Alert! Call/Email NIH by 4/24 for World Week for Animals in Laboratories

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World Week for Animals in Laboratories is Here! World Week for Animals in Laboratories is Here! Call-In Days: Urge NIH to End Cruel Animal Experiments Many people find this hard to believe, but the U.S. government continues to sink millions of dollars each year into funding cruel and outdated experiments on animals to test the effects of nicotine and

tobacco. Please join IDA during this week's observance of World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL) to call attention to this outrage and speak out in opposition. IDA's Up in Smoke campaign highlights the futility and inhumanity of nicotine experiments on newborn and pregnant animals. These are some examples: - Since 1992, Elliot Spindel at Oregon Health and Science University delivers steady doses

of nicotine to pregnant monkeys through pumps implanted into their backs. The babies are cut out of their mothers' wombs in order to dissect their lungs. - At Texas A & M University, Ursula Winzer-Serhan forces baby rats to consume nicotine mixed with baby formula at the equivalent of three packs of cigarettes a day. After about a week of being fed nicotine, the babies' heads are cut off and their brains are dissected. - Researcher Kent Pinkerton at University of California, Davis, subjects pregnant rhesus monkeys to smoking chambers where they are forced to inhale cigarette smoke

for six hours each day, five days a week. When the infants are ten weeks old, they are killed by lethal injection and their lungs are dissected for analysis. Over the past five years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has given at least $16.5 million to this category of research. This appalling figure does not reflect the total cost of all nicotine research on animals, but only that which focuses on nicotine's effect on fetal and newborn development. Animal researchers staunchly defend these experiments as necessary for improving maternal and newborn health. But

answers don't come from animal studies. After decades of animal studies, we still have not solved the problem of smoking during pregnancy. Only education, public health outreach, and prevention programs can address the human behaviors that lead to smoking. Please call and/or email the following individuals between Tuesday, April 22nd and Thursday, April 24th

to politely urge the NIH to stop funding nicotine experiments on animals and instead redirect funds towards prevention, education and smoking cessation programs. Elias M. Zerhouni, MD, Director National Institutes of Health Tel: (301) 496-2433 Norka Ruiz Bravo, Ph.D. Director NIH Office of Extramural Research Tel: (301) 496-1096 Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. Tell-a-friend! If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for IDA's Action Center. In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization with more than 85,000 members and supporters dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare. IDA's efforts include educational events, cruelty investigations, boycotts, grassroots activism, and hands-on rescue through our sanctuaries in Mississippi and Cameroon, Africa. In Defense of Animals 3010 Kerner Blvd., San Rafael, California 94901 - P: (415) 388-9641 F: (415) 388-0388 email: idainfo

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