Scientists at Cardiff University have been sewing shut kittens’ eyelids to discover how the brain responds to sensory deprivation. In research that took place in 2010, but only recently came to light, more than 30 kittens and in some cases their mothers were subject to brain experiments before being killed.
Animal rights campaigners are outraged by the discovery, claiming that these procedures are primitive and totally unnecessary considering technology nowadays.
Kittens older than a month had one eyelid sewn shut, while others were raised in darkness for up to three months. Some other cats were raised in the laboratory in “normal” conditions for up to a year but all the cats and kittens were subjected to brain surgery and killed at the end of the experiment, PETA reports.
The brain surgery that kittens undertook was under anesthesia and a paralyzing drug was injected to prevent eye movements, the skin was cut away and the skull was opened to expose the brain for recordings. After the experiments, the animals were killed while parts of their brain were removed for further analysis.
Change.org, the world’s largest petition platform with more than 50 million users, created a petition that reached 75,000 signatures addressed to John Jeans, the Chair of the Council at Cardiff University, asking to stop the cruel experiments on kittens.
In the petition it is said that:
James Bowen, the author of the best-seller “A street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life,” along with his pet, the ginger cat Bob, joined the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), calling on the UK government to put an end to the cruel experiments on cats and dogs.
“Bob is my best friend, we look out for each other and there is no doubt I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. Knowing just how clever, sociable, loving and cheeky cats can be, it is horrible to imagine that there are many suffering in UK laboratories,” said Bowen, Global Animal reports.
In response, the Welsh university denied the accusations, arguing that the tests were not cruel and followed strictly the terms of Home Office license.
The researches insist that the experiments were necessary for studying the phenomenon of lazy eye in children, which can lead to blindness.
These experiments, the results of which were published in the European Journal of Neuroscience in 2012, were funded by the taxpayers, Medical Research Council, which works closely with the NHS and the UK Health Departments, publicly financing it.
For the past two years, MRC spent £343.1m on around 400 research programmes including £8.2m on studentships and £334.6m on around 1,400 grants to researchers in universities, medical schools and research institutes.
Cardiff University, one of the four Welsh universities that practice experiments on animals, used 61,181 animals in 2012, compared with 52,309 in 2011 and 45,591 in 2010.
Swansea University, Aberystwyth University and Bangor University also experiment on animals, Swansea University using 21,202 fish for tests in laboratories in 2012, compared to zero used in 2010.
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