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USDA Announces End of Cat-Killing Research Program

posted by mrpg on Wednesday April 03 2019, @10:15AM   
from the peace-and-harmony dept.

takyon writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• hmm hmm (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @05:08PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @05:08PM (#824145)

  sounds callous to me. why infect and kill so many? why do they have to die afterwards? if you need to infect another cat why not just cure then reinfect the same cat? too much money so you'd rather kill living things? well how about i kill you? i like you less than animals anyways.

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• Re:hmm (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @07:02PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @07:02PM (#824640)

  why infect and kill so many?

  To create statically significant measurable scientific results under a variety of controlled conditions.

  why do they have to die afterwards?

  Because they may continue to be infectious or may be too unhealthy to have a quality life afterwards.

  if you need to infect another cat why not just cure then reinfect the same cat?

  Tests from a second infection would be meaningless as a second infection does not normally happen in nature.

  too much money so you'd rather kill living things? well how about i kill you? i like you less than animals anyways.

  my supervisor, GLaDOS, would like to hire you for an experiment.

  Parent