current.com / CC

Back in March, we told you about the USDA's investigation at Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC). The investigation came about as a result of a PETA complaint exposing that a monkey had been operated on by mistake; that a sick, pregnant monkey had been denied veterinary care; and that other abuses had taken place. The USDA backed up our findings, citing ONPRC for violations of the Animal Welfare Act and issuing the facility a warning. And let's not forget what we found during our undercover investigation.

Well, it's been barely seven months, and ONPRC is in hot water again. According to a lawsuit filed by InVivo Therapeutics—one of the companies that hired ONPRC to torture experiment on monkeys—ONPRC so severely neglected seven monkeys whose spinal cords it had surgically severed that four of the monkeys had to be euthanized.

Of course, the lawsuit is a lose-lose for the monkeys. InVivo had paid ONPRC to paralyze the animals so that researchers could implant them with a device developed by InVivo in order to see if they would regain any movement. In the lawsuit, InVivo alleges that early in the research period, more than one third of the monkeys provided by ONPRC suffered illnesses or injuries such as bladder problems because ONPRC failed to provide the proper post-surgery care or a medical device necessary to keep their bodily systems functioning. InVivo also alleges that at least one monkey developed "a debilitating staph infection" as a result of bacteria at ONPRC.

The publicity surrounding the case has shined another spotlight on abuses at ONPRC as well as the inadequacy of the federal law that is supposed to protect animals in laboratories.

If you have a strong stomach, go to StopAnimalTests.com to find out more about the cruel, redundant, and archaic experiments conducted on primates at ONPRC, and then dash off a letter to the National Institutes of Health, urging it to stop funneling your tax dollars to ONPRC.

Posted by Alisa Mullins

thepatrioticgentleman / CC

According to news reports out of Nepal, that country's forest minister, Dipak Bohara, has "imposed a ban on monkey breeding for export to the United States for biomedical research."

This could be an important first step toward ending the grotesque breeding-and-export trade in monkeys once and for all.

The next step is for the Nepali government to listen to the coalition of animal protection groups (including PETA India) that has been urging the government to rehabilitate the hundreds of monkeys at a breeding center in Lele and to pass a law that would halt all commercial wildlife breeding.

We hope Nepal's action also inspires officials in Puerto Rico to block plans by Bioculture to build a monkey-breeding facility there. But in case they're not paying attention to Nepali news—and, let's face it, many folks aren't—please be sure to add your voice to the growing chorus opposing the construction of Bioculture's facility.

Posted by Jeff Mackey

hedweb / CC

Problem: You're head of an engineering firm hired to simulate and analyze a customer's fall in a Dollar General store in order to provide testimony in a lawsuit.

Solution(?): Get some goon to shoot a sensitive, intelligent pig in the head and then drop the pig's body repeatedly onto a concrete floor.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that killing a pig to mimic a human fall is inhumane and unnecessary, but that's exactly what Linda Weseman of Gainesville-based Weseman Engineering Inc. did.

Since shooting a pig execution-style violates USDA regulations, we filed a complaint with that agency in September 2008 after a whistleblower alerted us to the incident.

Exactly a year later, we learned that the USDA has issued Weseman three citations and a "serious warning" for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).

The following are the violations Ms. Weseman was cited for:

• Conducting experiments on an animal without being registered with the USDA
• Failure to have the experiment reviewed by an animal welfare oversight committee
• Failure to provide adequate veterinary care for the pig prior to the animal's death and failure to meet the requirements for euthanasia

Weseman also agreed never to do another experiment on a USDA-regulated animal again (so pigs are safe, but rats and mice beware).

In case those citations and a warning aren't enough to drive home the point for Ms. Weseman that sentient beings shouldn't be killed for pointless experiments, I suggest some compassion training with rescued piglets at her nearest animal sanctuary.

Posted by Heather Drennan

gossipcheck / CC

Since Michael Jackson's passing on Thursday, there have been hundreds of news stories ranging from how he influenced just about every musician performing today to how he's responsible for the Academy's recent decision to allow 10 nominations for “Best Picture” (no, really!). It got us thinking: What if Michael's music could be used to help animals?

We've written to Michael Jackson's estate asking for the rights to the singer's first solo hit, "Ben," which was written for the 1972 film of the same name. This beautiful song is about the friendship between a lonely boy and a rat named Ben, and we're hoping to use it to raise awareness about the plight of rats and other animals tormented in laboratory experiments.

Mice and rats make up the vast majority of animals used in experiments, but because they are excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act, they are denied even minimal legal protection. Part of the message of "Ben" is that rats are frequently misunderstood. (For example—did you know that rats and mice are fastidiously clean, intelligent, and highly sociable animals—they even giggle!) In the song, Jackson sings:

Ben, most people would turn you away
I don't listen to a word they say
They don't see you as I do
I wish they would try to.

We hope we'll be able to use this song to inspire people to understand rats a little better and to join our campaign to stop cruel and archaic animal experiments on them.

Posted by Amanda Schinke

chiefproperties / CC

Yep, rats and mice are finally having their day. Saturday's Wall Street Journal (the second-largest paper in the country and the most respected) features a front-page article about the work of PETA and others to gain protection for rats and mice in laboratories.

Shockingly, even though rats and mice comprise more than 95 percent of the animals used in experiments, they are specifically excluded from the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the only federal law that protects animals in laboratories. According to the U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, rats and mice (as well as birds and "cold-blooded" animals) are not "animals." (It's nonsensical, we know.)

That's why PETA has been doing end-runs around the worthless AWA by going straight to the companies that are required to test their products and pointing out the benefits of using effective and humane alternatives. We also monitor the various government agencies' testing programs and object every time we learn about a proposed test on animals that is redundant or for which non-animal alternatives are available. By doing this, we have been able to get dozens of tests on animals stopped (or the number of animals used greatly reduced), which has saved tens of thousands of animals' lives.

We think it's about time that our elected officials thought about rats and mice, don't you? Send a message to your members of Congress demanding that rats and mice be treated like the sensitive animals (not vegetables or minerals) they are.

Posted by Alisa Mullins