Help Stop Cruel Experiments on Cats

Researchers at Ohio State University (OSU) will pick up where they left off in 2006 when a controversial study involving cats officially ended. The previous researcher, Michael Podell, had been approved to administer methamphetamine to 120 cats with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). His team discovered that the virus was able to reproduce faster when the drug was present. The work is now being conducted by Lawrence Mathes, Professor of veterinary biosciences at OSU, building on Podell's findings.

This year, the OSU researchers received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to test their theories about how methamphetamine inhibits the efficacy of drug treatments for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In actuality, they will be studying a feline form (FIV), suggesting that their findings may be extended to the human condition.

A significant trend in modern research has been the recognition that animals are not good models for the study of human disease. Because their anatomies and metabolisms vary greatly from humans, the data retrieved from their studies using animals is not always easily extrapolated to the human condition. For example, the OSU study used cats because they are one of three species that can produce a virus similar enough to HIV. However, neither cats, primates, nor mice progress to a similar Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In other words, billions of dollars and animal lives have been wasted in unsuccessful attempts to produce AIDS in non-humans.

Ironically, the researchers at OSU may understand this at some level. The first half of their research focuses on the use of in vitro cell cultures—both human and feline. Specifically, they will use the cultures to determine whether the presence of methamphetamine increases the virus's ability to resist a drug treatment known as azidothymidine, or AZT. Unfortunately, the second half of the research will use 24 cats to test their theories in live bodies.

What You Can Do:
Help stop this egregious experiment by contacting Ohio State University and ask that the use of cats be stopped in this research. Highlight the fact that researchers are already using human cell cultures, a more effective and directly related method. E. Gordon Gee, President, Ohio State University, 205 Bricker Hall, 190 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210; E-mail: gee.2@osu.edu.