Taxpayer Funded Animal Torture

[AkSaber]

http://www.whitecoatwaste.com/2013/11/howl-o-weeen-13-terrifying-true-and-taxpayer-funded-torture-devices-found-in%E2%80%A8the-governments-animal-experimentation-laboratories/

Whenever I hear the big-government whores bitch and moan about how we can't cut a single thing from the federal budget, it makes me wonder if they're stupid or delusional.

[memphis]

I have a soft spot for animals as well, but pretending that research isn't valuable to the development of critical medical treatments (or is a large part of the federal budget) is ridiculous. Forgoing animal research means doing without the vaccines and therapies that save countless human lives each year. Universities also have very strict ethical standards for working with vertebrates. You can't just do whatever you want with lab animals.

[H. Ross Peron]

I have a soft spot for animals as well, but pretending that research isn't valuable to the development of critical medical treatments (or is a large part of the federal budget) is ridiculous. Forgoing animal research means doing without the vaccines and therapies that save countless human lives each year. Universities also have very strict ethical standards for working with vertebrates. You can't just do whatever you want with lab animals.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I have a soft spot for animals as well, but pretending that research isn't valuable to the development of critical medical treatments (or is a large part of the federal budget) is ridiculous. Forgoing animal research means doing without the vaccines and therapies that save countless human lives each year. Universities also have very strict ethical standards for working with vertebrates. You can't just do whatever you want with lab animals.

Agreed.  Yet, despite the protocols, there are experiments with little value, if any, that slip through the cracks.  A contributing, tho definitely not exculpating, factor is the climate of secrecy due to the fear of attacks from animal rights advocates upon both research facilities and researchers. It makes it harder to root out the problematic studies from those that can produce useful information.

[bgwah]

The University of Washington is considering a >$100 million subterranean animal torture compound in Seattle. It's the stuff of horror movies.

[Redalgo]

Whenever I hear the big-government whores bitch and moan about how we can't cut a single thing from the federal budget, it makes me wonder if they're stupid or delusional.

Ignorance should count too, given that the government appropriates money for thousands of purposes each year. In all the examples you provided I would gladly suspend all state funding, though I hope I won't have to hear any small-government manchildren whine and lament as folk like me demand criminalization of abusive forms of animal experimentation and private funding for such endeavors.

[barfbag]

Animal abuse is horrible.

[ilikeverin]

Oh, wow, that site doesn't even have a token acknowledgement that the people doing these sorts of tests are performing research.  How cute.

Anyway, the NSF (or some sort of other important funding-type agency) has agreed that primates deserve special protections, so a lot of that research is going to be phased out as time goes on.

[Mordecai]

I don't get what the point being made is. That $12 billion (less than 0.4% of the budget, by the way) should be cut from animal experimentation because of these specific things?

It leads me to believe there was a lot of cherry-picking involved, and it looks pretty desperate when they have to include bags, guillotines and treadmills. It's hard to take that seriously when they try to argue from an all-or-nothing emotional standpoint, and not whether there are specific projects that should be ended (or have the methodology revised) because the costs outweigh the benefit.

[Frodo]

A team of Maryland scientists have made a breakthrough that could possibly end the need for animal testing.