Humane Charities Campaign

Questionable Research

Below are several examples of disturbing and suspect experiments funded by national health charities. These are just a few examples of the wasteful, shocking experiments often funded by health charities. You may wish to contact these charities yourself to express your concerns, using our advice on writing to health charities. Fortunately, many charities put all their resouces into effective human-based research and direct services instead of funding animal experiments. For a list of charities that do and do not fund animal experiments see our Guide to Cruelty-Free Giving.

The March of Dimes (MOD) has funded research in which newborn kittens had their eyelids sewn shut in an attempt to study the effects of visual deprivation. MOD itself admits that this study yielded no clinically relevant advances. Additional MOD-funded experiments have included a variety of studies addicting animals to cocaine, alcohol, and nicotine, even though we have known for years that these substances can harm developing babies. While the March of Dimes has continued to sink money into questionable animal experiments, the real advances in birth defects research have come from human studies.

The American Lung Association (ALA) has also funded gruesome, wasteful animal experiments even though animal studies of lung disease have often proven inaccurate. For example, repeated animal studies failed to demonstrate a correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Yet, in a study conducted by an investigator who received an ALA research award, pregnant primates had their babies surgically removed from their bodies and killed to compare the lung tissue of fetuses at different stages of development.¹ In another study funded by ALA, pregnant sheep underwent surgery in which catheters were inserted inside them and sections of their uteruses were surgically removed. Later, the baby sheep were delivered by caesarean section and the mothers were killed. Within five minutes of their birth, the newborns were subjected to additional surgery.²

American Lung Association, National Headquarters
1740 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
212-315-8700.

The American Red Cross (ARC) claims that “Animals used in our laboratory work are well treated and not tortured in any way,” yet ARC has funded studies in which genetically-altered mice were allowed to develop ailments including neural tumors, gastrointestinal tissue malformations, shaking tremors, seizures, and paralysis.^3-5 In another ARC-funded experiment, rabbits had 22 percent to 30 percent of their blood volume bled every two weeks.⁶

More recently, the ARC performed some shockingly gruesome experiments on pigs and goats to test a new bandage technology. Extensive and severe liver injuries,^{7, 8} kidney injuries,^9-10 and artery damage ^{11, 12} were inflicted on live pigs, and live goats were given shock-inducing ballistic injuries.¹³ There were at least 12 different experiments published in papers dating from 1995 to 2003, as well as eight unpublished experiments. All came to similar conclusions: The new bandage technology works better than the old one.

American Red Cross,
430 17th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20006
202-737-8300
info@usa.redcross.org

The American Heart Association (AHA) has funded a variety of experiments which involve highly invasive procedures being performed on dogs. In one study, 27 dogs had their heart vessels dissected while they were still alive.^14,15 However, dogs do not accurately simulate human heart disease. Veterinarian Dr. Holly Cheever observes,

“The kind of heart disease seen in humans has no correlation with canine heart problems. Dogs may have genetic heart problems or congestive heart failure due to mechanical failure in the mitral heart valve, but they do not develop myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) due to the blockage of the coronary arteries which supply the heart. This is a human condition. Therefore, to attempt to artificially create human heart disease, our number one killer, in canines is inappropriate, ineffective, and diverts funds from the more rational approach, which is prevention.”

American Heart Association
7272 Greenville Ave., Dallas, TX 75231-4596
214-373-6300
ncrp@heart.org

References
1. Jackson JC, Clark JG, Standaert TA, et al. Collagen synthesis during lung development and during hyaline membrane disease in the nonhuman primate. Am Rev Respir Dis 1990;141:846-53.
2. Davidson D. Pulmonary hemodynamics at birth: effect of accute cyclooxygenase inhibition in lambs. J Appl Physiol 1988;64:4:1676-82.
3. Yoshioka T, Feigenbaum L. Transgenic mouse model for central nervous system demyelination. Molecular and Cellular Biology 1991;11:11:5479-86.
4. Feigenbaum L, et al. JC virus and simian virus 40 enhancers and transforming proteins role in determining tissue specificity and pathogenicity. Journal of Virology 1992;66:1176-82.
5. Pollock R, et al. Altering the boundaries of Hox3.1 expression: evidence of antipodal gene regulation. Cell 1992;71:911-23.
6. Penn, Arthur and Snyder, Carroll A. Inhalation of sidestream cigarette smoke accelerates development of arteriosclerotic plaques. Circulation 1993;88:1820-5.

7. Holcombe JB, Pusateri AE, Harris RA, et al. Effect of dry fibrin sealant dressings versus gauze packing on blood loss in Grade V liver injuries in resuscitated swine. J Trauma Injury, Infection, and Critical Care 1999a;46:49-57.

8. Holcombe JB, Pusateri AE, Harris RA, et al. Dry fibrin sealant dressings reduce blood loss, resuscitation volume, and improve survival in hypothermic coagulopathic swine with grade V liver injuries. J Trauma 1999b;47(2):233-42.

9. Jackson MR, Taher MM, Burge JR, et al. Hemostatic efficacy of a fibrin sealant dressing in an animal model of kidney injury. J Trauma 1998;45(4):662-5.

10. Morey AF, Anema JG, Harris R, et al. Treatment of grade 4 renal stab wounds with absorbable fibrin adhesive bandage in a porcine model. J Urol 2001 Mar;165(3):955-8.

11. Jackson MR, Friedman SA, Carter AJ, et al. Hemostatic efficacy of a fibrin sealant-based topical agent in a femoral artery injury model: a randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled study. J Vasc Surg 1997 Aug;26(2):274-80.

12. Sondeen JL, Pusateri AE, Coppes VG, et al. Comparison of 10 different hemostatic dressings in an aortic injury. J Trauma 2003 Feb;
54(2): 280-5.

13. Holcomb JB, MacPhee M, Hetz S, et al. Efficacy of a dry fibrin sealant dressing for hemorrhage control after ballistic injury. Arc Surg 1998 Jan;133(1):32-5.

14 . Fewell JE, Taylor BJ, Kondo CS, et al. Influence of carotid denervation on the arousal and cardiopulmonary responses to upper airway obstruction in lambs. Pediatric Research 1990;28:4:374-8.
15 . Ardell JL, Randall WC, Cannon WJ, et al. Differential sympathetic regulation of automatic conductile, and contractile tissue in dog heart. American Physiological Society 1988;H1050-9.

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