Presidential hopeful and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of a bill in 2013 and again in 2014, that would have prohibited adult pigs in gestation cages so small that pigs cannot even turn around was thought to be a political ploy to curry favor with the agricultural lobby in Iowa’s presidential caucus in anticipation of a run for the White House.
There was also the much-publicized dog incident that become the fodder of late-night talk shows during Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012, with reports of the family dog, Seamus, riding for 12 hours in a dog carrier atop the family station wagon during a family vacation in 1983, with a hosing down during the trip.
Now, there is the rising Republican star, and presidential hopeful, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin signing a bill into law on June 28, 2011, that exempts animal researchers in the State of Wisconsin at Madison from anti-cruelty laws.
On June 28, 2011, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) reported on its website that “The University of Wisconsin”“Madison’s shady backroom deal paid off, and Gov. Scott Walker has signed into law a provision that exempts animal experimenters in the state from all Wisconsin anti-cruelty laws. This means it is now impossible for the state to prosecute a person for cruelty to animals so long as their violent acts are carried out in a laboratory and called ”˜research,’ even if they are in violation of federal animal welfare laws.”
This pro-cruelty measure was inserted into the state budget bill under pressure from the University of Wisconsin after it was revealed that experimenters at the school had violated state law by repeatedly killing sheep in excruciatingly painful decompression experiments. Other experimenters appear to still be violating the law by forcing animals to fight one another.”
On June 28, 2011, Gov. Walker failed to veto animal experimentation exemptions (Sections 3539G, 3539M, and 3539S), which was hastily introduced and passed in an amendment in the Wisconsin state budget with virtually no opportunity for the public to weigh in that completely exempts animal experimenters from all state cruelty-to-animals laws.”
Experimenters at UW are scrambling to protect themselves from further scrutiny after PETA and Wisconsin-based Alliance for Animals (AFA) brought to a halt painful decompression experiments on sheep and then turned our sights on UW’s staged animal fights, activities that were illegal in laboratories before the new law was passed.”
This new exemption doesn’t get experimenters off the hook for these past violations of anti-cruelty laws, so PETA and AFA are still urging the district attorney to prosecute the experimenters responsible for staging barbaric fights between mice.”
Let’s talk for a minute about Wisconsin, more specifically the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the state capital, which has garnered national attention in recent years for their cruelty to animals and out-of-control spending on oftentimes duplicate experiments with no real scientific value and whose primary purpose is to keep the funding rolling in.
PETA reported on March 17, 2014, “Following a complaint filed by PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has confirmed the group’s allegations of the abuse of cats in taxpayer-funded brain experiments at the University of Wisconsin”“Madison (UW). The USDA also cited UW for violating federal animal-protection laws by burning a cat named Broc so badly that she required surgery.”
The USDA (the United States Department of Agriculture) has fined UW-Madison more than $35,000 for seven separate violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including the incident in which the cat Broc was negligently and severely burned by UW staff during surgery. Broc has ”˜lived’ in a cage at UW-Madison for 12 years and is still there.”
In a scathing report obtained by PETA, “A federal inspector found ”˜a pattern of recurring infections’ and that all the cats whom PETA profiled in its complaint had been ”˜diagnosed with chronic infections’ after having steel posts screwed into open wounds on their heads and metal coils implanted into their eyes.”
Thirty-five thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which according to the National Institutes of Health at www.nih.com, reportedly receives upwards of $32 million a year from the federal government, not uncommon for a major university, to conduct cruel often unnecessary experiments on animals in what amounts to little more than corporate welfare.
On January 23, 2015, PETA announced that “following an extensive PETA campaign to expose and end cruel and archaic brain experiments on cats at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), the embattled laboratory closed its doors for good! The lead experimenter on the project has called it quits, the federal grant has run out, and the remaining cats in the laboratory, including 3-year-old tabbies Rainbow and Mango, have been adopted into private homes.”
Gov. Scott Walker signed into law in 2011, legislation that would prevent the University of Wisconsin from having to adhere to even the minimal protections for laboratory animals under state law and the Animal Welfare Act. Gov. Walker sided with the University of Wisconsin, who claimed that requests by PETA under the Freedom of Information Act were impeding their research, and let laboratory animals continue to suffer in misery and the people who care about them bitterly disappointed.
— Val Philbrick works in the production department of the Journal Tribune as a pre-press person. She is a member of PETA and the Humane Society of the United States.
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