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USDA Terminates Deadly Cat Experiments, Plans To Adopt Out Remaining Animals
The U.S. Agriculture Department announced Tuesday that it's putting an end to a controversial research program that led scientists to kill thousands of cats over decades.
Since 1982 the USDA's Agricultural Research Services division had been conducting experiments that involved infecting cats with toxoplasmosis — a disease usually caused by eating undercooked contaminated meat — in order to study the foodborne illness. Once the cats were infected, and the parasite harvested, the felines were put down.
In a statement announcing the decision, the agency said "toxoplasmosis research has been redirected and the use of cats as part of any research protocol in any ARS laboratory has been discontinued and will not be reinstated."
Additionally, the USDA said it is in the process of putting the 14 remaining uninfected cats up for adoption by agency employees.
The experiments came under increasing scrutiny over the last year and public outcry intensified over recent weeks in the wake of a report by the White Coat Waste Project that found the USDA's researchers also forced the lab cats to eat dog and cat meat obtained in overseas markets.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:48PM (1 child)
+1 for the funnies
Pity though that the main cause of human toxoplasmosis infection (infestation?) in the US (and probably globally) is the penchant for nomming on under-cooked meat that seems to be a common thing, and, let's not leave out the vegetarians here, before we (as I am, as one of my friends said years ago, 'a bloody hippie herbivore..') get too sanctimonious and start feeling too superior, nomming on unwashed fruit and veg is a very good way to load up on these little buggers as well.
Even though they are a primary host and vector, shock horror, our feline overlords are not the primary cause of human infection, and not all kittehs are infected.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @05:33PM
That uncooked meat has toxoplasmosis because it was exposed to cat shit.
The lifecycle of the parasite **requires** the gut of a cat.
So if the farm has a cat, it has a toxoplasmosis problem. The cat shits all over, the animals get infected, and you eat the infected animals.
The result is death, commonly by an increase in risky behavior. Toxoplasmosis is, sort of indirectly, a huge cause of traffic accidents. It is a cause of risky sexual behavior, leading to deadly STDs. It probably causes fights.
The fix is simple. We need to be killing kittens. Eliminate them all, even cougars. If we kill kittens enough, we won't get chased by cougars and won't have any pussy.