AR-News: Bill Maher Exposes Columbia University Cruelties----Sample Letter

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Subj:[AGA] LETTER / Bill Maher Exposes Columbia University Cruelties - Pls 
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Date:5/2/2004 11:32:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: Animal Advocacy
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 5:00 PM

Bill Maher Exposes Columbia University Cruelties (you gotta love this guy!)
...and PLEASE, if you haven't done so already, send the letter located at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AnimalAdvocacy/message/3827
OR
see letter below

Forward widely!

Read full text of Maher's message at: 
http://www.peta.org/feat/maher/email.html
 
Real Time Host Joins PETA's Call to End Barbaric Experiments in School's Labs 
Today, Columbia University staffers were greeted with an unexpected e-mail 
message when they booted up their office computers: a personal note from Bill 
Maher, host of HBO's Real Time, urging them to join PETA's campaign to 
permanently stop grotesque experiments on primates in Columbia's research laboratories. 
Using his trademark biting sarcasm, Maher directs Columbia employees to 
PETA's Web site ColumbiaCruelty.com to learn more about the experiments, which, he 
says, "[e]ven Poe in a morphine-induced nightmare couldn't have dreamed up."

"Tossing millions of dollars of tax money out the window is one thing-think 
searching for ice on Mars," writes Maher, "but wasting money to cause strokes 
in, disfigure, and terrorize animals puts Columbia in an ugly and embarrassing 
position. I'm asking Columbia to stop this now and forever, and I'm asking you 
to join me."

In one experiment, which has been suspended but not terminated, baboons are 
immobilized in restraint devices, their eyeballs are removed, and clamps are 
inserted through their eye sockets to block off blood vessels in order to induce 
strokes. In another, metal tubes are implanted into the skulls of female 
rhesus monkeys to study the effects of stress on the animals' menstrual cycles. In 
a third, pregnant baboons are pumped full of nicotine and morphine, after 
which experimenters cut into the animals' fetuses. PETA learned about the 
experiments from a veterinarian who witnessed the atrocities and left Columbia in 
disgust.

Maher's e-mail message is the latest salvo in PETA's campaign to stop the 
experiments, which has also included "dogging" Columbia President Lee Bollinger 
with protests as he tours the U.S. and Asia to speak at alumni fundraisers. 
PETA has also filed a formal complaint with the New York County District 
Attorney's Office, asking that criminal charges for cruelty to animals be brought 
against the experimenters.
Broadcast-quality footage of animals inside Columbia's laboratories is 
available. For more information, please visit ColumbiaCruelty.com
See also: http://www.peta.org/feat/maher/

SAMPLE LETTER: Remember to add your name and address and PLEASE
CHANGE some of the words, especially in the first sentence and
subject line. Please begin with a sentence about why this issue is
so important to you. Please copy your letter to the editor of your
local newspaper and ask that modern, reliable technologies replace
these monstrous crimes against living beings
 
TO:
Mr. David Stern
Commissioner of the NBA
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Columbia University
Olympic Tower
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 212-407-8000
Fax: 212-826-6197
Email: dstern at nba.com  (nba.com)

RE: Please put an end to the decades-long hideous and useless
experimentation on primates at Columbia University

Dear Mr. Stern:

I'm sure that once you become aware of the ugly, redundant, useless,
torturous experimentation going on for decades now on highly
intelligent, emotive and sociable primates, you will act in your
capacity to end the long-suffering of these individuals.
I have also spoken with my two U.S. Senators about the waste of
taxpayer money that could be better spent on modern technology and
addiction prevention that would actually benefit human health and
longevity.

The long-standing situation at Columbia first came to light in
February 2003 when veterinarian Dr. Catherine Dell'Orto resigned
because of the cruel and negligent animal treatment she witnessed in
Columbia's animal laboratories and the indifference exhibited by the
staff. An investigation by the USDA has determined that Columbia
failed to provide even basic post-surgical care, adequate veterinary
care, and euthanasia to animals used in experiments.

For Columbia University's reputation to be salvaged, I believe that
the university must immediately end the following three crude and
cruel experiments, which add nothing to the body of medical knowledge:

1.) Strokes artificially induced in baboons by removing their
left eyeballs to reach and clamp a critical blood vessel to their
brains. Animal records reveal baboons hunched over in their cages,
unable to drink, chew or lift their heads, and left without
veterinary care.

2.) Monkeys surgically implanted with heavy metal pipes in their
skulls for the sole purpose of inducing stress in order to study the
connection between "stress and the menstrual cycle." One monkey,
left unattended in her cage after implant surgery, was photographed
with blood running down her face. She had been imprisoned for nine
years in a barren cage without any environmental enrichment
whatsoever.

3.) Twenty years of pumping nicotine and morphine into pregnant
baboons who are forced to wear backpacks of instrumentation and
tethered inside their metal cages is enough especially since we know
that nicotine and morphine aren't good for anyone; especially
fetuses. Public money needs to be spent on education, prevention and
treatment; anything else is a blight on your university's name. Baby
baboons undergo surgery while still in utero. One baboon lost 40
percent of her body weight, and her severe bone infection was left
untreated. Another was forced to ensure five separate surgeries.

Mr. Stern, you can help. Please use your association with the
university to urge Columbia officials to end these crude, painful,
traumatic, and wasteful experiments now. The reputation of Columbia
is at stake.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
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