PETA video exposes Columbia 'atrocities'

[Karmadillo]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/128963p-115356c.html

Columbia University regularly commits "atrocities" against lab animals, a former researcher charges - and now the federal government is on its tail.

The researcher and animal rights activists want the school's animal labs closed, pointing to a gut-wrenching video viewed yesterday by the Daily News.

In it, a baboon sits in a cage with a metal cylinder screwed into its head. The baboon twitches, its body sags.

Other primates languish in cages, all deprived of pain medication, suffering prolonged, agonizing deaths, said Catherine Dell'Orto, who quit this year after complaining to Columbia and the feds about the conditions in 2001.

more...

[Wickerman]

1. Why Peta doesn't stay on this course

to expose real animal cruelty is beyond me. Instead, they tackle issues like trying to change the name of a small unincorporated town (Rodeo, California). This sort of animal explotation is the sort of crap I used to give money to PETA to, in hopes they would use it end this evil.

However, their extreme efforts undermine their sane efforts like this, and popular opinion is such that they have no credibility.

[alwynsw]

3. PETA has gone off the deep end

I promise not to "get started", but when did it become a good thing for the inmates to run the asylum? Animal care and comfort I agree with. Animal rights? Life, fresh water, food, etc. maybe a basket bed on the floor for pets.

I fell out with PETA when the veg. movement moved in. Why should human animals have their natural diet changed? Isn't it an affront to the dignity of animals to imply that they can eat meat because it's their nature, but the humans can choose. Isn't that implying that they are lesser beings because they cannot choose because of instinct or whatever else may drive them?

You can't have it both ways. If the rant, "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy", were true, it should be just as criminal from the PETA point of view for a lion to eat an antelope.

[haymaker]

10. Ah yes, the peta basher.

Building strawmen, of course.

[DarkPhenyx]

11. It might be a straw man...

...but it dosen't change the fact that PETA really has gone off the deep end.

[kwolf68]

16. Then freaking start a thread

saying that.

Otherwise, this thread is about inhumane research at Columbia.

[haymaker]

18. Get hysterical much?

Back away from the oxycontin.

[kwolf68]

14. Geeze

How about empathy and compassion toward animals? It isn't about "eating meat" either...It's about how that meat is treated prior to it giving us nourishment.

You use a very serious issue -that yes PETA has brought forward- simply to bitch and moan about PETA.

Any comments about the treatment of these animals at Columbia or do you simply not give a shit? Just can't see the issue...Gotta whine about PETA.

[blindpig]

4. Agreed!

research using primates is almost entirely unnecessary, that using anthopoids obscene. instead, those dingbats want me to get rid of my reptiles, some of which i've had for 20-30yrs!

[haymaker]

9. Ah yes, the peta basher.

Reptiles? Gross.

[blindpig]

17. gross?

I take it from your subject line that you are a peta supporter. Appears to me that your concept of "animal" is limited & incorrect. Where did you take highschool biology? To dismiss reptiles as gross displays a narrow mind apparently incapable of appreciating the beauty & wonder of a major portion of our diminishing fauna. To find such a mindset in this supposedly enlightened cyberspace makes me sad.

[haymaker]

19. No, I just think having lizards crawling around

my house is gross. I, personally, wouldn't want those types of animals, which belong in the wild, mind you, shitting in my corn flakes. Just me.

As for your hysterical reach, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[blindpig]

22. no real affinity for nature

actually, my critters are adequately housed, they wouldn't have lived so long otherwise. as for histeria(which i don't feel i displayed), i usually see that displayed by individuals squeamish about the food chain.
(please understand, i believe some of peta's work is good; primates in labs, cruelty, factory farming. but to deny our place in nature or our species natural history is dumb. we are omnivores, we should act like sage ones.)
{dumb fingers}

[DarkPhenyx]

2. I would be interested in seeing what research was being done.

There is some research that the application of pain killers would interfere with the results. Not all research using animals is evil, and not all research that causes pain is bad science, nor is all of it in violation of the animal use rules. We do need to keep this in mind as this story unfolds.

[kwolf68]

15. WTF

...

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. God wouldn't like this

IF there is a god. He's sending all animal researchers to hell so the devil can stick metal prods in their heads.

Use Republicans instead of monkeys!

:)

[niyad]

6. research scientists have announced that all future

research will be done on repukes instead of rats. they said there are two reasons for the switch:

1. there are more of them than rats.
2. there are some things even rats won't do

[Wickerman]

7. Problem solved!

nice one, magic rat.

[dreissig]

8. Tell Columbia's President What You Think

If you think animals deserve better than how Columbia is treating them, make sure you inform the college president of your opinion. E-mail him at: "Lee C. Bollinger" <[e-mail]>

[DarkPhenyx]

12. But before you do make sure to get informed.

Read teh rules and regualtions on animal use in research, and find out exactly what type of research was begin done at Columbia on these animals. Otherwise you are going to be no better than those people in favor of the war becasue Bush told them Saddam was a bad man.

[Robb]

13. What're ya, tryin' to be sensible?

Get informed before taking action?!?
:spank: no :spank: no :spank: no...

/the captain has advised the red sarcasm light has been illuminated, you are free not to take me seriously.

[Aidoneus]

20. um..

there's this sort,

In it, a baboon sits in a cage with a metal cylinder screwed into its head. The baboon twitches, its body sags.
...
Dell'Orto said the video shows the same kind of brutal conditions that she saw. She said primates often were not euthanized or given painkillers after operations, which included the removal of body parts. Others became so scared, some tore off fingers, she said.

The baboons with "head caps" - small pipes - screwed to their skulls for a study on menstrual cycles had an especially tough time, she said.

"They would have blood running down their heads," she said. "It's unacceptable laboratory practice to let an animal go through that. At least give them pain medication."
...

then,

A Columbia spokeswoman said an internal review found no "protocol violations" but the institution "made improvements in our animal care program," anyway.

If the above represents "improvements", what in the bloody hell were they doing before?!

[TSElliott]

21. This is truly sad...

I almost did not read the article because it had the name PETA in it and I expected to read about PETA condemning the use of doggie doors or something else totally stupid and a waste of donator's money but this is a real issue. I hope it gets addressed.

[sujan]

23. I support PETA

[montana_hazeleyes]

24. I wonder why they

put atrocities in parentheses(I don't know how to spell it,but you know what I mean). As if these aren't real atrocities because it's being done to animals and not humans.
I hate this crap! Just hate it!