Suomi Reading

Suomi Reading (YouTube)

Suomi was Harry Harlow's star pupil. His doctoral thesis recounts his use of the "vertical chamber" to induce chronic depression.

Primate Research at UW - For The Record 2008

Primate Research at UW - For The Record 2008 (YouTube)

ALS-Diagnosed Dr. Helene Dwyer Speaks Against Animal Experimentation

ALS-Diagnosed Dr. Helene Dwyer Speaks Against Animal Experimentation (YouTube)

UW Caught Lying - Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal

UW Caught Lying - Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal (YouTube)

2010 Forum on Ethics of Animal Research

2010 Forum on Ethics of Animal Research (YouTube)

The Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal

Remembering the Vilas Zoo Monkey Scandal (YouTube)

Veterinarians: An Ironic Impediment to Progress for Animals

Many new medical doctors swear an oath to treat their patients with care and respect. New veterinarians swear to use their knowledge and skills "for the benefit of society."

I've known a number of veterinarians who have cared deeply for animals and have spoken out on their behalf. Such veterinarians seem to be quite rare.

Thinking of veterinarians as animals' doctors likely contributes to the public's mistaken belief that they are M.D.s for animals and that they also treat their patients with care and respect. And certainly, some do.

But in many, maybe all organizations involved with using or selling animals, veterinarians are involved in and defend whatever it is that their organization, employer, or industy does to animals.

Some examples:

Today, there are approximately 400 veal farms in the U.S., and many are Amish or Mennonite families. Each farm family raises about 400 head per year. Out of all the formula-fed calves marketed each year, 95 percent come from Veal Quality Assurance (VQA)-certified farms. All VQA certifications are verified by a veterinarian.

The care that’s given is really unprecedented, even for a zoo. -- Dr. Dennis Schmitt, head veterinarian, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation

It was pictures like this one from Barnum and Bailey's elephant training farm that even the vets couldn't whitewash.

Laboratory animal veterinarians serve as a unique bridge between the humane use of laboratory animals and the advancement of scientific and medical knowledge.

But every company and institution experimenting on animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act is required to have a committee -- an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, an IACUC (sometimes called an ACUC) -- that is supposed to make sure that the regulations of the Animal Welfare Act are being followed, and one of the committee's members must be a veterinarian. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a senior veterinarian served on the committee that oversees the use of monkeys. That vet, "Buddy" Capuano argued that the committee did not have the right or power to stop or force certain modifications to a project involving maternal deprivation.

What this means for the animals is that whenever concern over the care and use of animals finds its way into consideration by the public, there are always veterinarians who come forward and claim that the animals are well cared for, even respected and loved. And, because they are "animal doctors" those listening to their poppycock are hoodwinked.

Veterinarians are not medical doctors. They take no oath to protect and try to do what is best for their "patients". In cases involving the use of animals or their sale, there are no patients involved; there are only victims.

The Michelle Basso Case

If by some miracle society doesn't implode as a result of climate change, ecological collapse, and/or nuclear war, humans might at some point in the future acknowledge that other animals are as deserving of basic rights as we are. Perhaps historians and philosophers in the future will look back on the history of our terrible treatment of other animals in an effort to understand why we behaved so badly.

It makes sense that they might since they already consult history to try and understand why we have and still often do treat other humans very badly. Studying the history of our predjudice and its effects seems to help us embrace the inclusion and protection of those we have hurt and maligned.

Though still a work in progress, we are beginning to acknowledge our sins and aggressions against those of other races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, abilities, and disabilities; we are trying to overcome our predjudices. Some of us are ahead of the curve; we recognize that humans aren't the only animals whose lives can be miserable as a result of our predjudice toward them.

The Michelle Basso Case might be of value to those with an interest in understanding the prevailing predjudice.

The Michelle Basso Case shows clearly that one can rise to a position of authority responsible for the care and treatment of thousands of monkeys (in this case, the 1000s of monkeys at the Washington National Primate Research Center in Seattle and a smaller number at the university's breeding colony near Mesa, Arizona) even after veterinary staff (at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center) documented exceptionally poor treatment of the monkeys in her lab.

Those reports were probably Basso's motivation for leaving Wisconsin. Currently, a vivisector's poor treatment of animals is clearly not an impediment to rising to a position of power in those ranks.

Basso's duplicity is clear when her problems in Wisconsin are considered against the claims she makes in her interview. The link is to Chapter 16 of my book, "We All Operate in the Same Way."

Interview with the Director: The importance of the Washington National Primate Research Center

June 27, 2022
Chris Petkov and Renee Hartig

Are You Doing the Devil’s Work?

What if Satan is real?

Maybe it tricks us into doing bad things to others because it is nourished by fear, pain, and grief. If this were so, it would do all in its power to get us to hurt each other.

Maybe this is why we raise so many animals in such terrible conditions and wage war on each other. Maybe Satan is nourished by this suffering. Maybe the animals squirming and crying out when being experimented on, going insane in their tiny cages, dogs spending their lives on a chain, cows standing in knee-deep filth in a feed lot, or soldiers dying slowly in a ditch somewhere are the sort of things that sustain Satan.

It would explain a lot.

Academic Freedom and Democracy

UC Davis has prevailed in a civil lawsuit brought by activists under the California Public Records Act. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, had filed the suit in January 2019, seeking access to unpublished research data, in the form of video recordings, from work by two researchers at the California National Primate Research Center. The Superior Court of California, County of Yolo, ruled that releasing the material did not serve the public interest and would undermine academic freedom and the scientific process while increasing the risk that researchers could face physical harm and harassment from activists.

The court's ruling was seemingly celebrated by the University of California's National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement which tweeted the news and pointed to the university's press release. The most interesting passsage to me and the one that raises questions about the Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement's implicit bias was this:

the court ruled that the public was better served by not disclosing the videos because there was minimal value to the public in seeing the videos, and to the contrary, great risk that the videos could cause the public to misunderstand the purpose and methodology of the research at the California National Primate Research Center.

This begs the question of whether or not ignorance is an impediment to civic engagement. I suspect that those involved with the University of California's National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement would generally agree that an informed citizenry is a key element in civic engagement. Ignorance imposed by government undermines and curtails free speech. You simply can't talk about or practice civic engagement regarding things that are hidden from you.

In 1997, I spent a few days in the Yolo County jail for protesting the terrible things being done to monkeys at the California National Primate Research Center which is part of the University of California-Davis's campus. I was simply sitting on public property across the street from the entrance to this hell-hole with a couple signs. Seemingly, vivisectors have the academic freedom to hurt and kill monkeys but the public risks going to jail if they criticize them for doing so or to share details about their hideousness with other citizens.

It seems clear that the university and a judge believe that "academic freedom" allows those who are being paid by the public to keep what they are doing a secret from the public. This notion is apparently shared by the University of California's National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement There is no claim of national security or potential intellectual property theft, it's all about the potential (and unlikely) repercussions of the public learning about a tiny few of the terrible things being done to animals in their name.

Democracy is severely weakened, threatened even, when government keeps secrets from the citizens when those with the power to do so believe those secrets might cause some concern about what the government is doing or paying to have done. And that potential concern is the only reason that UC-Davis fought to keep video recordings of monkeys taken from their mothers by two researchers at the California National Primate Research Center hidden from the public.

Oddly, or maybe not, they don't care if the public reads about what they are doing -- details are generally spelled out in published papers; they are simply freaked out by the potential blow-back if the public sees what they are doing.

This isn't something unique to the University of California, they all operate in the same way when it comes to trying to keep the unsettling details secret. Keeping the darkest details secret is woven into the fabric of government-sponsored vivisection.