Class B Dealers Won't Profit From Cats Sold To Research

PHOTO: The legs of a cat used in a pyschology lab are deliberately deformed. Brian Gunn / IAAPEA, animalexperimentspictures.com

THIS ALERT IS CLOSED. It is archived to use for a letter-writing example or background research.

UPDATE: Under New Ban, NIH-Supported Research Ends Use Of Random Sourced Cats

2/8/12 - National Institutes of Health (NIH), the main funding arm of U.S. biomedical research, published plans to "transition from use of Class B cats." As of October 2012, a ban on cats from random source dealers (B dealers) takes effects.

Pound Seizure: Each year shelter animals are purchased by dealers and sold to research and education sites for use in excruciating procedures. Class B dealers also amass dogs and cats from free-to-good home ads or employ bunchers to steal them from yards and cars.

Behind a lab's locked doors, they are gone forever. It is impossible to track an animal after he or she undergoes toxic dosing, invasive surgery and other experiments. Kinship Circle's Profit From Misery pushed for legislation to end the sale of companion animals to research.

Use of Class B animals is astonishingly irresponsible, given ongoing innovations in animal-free research. Some Congressmembers agreed and prompted a National Academies of Science committee to further investigate. A 2009 report, Scientific and Humane Issues in the Use of Random Source Dogs and Cats in Research, concluded that NIH- financed studies do not need dogs and cats from Class B dealers. The report also recognized the unscrupulous nature of dealers, known for Animal Welfare Act violatoins.

Frustratingly, the 2012 rule to end use of USDA Class B cats does not extend to dogs. NIH opted to postpone a ban on dogs until 2015.

UPDATE SOURCES:

action

Dear Representative and Senators:

Congress can help save thousands of companion animals like Bo Obama (or like your own furry family members) by proposing legislation that outlaws the sale of random source animals to biomedical research, product testing and education. Your swift action can spare cats and dogs from invasive surgeries, toxic dosing, pain, loneliness and death inside a laboratory.

Controversial class B dealers buy animals from shelters (pound seizure), free-to- good-home ads, and other "random sources" for lucrative sale to research facilities. Some employ "bunchers" to steal dogs from yards and cars. Any shelter that engages in pound seizure with a Class B dealer has forsaken its role as a refuge for lost or surrendered animals.

I respectfully ask you to introduce legislation that ends the sale and shipment of "pets" to research centers nationwide. In a recent study from AnimaLearn, a nonprofit working with teachers and students to achieve quality humane science education, 52% of reviewed universities utilize dogs and cats in life science, veterinary, and medical instruction.

This is astonishingly irresponsible, given strides in in-vitro cell technology, computer automation, and innovations such as the simulated immune system Modular Immune In Vitro Construct (MIMIC). Old-fashioned animal research keeps the U.S. out of sync with global progress.

Researchers at Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and elsewhere have begun to replace animals with complex microtissues made from cultured cells. Brown's Jeffrey R. Morgan, medical science and engineering professor, led a team that assembled cells three-dimensionally to replicate live human organs. This human-centric approach not only yields data more relevant to people, but also cuts costs to confine, feed, dissect and discard animals.

Random source Class B dealers are notoriously inhumane, yet our laws let them profit from the misery of gentle animals. Congress not only has the power to shut them down, but to also restrict the publicly despised practice of pound seizure. I strongly urge you to advocate legislation that protects companion animals by banning class B dealers and pound seizure.

Thank you,

YOUR FULL NAME
ADDRESS, CITY, STATE
COUNTRY

alert info

To identify your federal legislators and find contact info, try:
Congress.org: www.congress.org
Project VoteSmart: www.vote-smart.org
USA House of Representatives: www.house.gov
USA Senate: www.senate.gov
Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121

The Honorable Representative [YOUR REP'S NAME HERE]
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Senators [YOUR SENATORS' NAMES HERE]
The U.S. Senate, U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

emails only

THIS ALERT IS CLOSED.

auto-send comments

information

Dying To Learn: Investigation Reveals Supply Line of Dogs and Cats in Higher Education
The American Anti-Vivisection Society
Victim of Pound Seizure: Meet Cruella (E6993)

Every year, hundreds of animals in shelters become victims of pound seizure, as they are purchased by class B dealers who then sell them at an enormous profit to research and education facilities, where they are used in invasive and painful experimental procedures. Such was the case with Cruella, a shepherd cross found in Carson City, Michigan, wearing a purple collar and chain, indicating she was once someone's companion. Considered a stray, Cruella was housed in pen 20 at Montcalm County Animal Control until relinquished to R&R Research, a class B animal dealer, and became known simply as E6993. Later, traveling well over 1,000 miles with 13 other dogs, E6993 was sold to the University of Florida, where veterinary students named her Cruella. While there, over 7 months, she was sedated or anesthetized 7 times, often for hours at a time, and used in medical training procedures, including endoscopy, abdominal surgery, and ultrasound exercises… READ REST OF CRUELLA'S STORY

Disaster aid for animals + action for all hurt by greed, cruelty and hate.

Disaster aid for animals + action for all
hurt by greed, cruelty, hate.

Background

Action

Alert Info

Auto-Send

about

Kinship Circle

In kinship, not dominion, each individual is seen. We do not use the rhetoric of slavery. To define animals as unique beings Guardian, Caregive, Him/Her/They… replace Owner, Own, It… Until moral equity and justice serve all — no one is free.