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PETA's First Letter To March Of Dimes
June 9, 2000
Jennifer Howse, Ph.D.
President
March of Dimes
1275 Mamaroneck Ave.
White Plains, NY 10605
Dear Dr. Howse:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an international, nonprofit organization that is dedicated to protecting the rights of all animals.
On behalf of our more than 700,000 members worldwide, we are writing today to respectfully ask that you, in your capacity as president of the March of Dimes (MOD), stop funding painful animal experiments and to tell you why we think MOD can do that. Please understand that we recognize that MOD has many valuable programs, and we appreciate and admire its mission to help eliminate birth defects. In the last several years, however, MOD has hurt and killed thousands of animals, including dogs, cats, mice, rabbits, rats, lambs, primates, ferrets, sheep, guinea pigs, and even owls and opossums—something that a growing number of people, including MOD donors, find unethical and unnecessary.
As you know, birth defects are still the leading cause of death in infants. If you think about it objectively, and we ask that you please find it in yourself to do that, the only way we’re going to change that is through improving prenatal care, reducing drug and alcohol use, and establishing a comprehensive birth defect registry to track down the root causes of human birth defects.
Virtually all known developmental hazards have been identified and/or characterized through studies of human populations. Advances from human-based research include, among others: identifying the thalidomide disaster, which animal tests missed; identifying fetal rubella syndrome; identifying fetal alcohol syndrome; identifying the association of folic acid deficiency with spinal cord abnormalities; and the discovery that magnesium sulfate could potentially prevent cerebral palsy in very-low-birth-weight infants two-thirds of the time and prevent mental retardation half of the time.
To some, the use of animals in experiments is a matter for philosophical debate, but to the animals it is very, very real. Just as you, and we, do not want anyone to forget children who are living with birth defects, so people should not forget the frightened animals suffering in laboratories. PETA feels that the continued use of animals as disposable research tools is scientifically old-fashioned and that, perhaps as importantly, it degrades human beings and devalues our compassion, especially when we inflict on animals the same pain and suffering that we wish to see eliminated in humans.
Every dollar spent on animal experiments is a dollar not spent on programs that have a much greater potential to alleviate human suffering. In addition to the needless pain and suffering caused to animals, reliance on animal tests puts human health in jeopardy, because the physiology of animals is so different from our own. The reality is that when the March of Dimes funds animal experiments, not only do the animals suffer, but so do human babies.
PETA is very eager to meet with you to discuss your current use of animals and to work out a timeline for you to stop funding research that hurts, rather than heals. Please contact me at your earliest convenience. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this extremely important matter.
Respectfully yours,
Jay M. Kelly
MOD Campaign Coordinator
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