Puppies Are Lucky to Be Experimented On?

Wow, this is surreal. I don't have time to go into any deep analysis at this exact moment, but I at least want to share this notice sent out by PCRM this afternoon, even if I can't write about it just yet.

Edit: I meant to clarify this, and in my rush to post and get back to other work, I forgot--the puppy named Lucky is not the one who is experimented on in this coloring book; he's the one who benefits from research on other animals (in this case, mice). But dogs are experimented on in research labs as well, hence the title of the post and the irony of animal research being presented as great for dogs.

NIH Misleads Children About Animal Experimentation

It has just come to our attention that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in conjunction with an animal research industry trade group, is providing false and misleading information about animal experiments to children.

Alarmingly, the NIH promotes, on its Web site, a children’s coloring book that gives a skewed view of animal experiments. The coloring book implies that researchers are trying to cure animals that are already sick—rather than purposely infecting them with diseases—and ignores the fact that animals suffer and die in the process. The coloring book, entitled The Lucky Puppy, was produced by an industry trade group, the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research, whose members have a financial interest in the continuation of animal research.

The coloring book is available through the following link: http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/images/coloring/luckycolor.pdf.

The book erroneously portrays the lives of animals in laboratories as pleasant and carefree. Published scientific research and numerous undercover investigations clearly demonstrate that animals in laboratories suffer pain and distress from experimental procedures and routine laboratory practices. The coloring book also makes misleading claims about the benefits of animal experiments, implying that research findings from experiments on animals are directly applicable to both the animals used in research and to humans.

With PCRM's help, you can send a message to the public liaison for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, asking her to remove the link and explaining why you find it offensive, misleading, and inappropriate. Do that here.