Deceit and animal rights

By Joel Thurtell

A New York Times article about animal rights activists trying to shut down the horse-drawn carriage trade in Manhattan reminded me that little has changed in the choice of tactics used by self-appointed guardians of animals.

They will lie and cheat because the truth will do them in.

Today’s Times story amazes in that the animal rights people seem — as always — willing to employ duplicity and deceit to win public opinion to their twisted way of thinking.

In this case, the defenders of animal rights pressured their house horse doctor to lie about her findings about the conditions of horses employed in pulling carriages in New York City.

When their equine veterinarian reported being bullied to lie by the animal-lovers, the aforesaid rights advocates canned her.

Animal rights = cool.

Human rights? A loser.

But that’s only the beginning.

These same liars, it turns out, are a chief participant in enforcement of New York animal cruelty laws.

The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is empowered to investigate animal abuse. They are also involved in raising money to lobby legislators to ban the horse-drawn carriage business, including donations to legislators and city council members.

Talk about loading the dice: The ASPCA at one and the same time gets to investigate and prosecute the carriage operators while working the political side in hopes of banning the business.

Why, the ASPCA has even teamed up with a developer to try and take a horse stable and develop it for other uses.

Reminds me of a story I wrote for the Detroit Free Press back in 1985, when the Michigan Humane Society was trying to shut down animal research at the University of Michigan.

Oh, they tried to reassure the public that all they wanted to do was “regulate” the use of animals in research.

But that was a lie. Their own literature showed it was false:

In a 1985 Free Press story, quoted below, I contrasted official Humane Society denials with a quotation from the 1980 Michigan Humane Society “News” that said, “the MHS is
against live animal experimentation, no matter where the animals are taken from.”

I also wrote that a Humane Society document, “Notes from the 1984 Annual Conference of the Humane Society of the
United States,”  explained Humane Society tactics as taught by then society spokesman John McArdle: “Never appear to be opposed to animal research. Claim that your concern is only about the source of the animals
used.”

In 1985, the hot-button issue was a Humane Society-manufactured issue known as “pound seizure.”

Never mind that nobody then or now actually “seizes” animals from animal shelters.

The term “pound seizure” was loaded emotionally, and used by the Humane Society to play on people’s natural tendency to sympathize with pets.

I interviewed McArdle in 1985, and he didn’t back away from the quote that said he wanted to stop all animal research. As for “pound seizure,” that false issue, he said, was meant to help “pass laws to address other concerns dealing with laboratory animals.”

Horse-drawn carriages in Manhattan — that issue may not resonate outside New York.

Animal rights advocates know the horse carriage people don’t have a lot of friends.

And they’re intent on buying political “friends” — paying for votes with campaign money.

For those who think the Manhattan horse carriage is a parochial concern, think about this:

Do you like to go fishing?

Are you a hunter?

When I was reporting the story about University of Michigan animal research, I asked a Humane Society official what their ultimate goal was.

Oh, ultimately, we want to pass a ban on hunting and fishing, I was told.

That’s right — the animal rights people would like to stop me from fishing for bass and pike.

Here’s that story I wrote for the February 14, 1985 Detroit Free Press, reprinted with permission of the Free Press.

Headline: POUND NEW BATTLEGROUND IN COMPLEX CONFLICT

Sub-Head:

Byline:  JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Pub-Date: 2/14/1985

Memo:  ALSO RAN IN WAYNE WEST AND DOWNRIVER ZONES; SEE RELATED ;  STORIES BY MORRIS, MALIVIN AND THURTELL AND SIDEBAR

Correction:

Text: Richard Malvin stopped abruptly in front of a bulletin board near his
office in the University of Michigan Medical School’s animal research
laboratories, and pointed to a lecture announcement.

” ‘Zinc-copper Interaction and a New Treatment for Wilson’s Disease,’ ” the
U-M physiology professor quoted. “A new treatment — that’s what animal
research does.”

It does more than that, in the  view of David Wills, executive secretary of
the Michigan Humane Society. Wills believes research can cause animals to
suffer pain, and the state Humane Society hopes to force researchers like
Malvin  to quit experimenting on the relatively inexpensive dogs and cats they
get from municipal pounds.
Animal shelters are supposed to assure old or unwanted pets a peaceful
death — not a trip to a researcher’s  lab, agrees Julie Morris, general
manager of the Humane Society of Huron Valley near Ann Arbor.
To medical researchers, Malvin and his laboratory’s sheep personify the
impending battle for control  of research methods.
Traditionally, scientists have designed their own experiments, subject to
review by professional colleagues and inspection by federal and state
agencies.
Now, moderate humane  societies like the Ann Arbor organization are
demanding that they be given a role in overseeing research techniques.
Motives questioned
Malvin questions the motives behind such demands, and says humane societies
are being dishonest when they say they only want to stop researchers from
using pound animals.
Morris claims, however, that the Huron Valley society recognizes the value
of research  and only wants to curb abuses.
The Michigan Humane Society and 10 other animal rights groups — including
three anti-vivisectionist societies — have formed a coalition with the
Michigan Humane Society  and have announced they will try to persuade state
legislators in Lansing to forbid the use of pound animals in research.
Malvin and his colleagues, in turn, claim the humane societies are
sentimentalizing  a complex issue by focusing the debate on pets.
If animal welfarists succeed in forbidding the use of pound animals, they
will promote bills further limiting animal research, Malvin warns.
After  the Massachusetts legislature passed such a law, more restrictive
bills were introduced, said Bennett Cohen, head of the U-M Unit for Laboratory
Animal Medicine.
Wills denied that the state society  wants to ban all animal
experimentation.
In 1980, however, the Michigan Humane Society “News” said “the MHS is
against live animal experimentation, no matter where the animals are taken
from.”
Laboratory animal researchers now are circulating a document they say
reveals welfarists’ true intentions.
These “Notes from the 1984 Annual Conference of the Humane Society of the
United States”  quote advice on tactics by society spokesman John McArdle.
“Never appear to be opposed to animal research,” McArdle is quoted as
saying. “Claim that your concern is only about the source of the animals
used.”
In a later interview, McArdle agreed the quote was accurate, and admitted
the second step in the strategy he recommends is to capitalize on a successful
“pound seizure” campaign by working “to pass laws to address other concerns
dealing with laboratory animals.”
That term — “pound seizure” — irks Cohen, a physiologist and veterinarian
who maintains that “it’s their term.”
The  fact is: Michigan law does not allow scientists to “seize” animals
from local pounds.
Local governments may contract with one of several dealers to have dogs and
cats removed regularly from their  pounds. Dealers sell such animals to
university and hospital laboratories.
“Technically, ‘pound seizure’ is just when a state mandates release,”
admitted Wills. “The public has made that a tag label for everything.”
Malvin argues that it is not the public, but animal welfarists, who have
popularized the term.
For example, the heading of the Huron Valley animal shelter’s official
statement  on the subject uses “pound seizure.”
Emotions run high
The sheep’s low “baaaah” echoes through a corridor of the U-M Medical
Science Building as Malvin leads a Free Press photographer and reporter  on a
tour.
A metal knob atop the sheep’s head controls a needle that has been
surgically implanted in the animal’s brain. By injecting drugs directly into
the its cerebral spinal fluid, Malvin explains,  medical researchers can
induce — and study — high blood pressure in the sheep.
“We’ve made a few discoveries — we showed that a hormone system affects
blood pressure in a way we never thought  of,” he said.
For many, however, the issue is not sheep. It is pets, and the possibility
that they may be used in experimenters’ laboratories.
“There’s mice, there’s rabbits, there’s other things  besides household
pets,” one man argued at a Taylor City Council meeting in December.
The council debated and then voted to continue a contract with a Hodgins
Kennels, Inc., a Howell animal dealer  who collects live and dead animals from
the Taylor pound. Hodgins sells some of the live cats and dogs to research
laboratories; others he kills.
It is nearly impossible to discuss the issue of animal rights versus
biomedical research without running into someone’s emotions.
Americans love their pets — especially dogs and cats. But they also love
their standard of living, including the promise of a longer life-span.
“Virtually every major medical advance of the last century has depended
upon research with animals,” says a brochure of the Foundation for Biomedical
Research.
But M.W.  Fox, the national Humane Society’s scientific director, contends
that “since the causes of human diseases are primarily mental, social and
environmental, the use of animals as appropriate models must  be seriously
questioned.”
Scientists could not disagree more.
An abbreviated list of medical achievements made possible through animal
research includes open-heart surgery, development of asthma  medications,
kidney dialysis, cataract removal, hypertension medications, blood
transfusions, antibiotics and immunization against such former killers as
diphtheria, mumps, measles, smallpox and polio.
The statement that polio vaccine resulted from animal experiments bothers
Wills, who argues that polio vaccine was developed on “tissue,” not on
animals.
In response, Malvin repeats that key term:  “Tissue. Tissues come from
animals. Many decades of animal research culminated in a solution that allows
us to make a vaccine. It’s sheer nonsense to pretend polio vaccine could have
been developed without  the use of animals.”
New element in debate
The national Humane Society’s McArdle introduced a new element to the
debate when he proposed that brain-dead humans be used in place of animals in
live  experimentation.
“It’s the appropriate animal, it’s the appropriate size,” said McArdle.
“Now, that’s something that we would be comfortable with, rather than an
animal that can suffer.”
After  a moment of reflection, Morris said she agreed with McArdle that
brain-dead humans would be an alternative, but “there would have to be
informed consent of the person previously, or consent of the family.  Clearly,
without that I would object.”
While Morris agrees that medical science has achieved impressive results,
the means — animal experimentation — needs closer monitoring.
“Nothing in the  current laws applies to rats or mice,” Morris said, and
added, “nothing in current laws protects animals during experimentation.”
Morris is right, says Howard Rush, a U-M veterinarian — there are  no laws
governing experiments on rats or mice.
But there are laws to protect animals during experiments, he said.
Thumbing through pages of the federal Animal Welfare Act, Rush read, “In
the  case of a research facility, the program of adequate veterinary care
shall include the appropriate use of anesthetic, analgesic, or tranquilizing
drugs, when such use would be proper in the opinion of  the attending
veterinarian . . .”
Still, Morris and Wills argue that videotapes stolen from a University of
Pennsylvania laboratory prove scientists failed to anesthetize animals. The
tapes prove  the need for more regulation, Morris said.
Monkeys could be seen moving, which shows they were not given an
anesthetic, she said.
But according to an article by Thomas Gennarelli, chief of the  University
of Pennsylvania head injury study, the animals were given sernalyn, an
anesthetic which “renders the animals incapable of feeling pain, but does not
render them comatose as other anesthetics  do.” Thus, although they were
anesthetized, they could move.
Wills has a copy of the edited tapes. “They even shocked me,” he said.
But Malvin accuses animal welfarists of intentionally drawing a false
conclusion from the tapes.
“They know damned well those animals were anesthetized,” Malvin said.

Caption:

Illustration:  PHOTO AL KAMUDA

Edition: METRO FINAL

Section:  NWS

Page: 3A

Keywords: CONTROVERSY; ANIMAL; RESEARCH; TEST

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