Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
|
Concerns
About the March of Dimes
