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Writer's pictureDon Lichterman

Animal Testing Weekly, Michigan's HB 5090, Echo, Double Trouble, "Stop Animal Testing', Freedom Fest

Michigan's HB 5090 would outlaw the use of dogs in cruel experiments at publicly funded institutions. After months of work behind-the-scenes, we’re excited to tell you about a groundbreaking new bill that was just introduced in Michigan. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Sara Cambensy, would outlaw the use of dogs in cruel experiments at publicly funded institutions.

As you know, Michigan is home to Wayne State University, which has conducted painful, futile experiments on dogs since 1991. Those experiments, in which dogs are subjected to multiple surgeries and have devices implanted in their bodies, have cost taxpayers more than $11 million. Rep. Cambensy’s bill would make it illegal for a public institution like Wayne State to use dogs in invasive experiments.



Approximately 65,000 dogs are used in animal experimentation each year in the United States. Most of those dogs do not make it out of the lab alive but Echo is one of the lucky ones. Her captivating story is one we must share to raise awareness of the suffering that so many animals, like Echo, experience in the lab.

My name is Echo. The only reason I was ever born was to be used in animal experimentation. For years, I only knew a small cage, isolation, cruelty, and neglect. I was poked, prodded, and cut open for experiments. This misery was worse than death itself and there were days I didn’t want to go on. But for some reason, I kept fighting. I kept surviving.


In January 2018, my whole world changed. Thanks to supporters like YOU, Beagle Freedom Project saved ME! They brought me and my friends back to California and showed me that people are capable of kindness and compassion. I now have my own fur-ever family that shows me love, provides me with comfort (and treats!), and most importantly – I now know what happiness feels like. I am truly loved.


You also may have noticed – I have one eye due to years of testing. I am also completely blind. But that’s okay – I don’t let that slow me down! Actually, I love to spend my days hanging with my family, eating delicious foods, being an absolute wild child, and singing! My mommy sings to me and I sing back while I stomp my sassy little feet! Watch out Beyoncé!


ArrOoOooO!


Thank you again for all your love and support. Because of YOU, I am free. Free from a cage. Free from suffering. Free to be a dog. Because of you, I have survived.

The short life of a laboratory dog is filled with pain, suffering, and loneliness. Housed in cold, hard metal cages, they may be poisoned, infected with deadly disease, chemically burned, or brutally sliced open.


Beagles are commonly used because of their trusting and calm demeanor. And now, village leaders in Spring Green, Wisconsin may allow a commercial puppy mill that will breed these gentle dogs and sell them to labs for experimentation.


Anywhere from 150 to 1000 beagles would be held at this facility, with puppies torn away from their mothers at just 7 to 8 weeks old to force the females to breed again and again.


A conditional permit has already been approved! We must speak out to stop this puppy mill of horrors from being built.


No one showed Double Trouble any mercy.


Experimenters subjected the ginger cat to repeated invasive surgeries on her ears, skull, and brain—they screwed a stainless steel post to her skull to immobilize her head—and deprived her of food for days before restraining her in a bag and bombarding her with sounds.


Even as her health deteriorated, Double Trouble was still forced to endure these vile tests. Then, when she was no longer of use to experimenters, she was killed and decapitated.


A determined PETA U.S. campaign eventually shut down the hideous facility where Double Trouble suffered, but right now, thousands of cats in other laboratories are waiting for help—waiting for someone. If we don't take action to stop their suffering, who will?


Even with a world of high-tech research methods at their disposal, experimenters are still abusing vulnerable cats like Double Trouble in all manner of crude and cruel tests. At some universities, they're intentionally deafening the animals and inserting electrodes into their heads or subjecting them to deliberate brain damage. PETA U.K. has highlighted that experimenters at a top university in the U.K. cracked open kittens' skulls, sewed their eyes shut, collapsed their lungs, or left them paralyzed. Cats are also suffering and dying for archaic and gruesome dissection exercises in classrooms throughout Asia that we're doing all we can to end.

If you've ever shared your home with a cat, you'll know how sensitive they are. Will you help PETA work to protect them—and many other animals—from being experimented on?


PETA and our international affiliates are powerfully campaigning against cruelty in laboratories and classrooms and promoting non-animal test methods that can spare countless animals misery and pain. But to build on our momentum, we need you with us.


Don't miss your special opportunity to make a difference for cats and other animals.

Hosted Bars + Vegan Food + Locally Brewed Beer Live Music + Barnyard Games

Silent Auction + Live Auction Program Green Carpet Photo Ops with Animal Testing Survivors

Try the best local beer and vegan food this side of the Mississippi! Vegan Delights provided by Sunflour Baking Company!


"Stop Animal Testing" challenge And, right now, inside the secretive laboratories of pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Eli Lilly, rows of stark and barren cages are crammed with frightened animals.


And for some mice, rats, and other small animals, the fear may turn into panic if an experimenter drops them into an inescapable container filled with water and coldly watches as they frantically paddle to keep from drowning.


This is the forced swim test – one of the many cruel and archaic experiments we need your help to stop.


Will you help us stop such misery?


If you haven't yet given to PETA's "Stop Animal Testing" challenge, I hope you'll take action now! We've set a goal and through this challenge, which will strengthen our vital work to end horrific experiments on animals.


Since the 1970s, experimenters have been drugging small animals, dropping them into beakers, and measuring how long they struggle in a crude attempt to document the impact of drugs on their "despair". Yet this hideous test doesn't accurately predict whether a drug will work as a human antidepressant. It yields positive results for compounds that aren't prescribed as human antidepressants, like caffeine, and negative results for compounds that are.


Not one more animal should suffer in the forced swim test or any other experiment. Will you make a gift that will be doubled to help them?


With the help of our supporters and international affiliates, PETA is more determined than ever to end the forced swim test and other forms of abuse in laboratories. After discussions with PETA US, PETA Germany, and PETA Switzerland, pharmaceutical giants AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, and others have announced that they will no longer conduct or fund this cruel test.


PETA is promoting the development and use of modern, effective, reliable testing methods – such as those using human cells and computer modelling – that can effectively help humans without harming other animals.



Bolstered by the kindness and generosity of people like you, PETA and our international affiliates are the best – and often the only – hope for animals who face unimaginable horrors in laboratories. Wherever and whenever companies or institutions think that they can get away with traumatising, mutilating, and killing animals, we want to be there working to end the abuse – and your gift to PETA today will ensure that you're right there, too.


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