(Note from the Editor: We’ve said it a thousand times before but it bears repeating: We love animals. And the very idea that this is happening, still happening, in a polite and educated society, is disgusting.)
It seems that the new secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Robert Wilkie, has rejected loud calls from some veterans’ advocates to “suspend invasive and ultimately fatal experiments on dogs because he says they could potentially advance medical research and lead to breakthroughs that could help veterans.”1
Why? Because thousands of dogs are euthanized every day all over this country and the VA only has 92 dogs they want to torture before they give them a lethal injection.
Unbelievable.
“In Milwaukee, the experiments call for researchers to remove sections of dogs’ brains to test neurons that control breathing before the animals are killed by lethal injection, research records show.
In Cleveland, tests involve using electrodes on dogs’ spinal cords to measure cough reflexes before and after severing the cords.
In Richmond, Virginia, experiments include implanting pacemakers in dogs, then inducing abnormal heart rhythms and running the animals on treadmills to test cardiac function before euthanizing them by injection or draining their blood.”1
And this is only 3 of the active experiments being done. According to records reviewed by USA TODAY, “there are nine active experiments at four VA facilities, and more are likely in the future.”2
But is it this torture useful? VA officials believe so. However, when pressed to cite the most recent data credited to the VA dog research, there isn’t any. And there isn’t any from this decade. No, you’d have to go way back, according to the VA’s own website, to find experiments that led to the invention of an implantable cardiac pacemaker… in the 1960s.
“White Coat Waste Project, the group that started the campaign to end the experiments, says they should be suspended until the study is completed.
‘I think it calls into question the integrity of the VA’s intentions if it is going to continue funding and conducting dog experiments that it has just paid an organization over a million dollars to scrutinize,’ said Justin Goodman, the vice president of advocacy and public policy for the organization.”3
The Paralyzed Veterans of America “…no longer oppose efforts to end VA fatal medical research on dogs”4 and Sherman Gillums Jr., chief strategy officer at American Veterans, said “It’s time for us to look at better ways and spend money smarter than we’ve done it in the past – especially if it’s going to involve causing pain to the same animals that most veterans need as service dogs. To imagine them in cages being tested on with no real outcome that gives anybody hope, it just seems cruel.”5
Due to surgery failures and deaths in VA experiments on dogs, Congress is paying close attention but it won’t stop tests involving pain for dogs.
We cannot wait until this is over and will continue to draw attention to this barberry until it stops.
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