Important RE UCSF: Please Write SF Supervisor or Annette Lantos

Recently Vigil for Animals wrote to San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, with copies to the other 10 members of the SF Board of Supervisors (please find our letter below). I personally delivered the letters last week to the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors. Briefly, the letter describes our repeated attempts to communicate our concerns to UCSF about the care and (ab)use of animals within its facilities. To this date, none of our specific concerns have been addressed by UCSF. Our concerns include the following:
1) USDA citations of UCSF for violations of the Animal Welfare Act,
2) UCSF's failure to avail itself of the many alternatives to the use of animals, and
3) the questionable scientific merit of several research projects at the university.

If you live in Ross Mirkarimi's district in San Francisco, please use the letter below as a reference for a letter of your own to the supervisor. Or, if you want to make it short and simple: Request that the supervisor contact UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop to demand that he address the various concerns voiced by numerous persons* regarding the university's care and use of animals over the past several years. And you could add that as an institution that uses public funds, UCSF must have accountability to the public.

If you live anywhere in San Francisco, please write a letter as described above to your supervisor. If you don't know who your supervisor is, you can find out by contacting the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors at (415) 554-5184. You can address your letters to:

Supervisor [your supervisor's name]
City Hall, Room 244
1 Dr Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102

NOTE: If you prefer e-mail, the supervisors' e-mail addresses are listed at the end of this message.

Also make sure that you follow up your letter with a phone call to your supervisor's office just to make sure he or she got your letter and to find out what action (if any) your supervisor intends to take. Remember: The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

If you do not live in San Francisco (and even if you live in SF), please write to Annette Lantos, whose husband is Representative Tom Lantos, and let her know of your concerns. She is, and has been for some years, a staunch advocate for animals - and she has been known to influence her husband Tom Lantos to take action on behalf of animals in the past. You may address your letter to Annette in care of Tom Lantos:

Annette Lantos
c/o Representative Tom Lantos
400 S. El Camino Real, Suite 410
San Mateo, CA 94402

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me, by e-mail vigilforanimals [at] yahoo.com or phone 415-751-3756. And if you would, please let me know if you get any responses.

Whatever you do, don't let yourself be discouraged. We have the truth on our side - and when people recognize the truth, they will be set free (of their misconceptions), and then so will the animals.

* Persons who have voiced their concerns about the care and use of animals at UCSF include Moneim Fadali, M.D., Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (F.A.C.C.); Michael Sinclair, M.D.; John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C.; Elliot Katz, D.V.M.; Richard Pryor, actor/comedian; Paul McCartney, musician - and many others of no lesser import.

-------[Vigil for Animals' Letter to Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi follows.]-------

May 21, 2005



Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi [ross.mirkarimi [at] sfgov.org]
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
City Hall
1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Place, Room 282
San Francisco, CA 94102

Dear Supervisor Mirkarimi:

Re: UCSF's Lack of Response to Public Concerns

Vigil for Animals is a San Francisco grassroots organization concerned with the treatment of animals in research, particularly at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Over the past year and a half, we have repeatedly voiced our concerns to UCSF. These concerns include the following:

1) Citations from the United States Department of Agriculture to UCSF for violations of the Animal Welfare Act (please find our enclosed letter of October 26, 2003);

2) UCSF's failure to utilize more reliable alternatives to live animals (please note enclosed position statement by John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., and letter to UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop from Moneim A. Fadali, M.D., F.A.C.S.);

3) Questionable scientific validity of 3 research projects involving hundreds of dogs and other animals at UCSF (please see our letter dated November 27, 2004).

We have addressed our concerns to UCSF's Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee (IACUC), formerly the Committee on Animal Research; Regis Kelly, Executive Vice Chancellor; Nigel Bunnett, Chair of the IACUC; and Paul Takayama, Director, State & Federal Relations. Although our first letter (of 10/26/2003) did not get a response from the Committee on Animal Research, it did get a response from Executive Vice Chancellor Kelly. Sadly, however, Mr. Kelly did not address a single concern in our letter and concluded his letter stating: "I do not believe a dialogue with the Committee would be appropriate." Two subsequent letters have also received no response from the IACUC.

In the summer of last year, I contacted the office of state Assemblyman Leland Yee to get his help in obtaining specific responses to our complaints. Consequently, David Burrutto, District Director of Assemblyman Yee's office, personally delivered 3 of the letters mentioned above to UCSF for their response. However, all that could be gotten from UCSF was a generalized response from Paul Takayama, Director of State & Federal Relations, who did not address any of our specific concerns. Consequently I communicated my dissatisfaction to Mr. Takayama in yet another letter.

The university receives well over a hundred million dollars yearly from the National Institutes of Health to fund research projects involving live animals. Yet it is legally bound "to review, and, if warranted, investigate concerns involving the care and use of animals at the research facility resulting from public complaints," according to the Animal Welfare Act. This UCSF has clearly not done.

Since we have been unable to obtain a response from the university regarding our concerns, we ask that you please contact J. Michael Bishop, chancellor of UCSF, and request that he sees that our concerns are addressed. Or if there is anything else you can do regarding this matter, please do and let us know. For your information, Chancellor Bishop's office is located at 513 Parnassus Avenue, S-126, San Francisco, CA 94143.

For your reference, I have enclosed all of the aforementioned letters and related documents.

We look forward to your response and hope for your assistance. Thanking you in advance for whatever help you can provide, I am

Cordially,

Robert A. O'Brien
(for Vigil for Animals)

Enclosures

cc: David Burrutto, District Director, Office of Assemblyman Leland Yee
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick jake.mcgoldrick [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier michela.alioto-pier [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Tom Ammiano tom.ammiano [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Chris Daly chris.daly [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Bevan Dufty bevan.dufty [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Sean Elsbernd sean.elsbernd [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Fiona Ma fiona.ma [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Sophie Maxwell sophie.maxwell [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Aaron Peskin aaron.peskin [at] sfgov.org
Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval gerardo.sandoval [at] sfgov.org

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