NYU professors cannot use scientific progress as justification for dehydrated monkeys and cocaine-addicted rats, according to one researcher for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
At Vanderbilt Hall yesterday, Cruelty-Free NYU and peta2 (essentially, PETA for college students) hosted PETA researcher Alka Chandna for a discussion about animal abuse in laboratories across the country, and specifically in the university's own laboratory buildings.
When discussing on the cruelty of animals, Chandna focused on three NYU professors: psychiatry professor Kenneth Carr, who has spent 20 years inducing cocaine addictions in rats and observing whether their addictions increased when they were deprived of food; neural science professor Lynne Kiorpes, who dehydrated monkeys to garner a response, using water as a treatment; and neural science professor J. Anthony Movshon, who kept monkeys in restraint chairs for four days to observe the connection between their brain and eye movement.During the discussion, Chandna displayed pictures of each professor and graphic photos of animal testing experiments.
"NYU has a history of egregious violations of the Animal Welfare Act," Chandna said.
But Chandna also noted that NYU has a strong group of individuals pioneering against animal abuse.
Gallatin junior Olivia Pomann, the president of Cruelty-Free NYU, co-sponsored the event with the hope raising awareness of animal abuse at NYU.
"This is what's happening in your buildings that you are paying rent for through tuition," Pomann said.
She added: "There are a lot of experiments that are outdated or just done so that doctors can publish papers. If that means they have to break a monkey's skull, they'll do it."
Third-year law student Kevin Satter, a member of the Student Animal League Defense Fund, viewed the event as a "kind of full disclosure."
"It's kind of 'out of sight, out of mind,' but here, it's only a few buildings away," Satter said.
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