Majority of Americans oppose use of animals in experiments

It’s scarcely surprising that Allyson Bennett has come to the defense of Christine Lattin, the Yale experimenter who has spent nearly two decades trapping birds from the wild, inflicting pain and distress, then killing them (letter to the editor, Jan. 17). Bennett has herself mapped out a 25-year academic career during which she has conducted controversial maternal deprivation experiments on monkeys — permanently removing baby monkeys from their mothers and examining the impact of such deprivation on drug and alcohol abuse. This quarter century of experimentation has not advanced human medicine.

Bennett has defended any and all use of animals in experimentation. She defended the treatment of monkeys at Primate Products Inc., where a PETA investigation documented systematic neglect, violent handling, and widespread deprivation, fear, and misery of monkeys — findings that were confirmed by federal authorities. As the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was reaching its historic decision to end the funding of experiments on chimpanzees, Bennett argued that chimpanzees should be used in painful and lethal Ebola vaccine experiments, even though the NIH’s experts determined that this use of chimpanzees is unnecessary. She also opposed the prohibition of sales of “Class B” dogs and cats (taken from animal shelters and free to good home ads) to laboratories. Thankfully, lawmakers ended this unethical practice.

The experiments carried out by Lattin and Bennett can only be justified in a world where the suffering of animals is considered to be of such little consequence that we can use them in cruel and lethal experiments that produce no benefits for humans. The majority of Americans oppose the use of animals in experiments and believe that laws should protect animals from harm. Someone should send Lattin and Bennett the memo.

— John J. Pippin, MD, FACC, Dallas, TX