From today's Boston Herald.Maiming, killing of dogs sparks outcry
By Ellen J. Silberman
Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Despite passionate lobbying by veterinary school students, five dogs crippled by a Tufts University researcher are set to be put to death for further study of their deliberately broken legs.

``The whole ordeal that these dogs have to go through is so unnecessary,'' said Tara Turner, a graduate student at Tufts University's School of Veterinary Medicine, who's been fighting since October to save the research animals.

Turner, 25, and Dana Zenko, 29, were hopeful the dogs would get a reprieve until they met last night with professor Randy J. Boudrieau, the researcher who broke the dogs' legs to test a theory about how to mend dog fractures.

``I'm saddened by the outcome,'' said Zenko, vowing to continue her fight against Tufts' research policies ``so this can't happen again.''

Boudrieau, who works at the Tufts New England Veterinary Medical Center, could not be reached. But Angie Warner, associate dean for academic affairs, defended the research techniques.

``The study is done under very carefully controlled conditions,'' said Warner, arguing that not killing the dogs would ``compromise the contributions that the dogs make to the research project.''

This fall, Boudrieau broke both hind legs on each dog and then applied braces to help them heal. On one leg, Boudrieau used a standard technique. On the other he used a new method that had shown promise on dogs he treated in his clinical practice.

As soon as this week, Boudrieau will put the dogs to death so that he can examine their bones under a microscope and determine which leg healed faster. The dogs were bred for research. Neither Warner nor the students could identify the breed, descibed as resembling beagles.

Regardless of the dogs' origins, animal rights activists called the Boudrieau's research cruel and unnecessary.

``Breaking both back legs is intrusive research at its worst,'' said Theo Capaldo, president of the Boston-based New England Anti-Vivisection Society. ``Scientifically and ethically, there is no justification for killing these dogs.''

She called the students ``courageous and visionary'' for standing up to the Tufts administration.

Warner said the dogs were treated humanely, given anesthesia before their legs were fractured and pain killers afterwards.

``These dogs were healthy and they were being used in a controlled study to find better ways to heal fractures in dogs that are - for example - hit by a car,'' Warner said.

She called examining their bones under a microscope the ``gold standard'' for evaluating bone healing, adding ``those procedures, unfortunately, are post-mortem procedures.''

Warner said clinical studies are too unpredictable to ``be convincing to the scientific community.''

Boudrieau's plan, which originally called for letting the dogs live until the end of January, was already OK'd by the school's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, a federally required research ethics panel, Warner said.

But the dogs are healing faster than Boudrieau expected and he's now asked the IACUC for permission to euthanize the dogs this week or next ``to obtain the most conclusive data from these dogs,'' Warner said.

Turner, Zenko, Diana Goodrich and Michelle Johnson - all candidates for masters in science in the vet school's animals and public policy program - discovered Boudrieau's plan by accident last fall when they went to walk dogs participating in another experiment and noticed six dogs in the outdoor kennel with signs warning people not to touch them.

Soon, the students noticed the dogs inside the building with splints on both legs. One of the dogs expired after the operation, leaving five injured dogs limping around their cage in the research building.

``The more information we found out, the worse we found the research was,'' said Turner.

The students had presented the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee with alternative - non-lethal - methods for evaluating Boudrieau's research.

``They turned a deaf ear to our alternatives,'' Zenko said. ``They were very determined.''

This is unfortunately all too real in this world. Animal testing and animal research continue to be the backbone of a lot of scientific research, even when most of it turns out to be inconclusive, badly controlled, etc. In short, it's flawed, cruel and useless.

These legs were deliberately broken, they say, so that more could be learned about setting leg fractures for dogs. These were "controlled" breaks meant to represent breaks that might occur when a car hits a dog. Anyone knows that when a dog is hit and his/her bones break, it's anything but "controlled", so researching on clean breaks is for nothing.

What a horrible waste of life.

Do any of you know what this is?

Do any of you know what this is?

No, What is that??

Thats called an ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine.

It was devolped and tested on sheep and large dogs.

It saved my sons life.

Animal testing saved my sons life.

While this may seem cruel, if it helps just one person, or another animal, then it is worth it.

Thats called an ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine.

It was devolped and tested on sheep and large dogs.

It saved my sons life.

Animal testing saved my sons life.

While this may seem cruel, if it helps just one person, or another animal, then it is worth it.
Well, put. Jasper. (You have a very cute kid, BTW) :) ECMO is a wonderful machine. For those who aren't familiar with the term, it is a type of "heart/lung" machine that is very effective for children. It literally does the work of the heart and lungs outside of the body with less trauma to the patient.

I work at a world-renowned children's cancer hospital and we have an entire building devoted to animal research. We also have a 96% cure rate on some types of childhood cancer, due in large measure to animal research.
As someone who has witnessed an animal vivisection (live disection under anesthesia for research) when I was in school, I can say that animal research is not usually pretty. But the scientific community today is more conscientious than ever about the proper use of animals in conducting research.
I really can't speak on veterinary research, but in human medicine, animal research has saved millions of lives.

I understand the need for animal research for certain machines and medicines and things of that nature. Any legitimate medical purpose would get my OK. Thank God Corwyn had that machine. :) Should my child someday need it, I thank every animal that died perfecting it.

I don't understand how breaking a dog's hind legs to see which method heals faster is in anyone's interests, though. :confused:

This fall, Boudrieau broke both hind legs on each dog and then applied braces to help them heal. On one leg, Boudrieau used a standard technique. On the other he used a new method that had shown promise on dogs he treated in his clinical practice.
If the vet had tried this in his private practice (as it says he did) on animals who already needed a leg to be reset, I could understand that. And by using the two different methods on dogs who had been in some sort of accident and keeping detailed records as his research, I can understand, also. But to break their legs, heal them, then kill them to see which leg healed better/faster? That's cruel, and I can see why these ladies are angry about it. Especially if there are other ways to study these animals alive that are just as effective.

You have an adorable son, Jasper! I'm all for medical research. If it can save lives it's all good. But breaking a dogs legs is just cruel and unusual. Couldn't they test the device on a dog who was hit by the car?? It's like breaking a humans legs just to test a new cast that they put on the market.

What if they discovered that a bone that was broken and then healed in a certain way would make it more stable for the dog. And then YOUR dog got hit by a car and was saved from a life of limping, or having to be put down, from research that this person did. Would you still be against it? Thier has never been any great advancement in medical procedures done without some type of sacrifice. If you have ever seen a horse who has a tangled bowel pass away, it is a horrible, horrific thing to see. The horse is in so much pain and agony, that it is literally convulsing from the pain. Somewhere along the line, a vet decided it would be worth looking into, to see if they could operate and straighten the bowels out. Countless horses didnt make it in the initial research phases of trying to do this, but when they found the right way to do it, and the fastest way to do it, thousands of horses have been saved, and are able to make fairly fast recoveries. One of Jill's horses she owns had to have that surgery. I sat and viewed it from the observation window. Basically they had to put the horse under, cut it open, empty is stomach and intestines onto a table and manually go through and straighten and clear all the "tubing" from his stomach to his rectum (about 60 feet of LARGE intestines). He was able to walk three days later. He has not had any problems since then. If you invested $20,000 on a beloved pet, and one day he/she NEEDED some type of advanced medical care to save its life (and your investment) I am sure you wouldnt think twice about how the vets learned the procedure or what animals sacrificed to make it a successfull operation.

There is no easy answer to this, except that I think they should be doing this testing on child molesters and not animals.

I know that animal testing has been necessary for some things but too many of the tests are flawed and not as tightly controlled as they should be.

I know that vets have to learn this way, but I think that more money should be spent on alternatives to this cruelty.

I see your point too, Jasper, I truly do, but I think it's time that this society, calling itself civilized, needs to start finding solid alternatives to this.

It's very difficult to find alternatives that are cost-efficient and which will get the job done. I wonder what a vet's point of view on this is and what their professors would say. They are the ones directly using and developing these methods. I can say from an outsider's perspective that it looks cruel and unusual, but I'm not the one studying to be a vet or teaching anyone or coming up with new methods to save animals' lives, so my view is inherently flawed and uninformed without any knowledge on the subject.