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Students protest animal research In observance of World Awareness Week for Animals in Laboratories, Students Against Cruelty to Animals held their Freedom March Tuesday afternoon. The protest targeted the UT Animal Resources Center -- a campus research facility that protesters say is practicing inhumane research experiments on animals. The 15 student protesters marched from the West Mall to the intersection of Speedway and Dean Keeton Street wearing white lab coats, spattered with fake blood, and carrying anti-vivisection posters and a large papier mache cat with an electrode attached to its head. They stood about a block away from the ARC while two University police officers stood guard inside the entrance to the center. "Hopefully we'll appeal to the students' better nature, and they'll become aware of what's really going on in the lab," said Will Mangum, a studio art junior and member of SACA. From inside the ARC, Jerry Fineg, director of the ARC, said the protest occurs every year. "We've been able to co-exist," Fineg said. A statement issued by Mangum and Michael A. Budkie, director of Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, expresses concern toward the research of Wilson Geisler, which is done at the ARC. Geisler, a psychology professor, is studying visual functioning in the brains of cats and monkeys and applying findings to humans. Mangum and Budkie question the applicability of the research to humans, the adequacy of anesthesia administered to the animals and general scientific validity. "None of the research has anything to do with humans," Mangum said. "The chemistry of a cat's brain has nothing to do with a human's brain." According to Mangum and Budkie's statement, even if the study is scientifically valid, the findings would be of more use to veterinary medicine than to humans. The statement also asserts that anesthetics used on the animals in the project are inadequate and wear off too quickly. But Alison Tannenbaum, a research associate for the Visual Neuroscience Center, said the animals never wake up and that the level of anesthesia administered is monitored continually. "There's nothing inhumane about it," Tannenbaum said. "The animals are asleep and anesthetized. They're not conscious of any pain." Fineg called the written statement "atrocious" and pointed out that the research, funded by the National Institute of Health, has been approved year after year. The visual functioning research, which is currently being conducted, began 20 years ago and has cost about $4 million. Dwayne Albrecht, a psychology professor who has been working with Geisler on the research project, said more than 100 years' research shows that primates' vision is very similar to that of humans. The ARC has received unremarkable inspection results from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Mangum noted that the inspections are announced, and it is difficult to enforce the Animal Welfare Act. APHIS is responsible for ensuring the humane treatment of warmblooded animals used by research facilities but does not have the authority, under current legislation, to enforce the Animal Welfare Act. Though the APHIS is responsible for issuing licenses and and registration certificates and inspecting facilities, the agency does not have the power to terminate or refuse to renew licenses when serious or repeat violations occur. |