New York Protests Cruel Experiments at Rehovot's Weizmann Institute

US Animal Rights Nonprofit Organization Protests Cruel Experiments at Weizmann Institute

Experimenters at Israeli Lab Funded by U.S. Group Drill Holes in Primates', Cats' Skulls

Also see: "Criminality or Irregularity? Israel State Comptroller Finds Weizmann Institute Fools Funding Bodies"

New York - Waving signs that read, "Weizmann Institute: Stop Torturing Monkeys" and "Weizmann Institute: Stop Torturing Cats," PETA members will hold a demonstration outside the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science (ACWIS), which is responsible for raising funds for the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, where cruel experiments on cats and monkeys were recently exposed in an undercover investigation. In the experiments, holes are drilled into the skulls of cats and rhesus monkeys for the sole purpose of studying the effects of visual stimulation on brain activity--something that can be documented safely using magnetoencephalograms (MEGs) and microelectrode implants in human volunteers. The protesters will show undercover video footage of abuses taken inside the Weizmann Institute's laboratory by an investigator from the Israeli group Let the Animals Live:

Date: Tuesday, January 8
Time: 12 noon-1 p.m.
Place: Outside the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, 633 Third Ave. (between 40th and 41st streets)

Let the Animals Live conducted its investigation in the fall of 2007 after a whistleblower contacted the group to report alleged violations of animal protection laws. The investigator documented experiments on monkeys and cats that involved drilling holes into the animals' skulls to expose their brains, immobilizing them in restraint chairs, and inserting electrodes directly into their brains. The animals are then forced to watch patterns on a computer screen for hours while their brains are photographed. The cats used in the experiments are killed immediately afterward, but the monkeys spend up to four years in the laboratory, isolated in barren cages. To make them cooperate, the monkeys are kept constantly hungry and thirsty so that they will "work" for a sip of water.

"We're sure that the generous people who donate to the Weizmann Institute have no idea that they're funding these gruesome experiments," says PETA Director of Research Kathy Guillermo. "We're calling on the ACWIS to stop supporting the mutilation of animals."

PETA will be filing a complaint with the National Institutes of Health alleging violations of animal protection laws and has sent letters to the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and the Grodetsky family, all of which have reportedly contributed funds to the laboratory at the Weizmann Institute.

MR: Funding bodies deserve to know the other sad examples of the corruption at the Rehovot's Weizmann Institute of Science, including the financial criminalities by the corrupted administration (see "Criminality or Irregularity? Israel State Comptroller Finds Weizmann Institute Fools Funding Bodies").

For more information and to see the video, please visit PETA's Web site PETA.org.

Source: PETA Media Center (7 Jan 2008) [FullText]
Contact: Kathy Guillermo (1757) 622-7382