Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

As an alumna, I was extremely disappointed to read two recent guest columns (“Princeton's Laboratory Animal Research Program,” published on April 22, and “Misleading and Factually Incorrect Coverage of Animal Research at the University,” April 28), which mislead readers through fear-mongering and a broad mischaracterization of the treatment of animals in laboratories. In addition, they misrepresent the supposed benefits of experiments on animals as well as public perceptions of animal testing.

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 50 percent of Americans oppose experiments on animals. And opposition rises the more the public learns about the constant pain and misery that animals endure in laboratories, the failure of animal experiments to provide accurate predictions of outcomes in humans and the availability of cutting-edge animal-free research methods.

In recent tax-funded experiments at Princeton, experimenters injected oxytocin and hormones into the brains of rats and deliberately put them in stressful situations before finally killing and dissecting them. In another experiment, rats were videotaped having sex, injected with compounds to promote the growth of brain cells and then killed.

In reality, these types of crude, cruel experiments — which cost millions of dollars and kill many animals — very rarely help people, as evidenced by the Food and Drug Administration’s finding that more than 90 percent of drugs that may have worked in animal tests subsequently fail in human clinical trials.

Additionally, despite the misleading claims of the authors of these op-eds, federal inspectors have found that the University has allegedly violated federal animal-welfare laws. In recent years, the University has been cited for failing to provide justifications for the use of animals in harmful procedures, failure to provide monkeys with adequate veterinary care, and failure to provide appropriate oversight by University officials.

Recent reports of the disturbing treatment of animals in campus laboratories are part of a system of institutionalized abuse at the University that should be roundly condemned by students, faculty, alumni and community members alike.