PETA’s ‘10 Worst Laboratories’ List

3. The University of California at San Francisco
In September 2005, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) paid a $92,500 fine to the USDA for more than 60 violations of the AWA. UCSF has a long history of AWA violations. In addition to various violations regarding record-keeping and sanitation, UCSF researchers have performed surgery on a ewe and her fetus without anesthesia or analgesia; left monkeys and lambs unmonitored after surgery; forced marmoset monkeys to breed continually and give birth while they were still nursing infants, which resulted in a high infant mortality rate and severe maternal weight loss; deprived monkeys of water, which caused severe weight loss; performed a craniotomy on a monkey without any painkillers; and subjected at least one monkey to multiple injections of a brain-destroying chemical.

The unprecedented 2005 fine comes five years after a previous UCSF fine of $2,000—demonstrating that UCSF has allowed its almost non-existent animal welfare program to deteriorate even further. Even when UCSF is not violating the AWA, its animal research is particularly painful and invasive. UCSF uses primates, cats, and songbirds in invasive brain experiments that ostensibly pertain to communication, vision, and hearing. The animals undergo multiple surgeries to alter their brains and implant hardware. The experimenters then subject animals to various environmental conditions—often involving distressing stereotaxic head restraint—and record the resulting brain data.

A particularly obscene series of experiments by Professor Michael Stryker examines the effects of “monocular deprivation” on kittens’ brains. Stryker sews the eyes of newborn kittens shut so that their brains develop without visual stimulation. In some variations, he implants chemical pumps and access ports into the kittens’ heads in order to inject drugs. After varying periods of time, Stryker reopens their eyes, cuts off the tops of their skulls, and measures brain activity as the kittens are presented with images on TV screens. Stryker’s government-funded deprivation studies on cats have been going on since the 1970s, but they have only managed to show that kittens’ brains fail to develop normally if their eyes are sewn shut!

Considering UCSF’s total indifference to animal care, its numerous violations of minimum animal welfare regulations, and its cruel and pointless research, it’s easy to see why UCSF made the “10 Worst Laboratories” List.

Please write, call, fax, or e-mail the head of the university and politely ask him to stop these atrocities:

J. Michael Bishop, M.D., Chancellor
Office of the Chancellor
University of California, San Francisco
513 Parnassus Ave., S-126
San Francisco, CA 94143-0402
415-476-2401
415-476-9634 (fax)
jmbishop@chanoff.ucsf.edu