Sparing animals from cruel vision experiments | CAARE

November 2017 E-News Andrea --  Last month CAARE launched our campaign to expose horrific experiments on cats at SUNY College of Optometry, where they are cutting into the brains of living cats and putting them through vision testing trials that go on for hours. These experiments have gone on since 1985 essentially unchanged, claiming to map the activity of neurons in the cat’s brain. I want to thank everyone who has signed our letter to protest the SUNY cat experiments. If you haven't yet signed it, please do so right away.  I believe we can end the experiments at SUNY – though it will take much work – because they are a glaring example of research on animals that is hideously cruel, archaic and has no purpose other than to generate data for scientists to publish. I know it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by constant requests to sign and send letters, but we can’t let compassion fatigue set in. Without our protests, these terribly abused animals suffer and die without anyone speaking up for them. Thank you for joining with CAARE to demand animal-free research. For the animals, Barbara Stagno President, CAARE  NY College of Optometry must end horrific cat experiments At the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry, a team of scientists has been maiming and killing cats by conducting brain experiments to study the science of vision. Trusting and loving cats, some as young as 4 months old, are purchased from suppliers and brought into labs at the SUNY College of Optometry where they are cut up and tortured in lengthy procedures that go on for hours.  These deplorable experiments continue what was started over thirty years ago in 1985. Funded by a federal grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI), these arcane and useless experiments are killing and maiming helpless cats merely to create esoteric maps of neurons involved in visual processing. Please click here to send a polite letter to the director of the NEI and to officials at the SUNY College of Optometry to end funding for these abominable experiments without delay. Read more Media spotlights CAARE’s complaint against MU In September, CAARE filed a complaint with U.S. Department of Agriculture against the University of Missouri (MU) for failing to consider alternatives to using live dogs in painful and lethal experiments that damaged and burned their eyes with caustic chemicals to study corneal healing. The dogs were killed afterwards. Several local media outlets recently reported on CAARE’s complaint, describing how it demonstrates the many ways these experiments could have been replaced with non-animal methods such as clinical studies, 3D organ cultures and ex vivo cultures. (More coverage here and here). Under the Animal Welfare Act, researchers are required to conduct a search for alternatives to animals. CAARE obtained MU's search through Freedom of Information and found it to be entirely lacking in non-animal methods. CAARE has requested that USDA take remedial action against the University of Missouri and its animal oversight committee for failing to properly investigate and implement procedures that can replace animals in experiments that may otherwise cause pain or distress. Human retina model wins award from NEI A team of researchers at the University of Maryland has won first place and $90,000 in the National Eye Institute’s (NEI) 3-D Retina Organoid Challenge (3-D ROC). The competition is the first of its kind, with awards totaling $1 million, for the development of a 3D organoid model of the human retina. Most current retina research is done on mice. Not surprisingly, we are lacking good human treatment outcomes as a result. Retinal diseases like glaucoma and macular degeneration continue to be the leading cause of blindness.  “None of the model systems currently available to researchers match the complex architecture and functionality of the human retina,” said NEI Director Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D. The winning model of a “retina-in-a-dish” uses human-derived retinal neurons printed in layers to simulate the structure of the human retina. Five other teams received honorable mention for their animal-free retina models. The 3-D ROC program demostrates the NEI’s confidence in the ability of organoid models to deliver results where animal models have failed. Shop Amazon and support CAARE! With Amazon Smile you can donate to CAARE without spending an extra dime as you shop for all your holiday and other purchases. Sign up using this link and the Amazon Foundation will donate .05% of every dollar you spend to support CAARE’s work. There’s no obligation to continue and no extra cost to you. Please sign up today and give us a boost while shopping for whatever you need. Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research (CAARE), is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established to highlight and promote research without animals. Your donation helps us carry out our mission to speak up for animals in laboratories, and to end animal suffering by disseminating information about the power and progress of research without animals.   Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research · www.careusa.org · PO Box 102, Ardsley, NY 10502