Animal experimentation is a huge issue.
       Even the word we use to discuss it is large — vivisection. And if you ask someone outside the animal protection movement what this word means they probably won't know. This lack of knowledge and understanding, this unfamiliarity and hiddeness are the things that characterize the experimentation issue most accurately — even to many people inside the animal protection movement. Most of us believe that we really don't understand this issue, and therefore we are hesitant to attack it. We believe that we need the assistance of some medical professional to be effective.

The word "vivisection" is defined as the cutting up of living beings. Rollover image: a rabbit is immobilized for expermentation.

     Many activists are intimidated by this issue, and therefore do nothing. Furs, circuses, vegetarianism, all appear to be easier to understand. This is why we see far more anti-fur protests than anti-vivisection protests. This must change. The estimated 20,000,00 animals who are experimented on every year deserve far more of our attention. If we are to be effective on this issue we must overcome our trepidation about the technical nature of vivisection. The simple way to do this is to arm ourselves with knowledge. This knowledge is easily accessible to anyone who has a computer and Internet access.
      Where do we get information about vivisection? The simplest way to start is to go visit APHIS — the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service, which is a part of the USDA. APHIS is the branch of the USDA that enforces the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which is the only federal law that regulates animal experimentation. Under the auspices of the AWA, the USDA/APHIS does several things. First, it collects information from research laboratories (which are registered with the USDA) through annual reports filed each year by each facility. Second, USDA/APHIS inspects these laboratories.
      The reports that each facility files with the USDA are available on the Internet. This part of the USDA website currently makes the annual reports for research facilities available for fiscal 1996-1998 (the 1998 part is relatively new, and I have experienced some difficulties with it — the web page functions better with newer versions of the Adobe Acrobat software). However, these forms give us a good level of information about many research facilities.
      The annual report forms break down the experimentation done by each facility on a species by species basis. The number of animals used in each species is provided, and this number is broken down by the kind of experimentation that is being performed. The use of anesthesia in experimentation is one issue that the AWA deals with. Anesthesia is not required in any real sense, but if it is not used this omission must be justified — or explained. The process of providing this explanation often gives us a good look inside the lab, or at least a glimpse of what is done inside the lab.
      If we look at several instances of what these forms show, then we will begin to see what life is like inside the laboratory. The fiscal 1998 report for Yale University in Connecticut shows us many things about laboratory experiments.
      For fiscal 1998, Yale experimented on 59 dogs, 85 cats, 246 guinea pigs, 363 hamsters, 1,541 rabbits, 32 primates, 1 sheep, 129 pigs, 1 chipmunk, 315 ferrets, 42 gerbils, 14 opossums, 455 peromyscus (white-footed mouse), 33 raccoons, 2 skunks, and 9 squirrels. This adds up to a total of 3,327 animals.
      In some ways this report leaves out much more than it actually tells us. During 1998, research laboratories were not required to even report how many rats, mice, birds (and some other species) were experimented on. The end result of this practice is that most experimentation was not reported or regulated. Recent court cases have successfully challenged this situation, but systemic changes are yet to be implemented.

Dogs await poisoning experimentation at Huntington Life Sciences. Rollover image: a dog undergoes invasive research.

      However, even the experimentation totals do not tell us everything. Any animals who are maintained in captivity for breeding purposes at the laboratory but are not "experimented on" are not included in the totals listed above. These animals are listed on the reporting forms, but not counted in the totals. Primates are one species in which this practice is very common. And Yale is no exception to this situation. Yale lists 32 primates as having been experimented on, but another 71 were held in captivity for conditioning or breeding. Another 217 animals (total for all species) are held in captivity by Yale without being the actual subject of any experiments.
      In four additional pages that accompany the actual report forms for Yale a significant amount of further information is provided about what happens in the labs at Yale. One category of information given is "Explanation for Exceptions to USDA Requirements." This category itself exposes one significant problem of the Animal Welfare Act. Researchers are essentially free to ignore the act whenever they want to do so. If a researcher says that giving an animal a regular, sufficient amount of food will interfere with an experiment, then they are exempted from feeding the animal adequately.
      For example, in Yale's report it states:

Sixty-two Macaca mulatta (a species of primate)...underwent food regulation to facilitate training and/or perform complex...tasks."

      In other words, food was used to motivate these sixty-two primates to perform certain behaviors. In order to make sure that these primates were interested in the food during the experiment, food was withheld when they were not performing the experiment.
      And similar situations existed at Yale regarding giving these primates water:

One Macaca fascicularis, nineteen Macaca mulatta, and two Macaca nemestrina underwent water regulation to facilitate training to learn and perform complex behavior...tasks.

      Again, water was used as a motivator during training for these "tasks" and to insure that it was a good motivator, the primates are deprived of water when they are not being experimented on.
      It is very interesting to note that this explanation lists procedures being performed on at least 62 separate primates and maybe as many as 102 primates who were experimented on, but Yale actually reported experimenting on only 32 primates. Apparently, something is wrong with Yale's reporting.
     Researchers can withhold even the most basic necessities of life, if they believe it is "necessary" for the performance of an experiment. One other requirement of the AWA is that animals not be used in multiple surgeries. The 1998 USDA report for for Yale details several animals, both primates and dogs, who were used in multiple surgeries.
      This demonstrates one fact that is essential to the understanding of animal experimentation. Once the animal enters the laboratory for experimental purposes there is literally NOTHING the experimenter cannot do. Food and water can be withheld. Cage cleaning can be limited. Intensive confinement can be implemented. Nothing is truly prohibited. Animals are absolutely at the mercy of the person who is performing the experiment.

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