TTUHSC No Longer Performing Medical Tests on Cats
December 16, 2009 by Halie Hartman · Leave a Comment
Over two-thousand signatures were collected protesting the use of cats for educational experimentation at Texas Tech’s Health Science Center, said Robyn Katz, founder of the Tech Student Animal Legal Defense Fund.
Katz, who presented the petition to the secretary of Elmo Cavin, the interim president of TTUHSC, said it does not make any sense to compare human life to an animal life in its anatomy and physiology because they are so different.
According to the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals’ Web site, the cats were obtained from the Odessa Animal Shelter. The shelter has been selling lost and stray cats to TTUHSC for more than two decades, where they are used for medical training courses.
This cat at the Lubbock Animal Shelter, unlike the ones at the Odessa Animal Shelter, does not have to worry about being sold for medical testing.
“They pretty much collapse their lungs,” Katz said, “it’s called needle decompression, so they shove a needle into their lungs to collapse their lungs and see how it effects them. Also, they do intubation, which is shoving a tube down their esophagus.”
According to a letter written by Cavin to Katz on Nov. 23, 2009, the cats were used for medical training on emergency techniques to re-establish or maintain breathing in critically ill infants and young children.
The Odessa Animal Shelter was contacted, but unavailable to comment at the time of publication.
The cats sold to TTUHSC were already candidates for euthanasia, Cavin wrote.
They were administered general anesthesia, numbing them to any pain or stress during the procedures and then were humanely euthanized.
Shawn Byrd, supervisor of the Lubbock Animal Shelter, said he is undecided in regard to whether or not animals scheduled for euthanasia should be used for medical teaching.
“Euthanasia is a Greek word, that means ‘good death,’” he said. “We try to treat these animals with kindness in their last few days here. I don’t know the procedures that are done at these teaching universities, I can only hope that they’re done where the animals aren’t caused pain.”
According to Cavin, TTUHSC has not purchased cats from the Odessa Animal Shelter since October 2008. There is currently no intention to purchase cats either now or in the near future, he wrote.
While pleased to know that cats have not been purchased recently by TTUHSC, Katz said she continues to be concerned about shelter animals being sold for experimental purposes.
Byrd said the Lubbock Animal Shelter has never been approached by TTUHSC to buy animals and said they would not sell the animals if asked.
Katz said she appreciates Byrd’s stance on the issue and believes animal shelters are designed to protect animals, not sell them for medical testing.
“Knowing that the Lubbock Animal Services is there to keep our dogs and cats and animals safe, is a good thing,” she said, “versus Odessa, which is more than happy to dish out their cats to anybody with a checkbook.”
