TPA Releases Second Joint Report on Costly and Questionable Animal Testing Studies

Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and the Animal Justice Project USA joined to release “Deadly Doses: Exposing the Federal Government’s Funding of the Slaughter of Millions of Dollars and Countless Creatures,” which uncovers the improper use of tax dollars being spent conducting scientifically dubious experiments regarding the effects of recreational drugs and alcohol on animals.  The report is the second in a series exposing examples of taxpayer-funded animal abuse, and is available here.

The ten experiments featured in the report killed thousands of animals and wasted more than $78 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money. These experiments, which often force animals to consume large amounts of drugs and alcohol, are largely worthless because they are rarely applicable to humans.

UCLA, the University of California-Berkeley, Cal Tech and the University of Texas are among the prestigious universities and research centers engaging in these cruel and expensive studies.

“It’s heartbreaking that animals are being killed for no good reason, and infuriating that our tax dollars are being used to kill them,” said David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. “Congress must put a stop to this disgusting practice.”

In one experiment, the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego spent $2.6 million forcing monkeys to binge drink in order to find out whether male monkeys handled their alcohol better than female monkeys.

Cal-Berkeley scientists burned through more than $4.7 million coercing dehydrated monkeys to play video games in an odd attempt to study the underlying characteristics of addiction.

Researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Research Triangle Institute, baby rats were starved, then injected with either meth or designer street drugs like bath salts and flakka to determine if the rats reacted differently to the different drugs. The study cost taxpayers $5.6 million.

Taxpayers spent $8 million to pump mice full of large doses of nicotine, then burn their feet on hot plates; $4.6 million to inject rats with methamphetamine, then shock their brains with electrodes; and $1.7 million get rats hooked on oxycodone, then decapitate them.

Monkeys, rabbits, rats and mice are the creatures most commonly slaughtered in order to perform these peculiar and pointless studies, according to Animal Justice Project USA spokeswoman Julia Orr.

“These experiments are appalling and indefensible waste of animals’ lives and taxpayers’ money. By funding recreational drugs experiments on animals that often do nothing to advance science, federal lawmakers have the blood of innocent animals on their hands,” Orr said.

The report is the result of a unique collaboration between one of America’s leading government watchdog and taxpayer advocacy groups and an internationally recognized animal rights organization. Both groups urge Congress to stop funding recreational drug research on animals, including studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the two most common sources of grants for such experiments.

Animal Justice Project USA and the Taxpayers Protection are giving the public the ability to vote on the most outrageous and offensive example of taxpayer-funded animal abuse uncovered in the report. The poll is available here.

The experiment receiving the most votes will be announced in April.

Click here to see TPA’s press release on the report.