'Cut the Cruelty', Marshall BioResources & Marshall Pet Products, Food Revolution Summit featuring Neal Barnard M.D., Tania Roth, University of Delaware & I would NOT be part of this campaign if there were not Alternatives to Make Animal Tests Obsolete!

Alternatives
YOU wouldn’t want to be used as a ‘guinea pig’ for painful, invasive research. Neither does an actual, live guinea pig.

Animals don’t volunteer to be test subjects—they don’t have a choice. But we do.

Thanks to you, AAVS’s affiliate, the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation (ARDF) funds projects to develop humane, non-animal research models that are not only more ethical, but that also advance research and testing for human health. That’s our choice.

With funding from ARDF and other sources, researchers created “mini-brains” made of human neurons and cells, which could revolutionize drug testing, and spare countless numbers of animals sacrificed for neurological research. These 3D human brain models can be used to find treatments for diseases like Parkinson’s.

Help with the future of research for alternatives today!

Federal budget reductions have left scientists in search of new approaches. ARDF is working to direct their energies toward alternatives and away from animal usage. Ensuring rapid adoption of new, non-animal methods is our top priority.

Grant proposals for new alternatives projects will be considered in May, and it would be incredible if ARDF were able to fund all those that our scientific reviewers recommend. We hope you will consider a special contribution to help make that happen.

Thank you for being part of this progressive movement for humane science!
Introducing R+FP's "Cut the Cruelty" campaign, where we expose cruel companies, and with your help, create change for the animals! 

Q: What's worse than selling animals to be tortured in laboratories?
A. Luring animals-loving consumers into unwittingly supporting you. 

Shockingly, this cruel secret is exactly what R+FP exposed at Marshall Pet Products! 

This pet and merchandise retailer, which sells toys, food and animal care products, also has a nefarious partner company, Marshall BioResources, which is the largest US. supplier of beagles, ferrets and other animals to research labs!
Get the full story here and join us in thanking Overstock.com who ended the sale of Marshall Pet Products after we contacted them with the facts!
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Drugs, Near Drowning, and Electric Shocks in 'Child Abuse' Experiments
peta2TV

Drugs, Near Drowning, and Electric Shocks in 'Child Abuse' Experiments. An experimenter at the University of Delaware forced alcohol down the throats of newborn animals, stuffed pregnant rats into tiny restraint tubes and blasted them with strobe lights, electrically shocked infant rats, and injected them with opioids. She's been tormenting animals at taxpayers' expense for nearly two decades, and it needs to stop now.

The University of Delaware's Tania Roth claims that she studies child abuse. But her experiments are all about making vulnerable and sensitive rats suffer. She's forced alcohol down the throats of newborn ones. She's stuffed pregnant mothers into tiny restraint tubes and blasted them with strobe lights. She's purposely terrified rats by repeatedly shocking their feet, and she's taken newborns away from their mothers and given them to other rats who are unable to care for them.

Roth has been tormenting animals at taxpayer expense for nearly two decades. She's received more than $1.8 million in public funding. What is there to show for it? Published papers with glaring omissions about the treatment of these doomed animals, no apparent benefits for human children who are abused … and a mountain of animal bodies.
newborn rats and mother
Sensitive adult rats and pups imprisoned in Roth's lab were destined to be tormented in her experiments.

Attacking the Most Vulnerable

Since 2000, Roth has been subjecting rats to mistreatment in early life in order to study their genetic and behavioral changes. In other words, she makes baby animals depressed, anxious, and fearful. Among her cruel and sordid methods to distress newborns are these:

  • Injecting infant rats with opioids
  • Frightening baby rats by exposing them to the odor of fox urine so that they believe they're in danger
  • Artificially increasing the level of the stress hormone corticosterone in rats to make them even more afraid when exposed to the odor of fox urine
  • Electrically shocking infant rats
In a recent study, Roth terrified pregnant rats to see if it affected their babies. Three times a day, for three weeks, these animals were squeezed into PVC tubes only 2.5 inches wide and then exposed to high-frequency strobe lights and bombarded with white noise.
rat inside lab device
The image above, taken from an article on rodent handling and restraint techniques written by University of Notre Dame staff, depicts a restraint tube similar to the ones used by Roth in her experiment.

These animals were tormented both day and night. Roth then removed the pups from their mothers at birth and put them with other rats.

In another experiment, Roth placed pups with adult rats whose own babies had been taken away from them and purposely deprived the foster moms of sufficient nesting materials. The mothers were so stressed that they dropped, dragged, ignored, and stepped on their foster pups.

In yet another experiment, she stuffed rats into plastic, wedge-shaped cones so small that they were unable to move. She then placed them inside a Plexiglas enclosure, smeared cat food on top of it, and placed that enclosure inside a tiny metal cage with an adult cat for one hour. This was so that the rats would experience "direct cat gustatory activity."
rat in wedgecone
This image, taken from an article on rodent handling and restraint techniques written by University of Notre Dame staff, shows a restraint cone similar to the ones used by Roth in her experiment.
This image depicts an experiment similar to one that Roth conducted, in which a cat was enticed to lick food off an enclosure containing terrified rats.

Roth has also subjected rats to a "forced swim" test, in which the animals are placed in beakers of water and experimenters measure how long they struggle to stay afloat.
forced swim device

These experiments are riddled with mistakes.

A Trail of Little Bodies in Roth's Wake

Roth also routinely kills newborn pups whom she deems "excess," treating these babies like disposable lab equipment—to her, their lives seem to have no value. She describes killing some by injecting formalin (liquid formaldehyde) directly into their hearts—a killing method that is not approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association because it's considered inhumane.

Rats are excluded from the Animal Welfare Act—the only federal law with legally enforceable animal-welfare standards—so they aren't even afforded the meager protections it offers. What's more, Delaware exempts laboratory experiments from cruelty-to-animals prosecution. So Roth gets away with tormenting these social, intelligent beings by doing things that would warrant criminal charges if they were committed outside a laboratory.

We're demanding that the University of Delaware put an end to these tests, and we're calling on the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to stop funding Roth's experiments.

Please speak out!
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The 7th Annual Food Revolution Summit, April 28 - May 6
In just two weeks, Neal Barnard, will take part in a free, online event that will bring together the world's leading experts on how the food we eat impacts our health and animals.
He is joining friends John and Ocean Robbins to speak at the Food Revolution Summit. This event is a great opportunity to get the latest breaking insights about how you can unleash the power of food to fight cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia—and to stand up for a better world.
Neal Barnard has participated in previous Summit events. The feedback has always been positive, and John and Ocean always over-deliver on quality content. You'll want to tune in to hear these exclusive interviews from thought and action leaders in nutrition, animal issues, and the environment.