Pet Safety and Protection Act Introduced (Senate)

[flvegan]

March 2, 2007

Federal lawmakers have introduced legislation to prevent family pets from being collected by middlemen and sold for use in laboratory research.

The Pet Safety and Protection Act would amend the Animal Welfare Act to make it illegal for research facilities to purchase dogs and cats from anyone who has not personally bred and raised the animals. Research facilities would be allowed to purchase animals from breeders and from the few animal shelters that participate in 'pound seizure.'

The legislation was introduced in the Senate Feb. 28 by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and in the House March 1 by Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa. It targets long-standing problems with "Class B" dealers who collect dogs and cats from random sources and then sell them to research facilities. There are 15 Class B dealers of random source dogs and cats remaining in the United States.

Class B Dealers often buy animals from people known as bunchers. Unlike dealers, who are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, bunchers are not regulated. Class B dealers and bunchers have been known to acquire lost, stray and "free to a good home" dogs and cats, as well as pets from their owners' backyards.

More:
http://www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/animals_in_research_news/pet_safety_and_protection_act.html
WARNING: There is a picture of an emaciated dog on this page. It's isn't graphic, but some might find it disturbing.

Take action:
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2007_pet_safety_protection

[Straight Shooter]

1. My sweet dog is a rescue dog from a shelter.

The shelter was ready to walk her to the "Delta Room" (the death chamber) when they remembered I had just been there a few days before and that I really love Rottweilers. Well, my sweetie is only half Rottie, but I was thrilled to meet her and take her home. I shudder to think of her ending up as a laboratory experiment. Any dog or cat deserves much better than that.

[LeftyMom]

2. The shelter here only recently quit selling animals for research

They still have a program with the local vet school, but my understanding is that now it's to let students practice by doing s/n and other needed care, not by cutting up the same animals over and over again for unneeded surgery and eventually killing them (and what the hell kind of message does that send to a vet in training anyhow? It's not supposed to be sociopath school.)

They still do unwarranted surgery on farmed animals though. :( Poor little piglets.

[kestrel91316]

8. You have a serious misconception of what veterinary students

have done in their surgery labs.

Even 27 years ago, when I was a junior and in my surgery labs, we DID NOT CUT UP THE SAME ANIMALS OVER AND OVER!!!! What sort of evil freaks do you think we are????????? You are probably just repeating some nonsense you heard somewhere, and you really ought to STOP RIGHT NOW.

Our first week of surgery lab was the DEAD animal lab, where we did procedures on DEAD animals to familiarize ourselves with equipment and basic techniques.

Our second week was live animal lab. Each day we would FULLY ANESTHETIZE a pound animal scheduled for euthanasia, perform several procedures on that fully anesthetized animal during the 3-4 hour lab, and then euthanize it without ever allowing it to even begin to wake up. On the very last day, we did spays and neuters on the animals (and nothing else), and then allowed them to recover from their ROUTINE SPAYS AND NEUTERS so as to familiarize ourselves with patient recovery. IIRC, these animals were adopted out. The dog I and my partner spayed was kept by a resident for some research project (no, nothing remotely bad was done to the dog, she lived happily in a run for a while, where I would visit her) and eventually adopted out.

This was how we did it TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO!!!!!!!! It was not cruel. Things are not the same now, and haven't been for years. From what I've heard, pound seizure for vet schools is not an option. I have no idea how students learn to do surgery now. They probably start right out on clients' animals and make their mistakes on THEM (oh, you want to talk about cruel, we can start HERE).

I really wish people who hate veterinarians would be up front about their hatred, and stop with the malicious lies. I'm not saying YOU are a malicious liar (though you could be), but whoever keeps spreading the lies about how cruel vet schools and students are and have been sure is.

Answer me this: how do you expect novices to learn how to do surgery? Play at simulations on a computer????? ROFLMAO. There is no substitute for LIVE surgery lab on unowned animals that are then euthanized, IMHO.

[LeftyMom]

10. That's what they were doing here.

Everybody'd get a dog and in some courses they'd work on it all semester, then euthanize it at the end. http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A4888 The dogs being worked on all semester I read in an account from a vet student. I'm still trying to find it again, I'll post it when I do.

They're still doing unneeded surgeries on farmed animals, some of whom don't survive it. I have pics of some piglets who were given unneeded hernia surgery, several of whom had to be euthanized as a result of botched operations, in my journal. You can verify their story on Farm Sanctuary's website, since they paid for operations to repair the damage (can you believe UC Davis charged them to fix the damage they created? That's some sick shit.) and saved the lives of a few. The school was just going to sell the pigs for slaughter, but a student stepped in and got them sent to FS instead.

[kestrel91316]

42. I simply don't believe in the "dog being worked on all semester"

story. That's insane. You can't believe everything you read on the internet.

Wait, I DID work on one dog all semester. Four of us cut and cut and cut. Poor thing was in ribbons by the end of the semester............but it was a DEAD GREYHOUND in ANATOMY LAB.

Seriously. I would love to see legitimate unbiased documentation of repeated "recovery surgery" as a matter of policy in ANY US veterinary school in the past 30 years. I don't believe it. And I can't accept any claims made by PETA or ALF because I consider them to be extremely biased and unreliable.

I can't get the page you linked to to come up so i can read it.

[flvegan]

13. Many schools

(both veterinary and for other types of research) get the animals from Class B Dealers. I appreciate your sentiment, and I highly respect your profession. I'll also suggest that while you/your school may not have had the ghastly dog labs that have been reported, certainly that doesn't go for the entirety of the system.

Additionally, many of the top professionals in the veterinary field have high praise for the simulators and models that are used today.

[kestrel91316]

43. Personally, I can't envision ANY veterinarian EVER hiring a

new grad of vet school who had only done surgery in simulation.

They're unqualified to practice, IMHO.

[EFerrari]

20. If you hear from the bunchers that stole my cat in 2001, tell them

they're still on the list.

"Unowned animals", my ass. There are NO "unowned animals". And if you can't figure out how to learn medicine without torturing and killing animals, I don't want you practicing.

What an incredibly ridiculous argument.

[LeftyMom]

23. I'm so sorry.

:hug:

[EFerrari]

41. We can do better than that, can't we, LeftyMom?

Thank you. :hug:

[kestrel91316]

46. The dogs we got in 1980-81 from the Cheyenne WY pound

had run out of time and were slated for destruction. As in meaningless, wasteful death. NO ONE WANTED THEM. They were unowned and unclaimed, NOT stolen pets. Why is it considered noble to use human organs for transplant rather than letting them go to waste, yet criminal to use doomed animals for educational purposes before they are put to death??? At least their death served SOME purpose and was not utter waste.

Kindly explain how surgery under properly administered anesthesia, followed by euthanasia without anesthetic recovery, constitutes "torture".

If anesthesia and surgery without the possibility of pain constitutes torture, what is anesthesia and surgery WITH the possibility of pain called? It's called routine practice. It happens every day.

Obviously I am an animal torturer in my daily practice. I suggest you report me for animal abuse to PETA so they can come stalk me and firebomb my home and picket my practice. Then, while you're at it, file a formal complaint against me with the veterinary board in Sacramento. And call every media outlet you can find and give them the story. I'll even PM you with my name, address, and veterinary license number so you can get started, if you'd like.

If you can prove that Colorado State University was lying to its students and faculty in 1980-81 about the source of its surgery lab dogs, I suggest you provide that proof right now, in this forum, publically.

Perhaps you would prefer that your OWN PERSONAL PETS be the ones to experience surgery at the hands of someone who has never cut and sewn flesh before...........who has NO CLUE how much pressure to apply to that scalpel blade in REAL LIFE when faced with LIVING TISSUE. Dearie, that's what I call torture.

People like you who rant and rave about animals having to be destroyed because they HAVE NO HOMES need to get off your lazy butts and adopt and PROVIDE ADEQUATELY for every last unwanted, unowned animal in every shelter in the US. And I don't mean housing them in "rescue" facilities which have a tendency to become TRUE torture chambers (we have had a few of these locally over the years). And stop spreading bald-faced lies and slander about a noble profession where its practitioners DAILY risk their very lives to relieve true suffering.

[EFerrari]

51. So, are you also an "unowned animal"?

And how do you know how lazy my butt is?

You have no idea what I do or what I spend or how many animals I've rescued from idiots.

Noble profession, my lazy ass. And, no, I'm not your "Dearie".

[kestrel91316]

58. You obviously haven't rescued enough. There are still 10 million

or so unwanted dogs and cats euthanized in the US every year.

Yeah, let's waste EVERY LAST ONE of their sad corpses. Because somebody has an aesthetic issue with getting some good out of their remains.

[LeftyMom]

60. Because there is no justification to make them suffer so.

Nobody has a problem with practicing surgery on the dead, but for the same reasons that practicing surgery on the terminally ill or condmened prisoners simply isn't acceptable, it's not fair to compound the suffering of animals who've already faced neglect, homelessness and a shelter cage by subjecting them, often repeatedly to unneeded surgery as well.

Alternative programs combine cadaver work with needed surgeries on live and potentially adoptable animals, and not only to they aviod ethically questionable surgeries, they do some good and produce vets with better surgical skills.

Continuing to rely on pound seizure and terminal surgery is outdated, less effective and teaches all the wrong ethical lessons.

[Dastard Stepchild]

27. Really?

My husband was considering veterinary science just a few years back and had contacted a number of schools about their animal use policies and was given the impression that animal labs (particularly terminal animal labs) were still the norm, not the exception. Also, because of the nature of vet science programs, students are generally fanned into their home state schools (or near home state schools) due to admissions procedures...he had a conversation with his home state school option and was told that terminal labs still exist for their students. The school also used cadavers, but would not comment on the source. If I remember his comments correctly, about 30% of the student procedures conducted at his prospective program could be classified under terminal lab procedures. For him, that number was too high, and he declined further information and an application to the program.

HOWEVER, some schools are accepting willed cadavers from pet owners, which seems like a more respectful alternative. I'd love to see this option expanded upon on years to come. With my husband, I read the arguments for and against terminal animal labs, and we felt that the "for" arguments did not provide a compelling case for their use - particularly for physiology, surgical precision and clinical procedures lab work. As for anesthesiology, we should probably follow the human medicine model in which the work is learned (and CLOSELY supervised) in conjunction with current practitioners.

[kestrel91316]

48. First of all, the degree is in veterinary MEDICINE, not veterinary

"science". Just a factoid FYI.

I don't doubt there are still terminal labs. I do not understand the objection to them and probably never will.

If an unwanted, unclaimed pound animal has run out of time and is on the schedule for euthanasia, why NOT make that death just a tiny bit meaningful for society and all animals? They suffer no pain. They are simply overdosed with anesthetic at the end of the procedure. The end result for the animal is exactly the same: painless death. But the end result for veterinary students is improved surgical skill without risking the life of someone's beloved family member.

Society has to make a choice. You either want surgically skilled veterinarians, or you don't. We graduate after 4 years of postgraduate education, and very few of us can afford to continue on to an internship and three virtually unpaid years as a surgical resident. We certainly all couldn't be surgery residents even if we wanted - there aren't enough slots. We ARE, however, EXPECTED to graduate as competent general surgeons, internists, radiologists, pediatricians, ophthalmologists, dermatologists, pharmacologists, gastroenterologists AND cardiologists. And more, like livestock practitioners and horse doctors. All at once. PLEASE do not seek to limit our education and development of basic skills. Your pet could be the one to die a needless death if your new veterinarian gets in over his or her head.

About some people's objections to vet school surgery labs: I want to go on record as being TOTALLY opposed to ANY use of unknown-source animals. The Class B suppliers, or whatever they are called, need to be run out of town on a rail, AFTER being horsewhipped and castrated, if they ever lay hands on an owned animal. But even when I was in school decades ago they (unknown-source) were considered inappropriate at my school, and presumably others.

Surgery on a dead animal will only get you so far along the learning curve. There is a world of difference in the tissue handling characteristics. And don't even get me started on "simulations", lol. I'd sue a veterinary school for educational fraud if they had me doing simulations in lieu of REAL surgery.

[Dastard Stepchild]

56. FYI...

That was a typing error on my part. I am aware that it is veterinary medicine.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

[kestrel91316]

59. sorry - I moonlight here as the spelling and grammar cop, lol

[kestrel91316]

9. I just read your comment about "sociopath school". You owe me,

my colleagues, and my entire profession an apology.

I won't call you what you deserve to be called, but you can guess.

[LeftyMom]

11. Cutting up healthy animals for one's own benefit is sick.

It's perfectly possible to train vets, and many schools do now, without terminal surgery on pound seized animals. In fact, studies have shown that the students who do their surgical practice in alternative programs have better surgical skills than those who do the traditional terminal surgery programs. Clinging to this cruel tradition in programs that are supposed to turn out caring custodians of animal health is self-defeating, harmful to the very animals students are supposed to devote their lives to and ultimately not an indicator of a healthy and compassionate human being.

[achtung_circus]

37. Do you have a source for that?

studies have shown that the students who do their surgical practice in alternative programs have better surgical skills than those who do the traditional terminal surgery programs.

Thanks in advance.

[kestrel91316]

49. Please explain to me how it is cruel to perform surgery on

a completely anesthetized animal immediately prior to euthanasia, as opposed to simply euthanizing the animal.

'Cause I'm just not getting the logic of this mindset. Do people truly not comprehend ANESTHESIA?????

Some people just like pound animal's lives to be COMPLETELY wasted. Reminds me of the nuts who think human organ donation/transplantation at death is morally wrong.

[kestrel91316]

50. How exactly was I harmed by doing surgery on doomed animals?

And do you really mean to say that my profession is chock full of people who are mentally unhealthy and lack compassion?

Are you always this incredibly INSULTING to people you don't even know?

I guess I should just quit my work and go dig ditches. I'm just a disgraceful human being. Hey, maybe you should join the other vet-hater here and come here personally to attack me. I can PM my address so you can come picket.

[hlthe2b]

17. Yes, She certainly does owe a major apology.

Her comments are despiccable.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Don't hold your breath, waiting on that.

[hlthe2b]

19. and why is that BSN?

[kestrel91316]

53. There are two or three DUers who TRULY HATE veterinarians

and probably wish we all could be given the death penalty. I respect them about as much as I do the rabid anti-abortion crowd. Hateful, ignorant people with hermetically sealed minds........

Sometimes I wish we vets could, as a profession, just disappear like the folks in Atlas Shrugged (I know, BAD literature, psycho author) and see how the public likes NOT having us. It would serve them right.

[a la izquierda]

66. Oh gosh, please don't!

My vet is one of the few people I trust implicitly. He has free reign to do what he thinks is best with my dogs. I don't know what I would do without him.

[kestrel91316]

67. TY

[hlthe2b]

16. You, LeftyMom are out of bounds.

Your venomous, yet totally ridiculous and uneducated assertions are just sick. As one who has had to officially counter such inaccurate accusations in the media and even in rare published literature, I am just appalled that it appears here.


When someone accuses YOU of such sick, inhuman behavior, I suspect you will understand.

[LeftyMom]

22. I already had this discussion with Kestrel.

There are alternatives to terminal surgery, and not only do they work, they make for more technically capable vets. More compassionate ones too, no doubt.

Defenders of pound seizure and terminal surgery are in the dark ages of both instruction and moral development.

[hlthe2b]

28. You are being extremely unfair to the thousands of compassionate

veterinarians and other related animal care workers--casting your despiccable accusations across the whole lot of them. For this, I find your post absolutely indefensible and despiccable. And, YOU supposedly are fighting for fairness, compassion and justice? Hypocrisy reigns...:eyes:.

[flvegan]

29. At what point

was this post, repeated here:

"There are alternatives to terminal surgery, and not only do they work, they make for more technically capable vets. More compassionate ones too, no doubt.

Defenders of pound seizure and terminal surgery are in the dark ages of both instruction and moral development."

Unfair? Do, be specific.

[hlthe2b]

30. Are you LeftyMom?

It was her post that I was replying to, referring to veteriarians as graduates of "sociopath school."

[flvegan]

31. Oh, sorry.

I didn't realize that only one of the 100,000+ of us could respond to your thoughts.

I'm glad you avoided my question, too. Might've not been a quality answer available to you.

[hlthe2b]

32. Wow,, you really want to start a fight, don't you, flvegan?

I am not disagreeing with any efforts to protect the health and welfare of animals. I DO object to blatant accusations of abuse, cruelty, "butchering" of those who have dedicated their lives to help ensure the health and welfare of animals and humans alike.

Why do you wish to start something with those who basically agree with you? You interjected yourself into a subthread that had little to do with your original question and then assume every post in that subthread is disagreeing with you? What gives flvegan? I don't see anyone in this subthread disagreeing with your original post. Maybe you've had a bad day... if so, I find it wise not to post until I've regained perspective... :shrug:

[flvegan]

33. As I stated hlthe2b...

At what point was this post, repeated here:

"There are alternatives to terminal surgery, and not only do they work, they make for more technically capable vets. More compassionate ones too, no doubt.

Defenders of pound seizure and terminal surgery are in the dark ages of both instruction and moral development.

Unfair? Do, be specific."

I'm not starting a fight, strawman all you want. Answer the fucking question or let it go.

[hlthe2b]

34. Go spoil for a fight elsewhere, flvegan

WHen you interject into another subthread conversation, those involved in that subthread have no responsibility to discuss with you, narcissistic, though you may be. I was polite in my earlier reply to you, even though my comments had been in no way directed to you, nor have anything to do with your original thread. They were in response to a very rude statement made by LeftyMom.

As I said, go spoil for a fight elsewhere. I'm not biting.

[flvegan]

35. So, that would be a big, fat, nothing, then?

I want to be very sure that there's no answer at all from you as to my question.

You might add a disclaimer to your posts in these regards that ONLY the person you are attacking can respond. Might, you know...eliminate this problem.

[hlthe2b]

36. Can you not read and comprehend?

I earlier stated agreement with your original post. I am not disagreeing with you. Go start a fight with someone who IS disagreeing with you...:eyes:

[flvegan]

38. This isn't about the OP, now is it?

I'm not starting a fight, I'm climbing through the ropes on a different one, started by someone else.

[LeftyMom]

62. 1. I was at work

2. flvegan is highly unlikely to make an argument I disagree strongly with, and is my closest friend. He can speak for me.

3. I was not talking about vet school generally, I was talking about the practices of pound seizure and terminal surgery. This is clear from my post.

[LeftyMom]

61. Goodness, what am I not being clear about?

Pound seizure and terminal surgery send a horrible message to the people we most want to encourage to show compassion for animals.

Oddly enough, all these folks think so too: http://www.educationalmemorial.org/viewpoints.html

[hlthe2b]

64. Casting a broad brush... calling ALL veterinarians

graduates of 'sociopath school'? Pitting one group of dedicated animal lovers against another. Pray tell how the welfare of animals is helped by villainizing the very people who have dedicated their lives trying to help them?

If you feel good about doing that, heaven help you. It certainly doesn't help the animals you purport to care for.

[LeftyMom]

65. One more time.

I was talking about the minority of programs that still use pound seizure and terminal surgery.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[flvegan]

4. I believe they tried last year, but

it died in committee or some such thing.

As for Frist, I believe that's how the story goes, yes.

[LeftyMom]

5. He admitted in his autobiography that he took cats from shelters to practive surgery on.

He should be in jail. Or a mental institution.

[CountAllVotes]

6. K&R

:dem: :kick:

[Cobalt Violet]

7. 5th recommend.

I'm so glad they did this.:kick:

[Hun Joro]

12. Good, as far as it goes, but

Is it any less cruel to torture animals that were bred for the purpose? I can fully appreciate learning surgery on live animals by spaying and neutering them, as another poster experienced, but unnecessary surgery on any living animal is cruel, and living conditions for those bred for research are less than ideal, to say the least.

[flvegan]

14. One step at a time.

This is a good first step, though, and I completely agree with what you've said.

[Auntie Bush]

15. When my son did his very first surgery they started on human cadavers

which were donated to science. That seems to be the best way to to learn. They used and reused that cadaver the whole semi star or year...I don't remember.

[freeplessinseattle]

21. but what can they do about the "free pet" ads??

I was about to put an ad on craigslist recently to find homes for some cats, but was told juts in time that people have been known to respond to those ads with sick intentions. maybe ala Bill Frist. so now I'm just posting on bulletin boards in health food stores and at my friends' workplaces (unless they work in the Senate, that is;)

[Dastard Stepchild]

24. Wunderbar!

When I lived in Michigan for a bit, I had correspondence with a county shelter that was in practice of selling animals to research labs. I patiently but consistently lodged my complaint every few months and got a good dialog going with the organization. They agreed to reconsider the policy (which I think later proved to be a bit of a "head pat and send her on her way" type scenario), but I was actually surprised that I was able to carry on the conversation with the organization for as long as I had.

Thanks for sharing the information.

[Withywindle]

25. About damn time!

Pet theft is a big problem in Chicago, and who's doing most of it? Those "Class B Dealers" pieces-o-shite. The Chicago Reader did a story on it a little while, basically warning people to never ever ever leave your pets unattended, even in your own yard or car--it's just not safe anymore.

[Robeson]

26. Kick for the animals!

[AZBlue]

39. This is so FANTASTIC!

K&R

[BlooInBloo]

40. Well, I guess it's good that they're taking care of the #3455462235th most important thing.

[BayCityProgressive]

44. NO SHIT

dodging Iraq much? Hey, at least PETA got something out of the last election LOL.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

45. Sorry you can't think of more than one thing at a time, but most intelligent people can.

Cruelty is cruelty and it needs to be addressed.

It's the progressive thing to do.

[BayCityProgressive]

47. sorry, most intelligent people

would focus on cruelty to humans first..like the immigration problem, the death penalty, healthcare or the war in iraq. I guess this trumps all that huh? If you are calling my intelligence into question because I am not more concerned with a dog or cat than hundreds of thousands of HUMANS maybe you need to look at yourself in the mirror..your priorities are way out of wack.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

52. I'm not dismissing cruelty to humans at all.

I think cruelty is an important issue to address EVERYWHERE.

[Lorien]

54. Amen

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"

-Mahatma Gandhi

[L A Woman]

55. but most humans can take care of themselves...

we should take care of those who are helpless first. Anyway, this is a much less complicated matter than matters of immigration and health care. The answer is obvious - for any decent person. The answers to the "human" matters require much more debate.

[Dastard Stepchild]

57. It's not tough...

I am perfectly capable of balancing my compassion across an array of concerns. It's not difficult, really.

Step One: Log onto DU. Skim variety of posts.
Step Two: Sign a petition to stop the war.
Step Three: Sign a petition in support of universal health care.
Step Four: Sign a petition in support of animal welfare.

Time elapsed.... five minutes.

(edited for darn typos)

[yewberry]

63. Are you one of those people

who think that we should ignore smaller injustices in favor of larger ones? That we should wait to care about or act on anything until the "important stuff" gets done? You really think tht's an effective strategy?

By all means--supply us all with a list of what's "important" so that we'll all be on the same page. What issues need to be set aside so that the real work can be done? Marriage equality? Children in poverty? Companion animals stolen and killed? NCLB? The dissolution of Habeas Corpus? The "war on drugs?"

Instead of scolding people who work to get something done, maybe you should be thinking about how to better spend your time.