Animal Testing

Dr. Thomas Hartung looks wistfully at the photo a colleague shows him of a beloved family dog that recently died.

“Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow me to own a dog. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog,’’ he says.

For seven years, Kathleen Conlee was a lab animal insider, helping to breed and study thousands of monkeys -- mainly macaques -- in several private and university research facilities.

At times, she managed a nursery where she tried to bring down the death rate of newborn primates, and worked to set up enrichment programs to improve the psychological health of the animals.

Sue Leary once thought she might have a career as a biologist, but soon after getting her biology degree in 1976 from Pennsylvania State University, she concluded that path meant “being in a lab working with animals and probably doing not nice things with them.”

Dr. James Cook says once beneath a surgical drape, it’s hard to tell the joint of a dog from that of a human.

As both a veterinarian and University of Missouri professor of surgery who studies cartilage failure from injury or disease, he’s studied the joints of rats, rabbits, dogs and horses, as well as people.

Jen Streicker has worked with lab research animals her entire adult life, first with dogs and monkeys in a Virginia lab and then with mice in North Carolina’s Research Triangle.

Stuart Zola has battled animal protectionists for much of his career, vilified as "Frankenstein" and “vivisector of the week” during demonstrations against his exploratory surgeries into the brains of macaques.

Research labs in the United States come under government scrutiny mainly in two ways: because they use federal funds in their studies or because they work with animals regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Animal Welfare Act.

BALTIMORE - Testing chemicals on the eyes or skin of live animals has long been one of the procedures most criticized by animal protectionists.

It once was common for dogs and other pets to be stolen or sold by pounds to dealers who put them into monstrous holding kennels before reselling them to scientific researchers.

CLEMSON, S.C. - Recently released documents of a 2-year-old federal investigation into animal care at Clemson University described "major personnel conflicts," but training and staff changes have since addressed those problems, university officials said.

Examples of current prices paid by research laboratories for animals or their organs:

Beagles -- $350 to $900, depending on age, sex

Major beagle organs -- $100 each, plus cost of animal

Pound/random-source dogs -- $0 to $500

Rhesus macaque -- $4,000 to $8,000, more if certified virus-free

Macaque organs (lungs, liver, spleen, etc.) -- $250 each

Each year, millions of lab animals give their lives to improve, even save, the lives of humans.