>From:    Tina Tortorelli <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Marshall Farms ferrets sold after research
>...  but I want to inform you all of a LAW regarding animals used in
>research put out by the USDA (through the American Association for
>Laboratory Animal Science):
>
>     "Laboratory animals are humanely killed at a time appropriate to
>     the study in which they are used." ...
 
This is a bit out of context, as I understand it.  It refers only to those
animals that are going to be killed as part of the experimental protocol,
insisting that they be killed humanly and at an appropriate time.  It does
not preclude that time being never, if the study in which they are used does
not require it.
 
(Just to put in a disclaimer, which I hate doing, but feel is appropriate
here, I don't speak for RPI and am not in charge of what we do with our lab
animals here, and can attest only to what I've been told about our official
policies here.) Here at RPI we don't do any disease research, and most of
our laboratory dogs are eventually adopted out as pets, after being used for
three experiments, I believe.  Of course, this doesn't apply to animals
which have to be killed in the experiment, who are humanely put to sleep
under anesthesia, or those whose temperment would make them poor pets, but
most still do wind up as pets.  However, the eventual adoptive families are
told that the dog is a former lab animal, and no attempt is made to pass
them off as anything else.  I even know of a few mice who wound up as pets
after they were found to be superfluous to an experiment, and didn't have to
be euthanized.
 
>Again, I do not KNOW for certain what is going on there, but I have serious
>doubts that such a large, well-established company would violate laws such
>as those put forth by the USDA...
 
I too have serious doubts they'd be selling off rabies-test animals, or any
animals involved in communicable disease research, nor that they would fail
to inform the subsequent owner that they were buying an animal that had been
used in research.  But that they would be selling off research ferrets from
non-disease studies is hardly inconceivable, considering what ferrets sell
for in some markets.
 
E.S., and Hershey
[Posted in FML issue 1473]