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13 Info. Rep.: Animal Welfare Inst. 1 (1964)

handle is hein.animal/awiqu0013 and id is 1 raw text is: ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE 22 EAST 17th STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. 10003 January-February 1964 SENATOR WITHDRAWS HIGH SCHOOL CRUELTY BILL Apparently irritated by requests to stop cruel experiments in high school science classes, the New York State Department of Education tried, unsuccessfully, to slip through an amendment to the state anti- cruelty law which would have allowed un- limited pain infliction on animals in high school biology classes. A shocked public, when it learned the facts, protested so strongly to the Senate Codes Committee where the bill was pend- ing, that its sponsor, Senator George R. Metcalf, withdrew it, stating that the De- partment of Education had given him a misleading memorandum. The Senator said, I got what is known in the trade as a Brodie. (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 13, 1964) Miss Beeson of the Department's legal division, stated that she wrote the bill and volunteered emphatically that it does apply to high schools, though the phrase used to describe places which she proposed to exempt from New York State Law, Section 185 (Overdriving, torturing, and injuring animals: failing to provide proper susten- ance) hardly was calculated to inform the reader of this fact. The proposed amend- ment read: Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prohibit or interfere with any scientific experiment or investigation in any accredited or degree granting institution of the university of the state of New York. The bill is dead for this year, but the callous disregard both for animals and for the developing characters of young people throughout the huge New York State school system remains in the Education Depart- ment. Vol. 13 No. I FALSE STATEMENTS BY MEDICAL RESEARCH SOCIETIES In 1955 Dr. Robert Bay was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Medal of the Animal Welfare Institute in recognition of his outstanding humane care and management of a large colony of experimental beagles at the Radiobiology Laboratory, College of Medicine, University of Utah. Short- ly before he flew east to receive the medal, Dr. Bay resigned his position when he was denied the right to put a severely suffering dog out of its misery. This dog had 27 different fractures and severe ulceration of the mouth resulting from the radioactive materials with which it had been injected. There was no valid scientific reason for prolonging its agony, and the arbitrary cruelty of those in charge of the Radiobiology Labora- tory was reported to the thousands of readers of the INFORMATION RE- PORT (Vol. 4, No. 5). What was our surprise, then, to find that this same institution is now claiming that it, rather than Dr. Bay, was awarded the Schweitzer Medal and that Bob Bay was never denied permission to euthanize an animal. This outrageous falsification is published in the current issue of the New York State Society for Medical Research Bulletin under the heading, A Minister Investigates the Investigators, and though it is only one of the many untrue statements contained in this Bulletin, it is the one which the AWI could not honorably leave uncorrected since it deals with the Schweitzer Medal and with a truly humane scientist, the first winner of the medal, Dr. Bay. A second example of brazen falsification of past happenings is included in the current Events of another medical research society, the National Society for Medical Research, which undertakes to distort the facts of the Zoologicals Worldwide case, actually going so far as to call this case of gross cruelty a dishonest anti-vivisectionist gimmick! The V ...a p had tried supplier animals a financially sold stoc Humane photograp lying in and obtai publicity P.T.A. Groups and Humane illustrated Societies Should be Alert federal le In the event that other promoters of un- latin ai limited animal experiments should attempt not meni similar tampering with anti-cruelty laws in that no I other states, Parent Teachers Associations posed or and humane societies are urged to be alert. affect suck Howev Mr. C. Raynond Naramore, Executive worked. Director of the Humane Society of Roches- Ohio cite ter and Monroe County, and an experienced incident high' school teacher himself, issued a state- his bill t 9 mel resear ment on behalf of the New York State ington Po Humane Association which gives back- to the e ground on the problem. bankrupt Two years ago, a high school biology had show Congress teacher of fourteen-year-olds in Monroe Clark - Ne County became very much disturbed when bill. I protested his using white mice in a cancer transplanting experiment in his classroom, Rochester phy- sicians and -the administrators of the University of Roches- ter Medical School backed my protest wholeheartedly. In the same high school classroom in which this so-called cancer research was to have been made, a terrified little NSMR ersion )et dealer who to act as a of laboratory nd had failed killed his un- k of animals. Society agents hed the bodies burial trenches ned nationwide to the effect ugly spectacle the need for gislation regu- mal experimen- e publicity did ion the fact egislation pro- discussed would situations. er, the device Rep. Ashley of d the Virginia in introducing o restrict ani- ch. The Wash- st editorialized ffect that the animal dealer n the need for to adopt the iberger - Young THE FACTS Zoologicals Worldwide was an importer and dealer handling all kinds of experimental ani- mals from hamsters to gorillas as shown in the listings of the National Academy of Sci- ences-National Research Council Publication No. 907 on the sources of laboratory ani- mals. It had a board of directors of well- established businessmen. Z.W.'s failure came after front-page publicity on the appalling negligence and cruelty. Newspaper reporters photographed the barn and trenches full of dead animals. A neighbor called the police. The Washington papers carried the admission by National Institutes of Health spokesmen that NIH had inspected and approved the ZW barn, thus clearly demonstrating NIH's incapacity to observe or prevent even the most obvious and extreme abuse of animals. NIH was a good customer of ZW's, getting regular shipments of dogs from them, the last group just ten days before the publicity led to a shutdown of the premises. Most medical research is done in our country using NIH money and NIH approval of facilities and pro- cedures. Federal regulation of animal experi- mentation, removing control from NIH, is clear- ly called for in the light of this performance. ZW's cruelty was a shameful fact, not a device. Rep. Ashley who had never been in touch with groups sponsoring humane legisla- tion read the newspaper report and introduced a bill the next day. Rep. Ashley selected the less restrictive of the two House bills on which hearings had been held in the previous year. The Washington Post published an editorial which is as sound today as it was then. (For the text of the editorial and additional details on the case see Information Report, Vol. 12, No. 2). hamster had been caged several weeks with a six foot boa- constrictor waiting to be devoured so that 'the pupils could observe the digestive process of a snake.' I threatened to arrest the teacher if he did not remove the trembling (Continued on page 2) Y 0 N

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