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From: Kinship Circle - kinshipcircle [at] accessus.net
Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 4:43 PM
Subject: ACT/ Tell NIH Animals Don’t Smoke

KINSHIP CIRCLE PRIMARY - PERMISSION TO CROSS-POST AS WRITTEN

4/28/08: Tell NIH Animals Don’t Smoke

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LEFT: This monkey was used in an experiment in which pregnant females are injected with nicotine in order to observe its effects on their fetuses’ lungs. PETA

RIGHT: Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) experimenter Eliot Spindel has been killing infant monkeys (like Thimble, pictured here) in nicotine studies for 24 years. IDA

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FULL CONTACT INFORMATION. Sample letter follows.

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Elias Zerhouni, M.D., Director
National Institutes of Health
Building 1, Shannon Bldg RM 126
1 Center Drive, MSC 0148; Bethesda, MD 20892-0148
ph: 301-496-2433; fax: 301-402-2700
email: ez26y [at] nih.gov

Norka Ruiz Bravo, Ph.D.
Deputy Director: Office of Extramural Research
1 Center Drive, MSC 0152 (Room 144); Bethesda, MD 20892-0152
ph: 301-496-1096; fax: 301-402-3469
email: ruizbran [at] od.nih.gov

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SAMPLE LETTER — This letter is prepared to inform you about the issue.
Try to shorten and personalize your letter before sending.

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Dear Dr. Zerhouni and Dr. Bravo,

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards some $16.5 million in grants for nicotine experiments on animals. This figure covers research in fetal and newborn animals. The total price tag for nicotine animal studies is much higher. Please end this wasteful use of tax dollars now.

I urge NIH to invest in education, prevention and smoking cessation. Please address the exclusively human behaviors behind nicotine addiction — rather than squander money on animal experiments.

We already know smoking harms fetuses and promotes cancer of the lungs, larynx, tongue, salivary glands, pharynx, and esophagus. We understand its link to coronary heart disease, strokes, and pulmonary illness. We recognize smoking is very addictive in humans.

Animals acquire nicotine intravenously. Humans inhale it. Animals get mass doses in brief intervals, while people use small amounts over long periods.

Nonetheless, Eliot Spindel of Oregon Health and Science University receives millions to dose pregnant monkeys with nicotine via pumps surgically embedded in their backs. Babies are excised during different developmental phases so experimenters can dissect their lungs. Since 1992, Spindel has failed to produce data that can’t be gleaned from human clinical studies. Yet NIH intends to subsidize his experiments through 2012.

At Texas A&M University, rats ingest formula laced with nicotine, at the equivalent rate of 60 cigarettes a day. Experimenter Ursula Winzer-Serhan then decapitates the animals to analyze their brains. Kent Pinkerton of the University of California, Davis, confines pregnant rhesus monkeys in smoking chambers for six-hour inhalation sessions, five days a week. At ten weeks, their infants die by lethal injection and their lungs are dissected.

Our tax dollars should not pay for duplicative experiments that don’t apply to the human condition. Yale University’s Marina Picciotto has collected over $15 million since 1996 to inject nicotine into the abdomens of mice and rats. Sometimes she pours nicotine into holes carved in the animals’ skulls. Picciotto has even dangled mice by their tails from paper clips to observe nicotine’s influence on anxiety and depression.

Experimenters cannot replicate complex human drug addictions in species with physiological, cellular, genetic and psychological attributes vastly differently than our own. Please redirect funds from old-fashioned animal experiments to clinical and epidemiological studies, education/prevention, and smoking termination programs.

Thank you,

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ASK FOR THE VALIDATION OF ANIMAL-FREE RESEARCH MODELS!

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SEND THIS LETTER: Red Tape Keeps Animals In Labs / ICCVAM’s Legacy Of Inertia
www.kinshipcircle.org/letter_library/letter_new.asp?LetterID=1734&seriesfirst=true

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION / REFERENCE LINKS

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In Defense of Animals
www.upinsmokecampaign.org/

Help Make Nicotine Experiments on Animals Go ‘Up in Smoke’
getactive.peta.org/campaign/nicotine_testing

Justin Goodman, CONNECTICUT FOR ANIMALS
connecticutforanimals.blogspot.com
www.uchckillsmonkeys.com
justin_goodman [at] sbcglobal.net

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare action alerts kinship circle brenda shoss animal experimentation animal research animal testing vivisection nicotine nih ohsu Oregon Health and Science University Eliot Spindel monkeys primates Elias Zerhouni Norka Ruiz Bravo grant National Institutes of Healthl nicotine experiments flickr photos