ESR Project started in the fall of 2007 and received its 501 c 3 designation in June of 2008. We do not publish the names of institutions or PIs as it is process we are concerned with. ESR Project is not focusing on individual protocols; but rather, on review of overall process and what is needed in terms of reforms within this industry - both for the safety of the public as this research impacts human health and for the welfare of the animals involved.
Our work arose from concerns for primates and the continuing practice of taking primates from the wild for biomedical research, despite CITES II listings and world concerns for their future and despite numerous breeding programs in place and already funded. Many of these breeding programs do not benefit the animals in the event of extinctions in the wild because scientists are actively changing their genetics - making them more readily available for genetic disease models and altering forever the natural gene pools. Additionally, the increase in their use and numbers in the USA, nearly doubling over the past eight years, raises concerns for environmental issues such as zoonotic diseases and the increase of nano particulate from incinerators, body fluids and waste into sewage systems and animal carcasses into landfills.
The public is aware that biomedical research on animals creates situations of death for the animals but what is not widely known is just how extensive this loss of life is - often it is not fully documented through reporting channels nor accounted for fully in reports to verify numbers.
Death losses occur in the following ways:
1] At the conclusion of an experiment for necropsy; or at any point during a protocol that the investigator deems necessary.
2] Breeding animals in colonies are killed if they do not produce on-time and to specifications or they are culled into protocols that are often times fatal.
3] Healthy animals are raised to be euthanized for blood and tissue banks, bio banks and other. Their body parts and fluids are traded around institutions and sold back and forth.
4] Animals die in research settings from diseases not even associated with protocols: ESR Project has records of animals dying from GI distress, herpes, pneumonias, and fatal bite wound injuries associated with caging.
5] Animals die from stress before they even reach biomedical institutions.
6] Animals are euthanized for reasons not in evidence in their day to day health records: for example, one female baboon was euthanized so her body could be sold to another institution and the death justified due to she was an unfit mother and therefore unsuitable to be part of a breeding colony. This was contrary to what her actual health record showed: record entries stated that she was a very good mother.
ESR Project has several investigations of its own and projects that are related to biomedical research on animals in the USA. These include, but are not limited to:
* Ongoing three year study on primates in biomedical research .
* Rethink. Reform. Redirect. our copyrighted public awareness program for implementing reforms in biomedical research.**
* Research on environmental impact of biomedical research institutions: needles, pathogens, laws, regulations, loopholes.
** Please see this under projects.
Science has progressed to the point where if alternatives are not currently available to aspects of animal based biomedical research, the technology and intelligence exists to create these alternatives. As long as society considers animal based biomedical research to be acceptable, the less likely it is that alternatives will be found. It is not just an issue of right or wrong, but the need to re-examine an industry which has grown considerably and which has put itself above most external regulation. There is much about this industry that needs reform: to protect the public, to protect the welfare of the animals upon which treatments and medications are based, and to protect our environment from its waste, chemicals, pathogens, and impact on wild populations.
At some point, it becomes necessary, regardless of potential economic impact, to examine the influence of environment and genetics on disease processes and start directing more energy and monetary resources to fixing what is at the bottom of the food chain {food/water/land pollutions} than to trying to duplicate diseases in animals and use their bodies to find medicines. Treatments and medications are not the only methods of containing disease and fostering human health. The causes of human disease don't lie in animal physiology but in human physiology and exposures - cures and preventions will require a change in the concept of modern science and a refocusing of resources to clean up our land, air and water - and to reduce our exposure to bioaccumulative metals and toxins in our air, food and water sources.
