Stem cell research in California is responsible for an alarming amount of animal testing
If you have not already voted, please vote NO on Prop 14
If you've visited the PawPAC site or seen our Capitol Alerts, you've seen that we have leaned to 'NO' or have called for a 'NO' on Prop 14, but without much discussion. We set out to find professionals in the field to corroborate what appears to be a nightmare for animals if Prop 14 passes. It's confirmed: we've reached experts who have weighed in on this issue. Please read below.
PawPAC urges your NO vote on Prop 14
While the idea of advancing medicine by using human cells would seem to save animals, it's not doing that. Yet.
Prop 14, to issue $5.5 billion from bonds for stem cell research at an estimated repayment cost of $7.8 billion to taxpayers, would cause untold pain and suffering to millions of animals, with no plan in sight for developing animal-free procedures.
PawPAC sought the feedback of experts on the issue, and thanks to Tamara Drake, Director of Research and Regulatory Affairs at the Center for a Humane Economy, we have confirmed that state-funded human stem-cell research is largely animal-reliant, because the FDA requires animal tests before testing the drug in human clinical trials.
Please see the Center for a Humane Economy's press release on Prop 14:
One estimate says that in California alone, approximately 25 million animals languish in laboratories, most in the UC institutions. Looking more closely at the projects funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), I found that mice, rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, sheep and nonhuman primates suffer from induced diseases and physical traumas from these studies.
Reading just the first two studies was enough to haunt any of us. The first, a spinal cord injury study, used rats by partially or fully cutting their spinal cords, or by dropping weights to create injuries. The second study on macular degeneration touted the benefits of injuring one eye with acids and severe light exposure while having the other eye as a perfect control for the experiment. Draize-type tests are not history yet! The eye experiments were performed on seven different animal species, even though most of those ocular studies are anatomically irrelevant to the human eye.
The FDA needs to stop mandating animal tests that are 95% inapplicable to human health.
We’re already combating efforts to hide animal research data from the public, as subscribers will recall from state legislation last year. Stopping animal-reliant stem cell research before it happens is our best and only choice for this ballot. Millions of animals with no ability to escape or cry out for help are desperately in need of our votes.
