Urge Texas A&M University to end their cruel and useless Muscular Dystrophy dog labs: Petition

By Aggies For Doggies

At my university, Texas A&M in College Station, experimenters led by Joe Kornegay breed golden retrievers to develop different types of muscular dystrophy (MD), including Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which is a particularly severe disease. These diseases ravage their bodies, causing progressive muscle wasting and weakness. Studies with these dogs haven’t led to a cure or even a treatment to reverse disease symptoms, even after experimenting for 30 years.

Dogs who didn’t have the disease but carried the DMD gene were used for breeding. Deprived of loving homes, they frantically paced the slatted floors and bit the bars of small cages in frustration. They didn’t even have the comfort of a blanket.

To gauge just how much a dog’s muscles have deteriorated, Kornegay has invented a crude technique that could pass for medieval torture: He repeatedly stretches them with a motorized lever in order to cause muscle tears.

Kornegay has been at this for more than 30 years. Puppies in his laboratory who are born with DMD are so weak at birth that they require extra nutrition. By 6 weeks of age, their hind limbs have shifted forward, making walking difficult, and some are unable to open their mouths or jaws.

You Can Help Put an End to the Needless Suffering!

Please urge Texas A&M University to close their dog laboratories, stop breeding MD dogs, release all dogs for adoption into good homes, and redirect their resources into humane research methods. As Aggies we have so much pride in our school, and these useless labs need to stop.

Shut Down The Torture

No animal should be used as test subjects when there is TECHNOLOGY capable of helping us find a cure!

Ban shark fin products in US & save sharks from extinction.

Petition By United Conservationists, Inc

Sharks – the apex predators of the oceans – have survived 400 million years of evolution, yet many species may face extinction within our lifetime. Up to 100 million sharks are being killed every year, most often their bodies are discarded and only their fins are kept to be used in Shark Fin Soup – a delicacy in some Chinese restaurants*. Over hunting of the world’s largest fish has caused severe declines among many shark species, including the iconic Great White. Currently a third of shark species are threatened with extinction, and some populations have plummeted by over 90%.

The situation has become so dire that China has decided to ban Shark Fin Soup at official state banquets. In the U.S. several states to date (including California, Oregon, Hawaii and New York), have introduced state-wide bans on shark fins, with more states in the process of introducing bans.

Sharks are essential to the health of our oceans. As apex predators, sharks maintain a critical balance in the ocean. When sharks are eliminated, disastrous effects have been documented further down the food chain, including the collapse of commercial fisheries and the degradation of coral reefs. If sharks were to become extinct, this would have massive unintended consequences for our ocean ecosystems worldwide.

Time is running out for the world’s shark populations. Please sign and share the petition to tell our leaders take a big step in preserving the world’s vital oceans by banning the sale and distribution of shark fins and shark fin products nationwide. It’s time for all Americans to join the FinFree™ movement!

Ban shark fin products in The US & save sharks from extinction.

Animal Lives Matter

The lives of animals matter, yet some think otherwise. Some think human life is greater than that of Animal Life, and that animals deserve zero rights to life.

We are in the age of technology, where we do not need to experiment on animals just to find a cure for some kind of ailment. We are capable of finding cures through virtual reality through a combination of a computer program, mathematics and yes, even virtual chemicals. It is no longer science fiction, it is science fact.

Yet here scientists sit in a laboratory studying and testing on living beings who are unable to say stop. Who are unable to say you are hurting us, who are scared and in pain every day of the week.

I write this in disgust of an article that was shared with me on Facebook, of how the Government just gave the go-ahead to experiment on live dogs.

The US government has decided to press ahead with controversial experiments on dogs, despite critics in congress and elsewhere attacking them as cruel and unnecessary. The department for veterans affairs (VA) has approved the continuation of the testing, which it says will help doctors find new ways to treat wounded soldiers, according to USA Today.

Researchers running the experiments will remove sections of the dogs’ brains that control breathing, sever spinal cords to test cough reflexes and implant pacemakers before triggering abnormal heart rhythms. All the dogs involved will ultimately be euthanized.

These experiments are otherwise known as Vivisection. Here’s the article: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/dogs-experiments-veterans-affairs-us-government-fatal-animal-congress-a8616861.html

What is Vivisection?

Vivisection, operation on a living animal for experimental rather than healing purposes; more broadly, all experimentation on live animals. It is opposed by many as cruelty and supported by others on the ground that it advances medicine; a middle position is to oppose unnecessarily cruel practices, use alternatives when possible, and restrict experiments to necessary medical research (as opposed, for example, to cosmetics testing). Surgery on animals without anesthesia was once common; many people, most significantly René Descartes, claimed that animals did not really feel pain. The testing of certain chemicals on animals to find the lethal dose still occurs.

Is Vivisection Against The Law?

Simply put it is very legal in the United States. Although highly controversial, to where activists have gone to jail for sabotaging the experimental torture. Which I truly tip my hat to them, for the courage it takes to make those rescues happen.

Right now, these dogs and other animals are going to need everyones help, escaping from the hell that will be taken place. We must raise our voices. Write, tweet, and call into the legislation, the Senate as well as the house of representatives. In order to halt the atrocities from happening to these animals.

No animal deserves to be treated with such malice, just so some cure can be found. Animal lives matter. Moreover, it is about time that our government realizes just how much they matter.

As always, when contacting officials, be diplomatic and state facts. Keep persisting, no matter how many times they may hang up, or walk away. Vigilant Persistence will save lives.

(Article was written by Mary Robbins and shared with us)

Find your Senator: https://www.senate.gov/general/contacting.htm

Legislators and more: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/take-action/contact-your-representative/