Is there anything worse than using animals in the name of science? That last part of the sentence doesn’t justify the cruel methods used to test something that may not even be put into production. And the whole thing isn’t only confined to private testing labs. As it turns out, the US government has been killing thousands of kittens each year all for the “greater good”!
Not that it makes it right. Animal rights watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project recently filed an FOI request about a secret government project which supposedly used up to 100 innocent kittens a year to research a parasite. The parasite in question is Toxoplasma. The kittens were fed raw meat infected with the parasite, then their feces were collected so the government can use the fully-grown parasite against food-borne diseases. We just hope that those tests weren’t using kittens as well.
The horrifying project killed all the kittens, who were then incinerated to destroy traces of any wrongdoing. As the WCWP spokesperson said, they’re horrified by the information about this kitten slaughterhouse. All the kittens were supposedly healthy at the beginning of the experiment, which makes things even worse.
Congressman Mike Bishop condemned the horrible act. He said he was shocked about USDA’s involvement and the inhumane cruelty the kittens experienced. The USDA defended the research (of course), stating that it will save more than a few thousands of lives. They also said that the 100 kittens were an exaggeration – the number was much smaller. Like that makes it right!
The documents released to the public indicated that a further 300 cats are scheduled for incubation in the next three years. The CDC says that cats infected with the parasite can spread it through feces after a few weeks of incubation. It’s clear that these cats can’t be adopted, but doing it all in the name of science is unethical and wrong.
The USDA now claims that recent researches showed that cats can carry the parasite for a much longer time, eventually increasing the risk of infection. Still, we don’t think that it justifies killing kittens. In a time when science is moving forward at great speed, there must be another way to research the parasite.
