Chinese New Year holds little promise for the Rat

The new 12 year cycle for Chinese New Year began on Thursday with the Year of the Rat (Wu Zi). The so-called Rat Year is said to provide opportunities for a promising new start in any area of anyone’s life, but not for the millions of rats in the US and Europe who are destined to die in experiments.

In the East, the rat is revered for its quick wit and considered a symbol of good luck and wealth in both China and Japan. Clever with good powers of observation, the Rat of the Chinese Zodiac is noted for having the best intellect of all the animals.

Rats, however, are not so revered in the US and Europe, where several millions a year are used in experiments. The rats are used in biological research, medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, education, training, direct diagnosis and breeding.

National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) Chief Executive Jan Creamer said: "The more people know about animal experiments, the less they support them. Real rats - like their Chinese calendar counterparts - are quick-witted and intelligent. Yet they are forced to live in deplorable conditions and suffer terribly. Let’s use the Chinese New Year to aspire a thought for these much maligned creatures. Our message for Chinese New Year is that lab animal research is both cruel and bad science. There are far better ways of undertaking research ¬using the latest technology and sophisticated techniques which are of direct relevance to people.”

Experiments on rats have been revealed to be some of the most cruel and unnecessary following research by the NAVS. Examples include:

• At Washington University in St Louis, 11 anesthetized seven-day-old rat pups were placed in a holder, their heads held in position and their scalp cut back and their skulls exposed. Using a motor driven device, researchers repeatedly indented the skulls of the animals in an attempt to recreate traumatic brain injury (TBI) in humans. The rat pups skulls were rapidly impacted between 64 and 128 times taking from 5.3 to 21.2 seconds. Although there are no clear aims, this study was looking to find another approach to modeling TBI in animals even though many other studies, in other species, using various methods of head deformation were cited. Thus the study repeats previous ones that used models such as gel filled skulls and cadavers to study the same injury, only this time using live animals.

• Rats at the University of Manchester in the UK were deliberately brain-damaged in attempts to model Parkinson's disease. They were given drugs to destroy brain cells to induce symptoms of the disease, and later killed. The use of rats ignored the fact that the condition is unique to humans. After the tests, the rats were killed by having their necks broken, for removal and slicing of the brain. The drugs were already in use for human Parkinson's disease sufferers and their effects on people are already known.

• At Cardiff University, in Wales volcanic ash was put into rats' windpipes and researchers waited for up to 12 months to see if one of its constituent parts - cristobalite, a constituent of volcanic dust - was toxic. The experiment was carried for the benefit of residents of Montserrat where there are continued volcanic eruptions. The tests were totally unnecessary since studies of humans exposed to volcanic ash, and cell culture studies, have already been completed. The required information could have been made available - without causing unnecessary suffering and waste of life and resources.


______________________________ENDS___________________________

For further information, please contact:
Max Green, Press Officer
Animal Defenders International
953 Mission Street #200
San Francisco CA 94103
(415) 543-2344
maxgreen [at] ad-international.org


Notes:
• Every year, an estimated 100 million animals suffer and die in experiments in the world's laboratories.
• For each recorded use of an animal, a further two to three animals have been killed after a miserable short life, simply because they are surplus to requirements.
• However, the fundamental flaw of animal research is that each species responds differently to substances, making animal tests unreliable as a way to predict effects in humans.
• Laboratory animals suffer terribly at every stage of their lives; the law allows the infliction of pain and suffering on animals that would, in other circumstances, be illegal.
• The NAVS spends over $400,000 a year on grants to scientists conducting non-animal research, and urges scientists and legislators to focus on replacements for animal tests, for the sake of both people and animals.
• Founded in 1875, the NAVS is the world’s first anti-vivisection group and continues to lead the worldwide campaign for animal experiments to be replaced with sophisticated, non-animal methods.
• A MORI Poll of February 2005 recorded that 81% of people agreed that there needs to be more research into alternatives to animal experimentation and 76% could only accept animal experimentation with no unnecessary suffering to animals.