To the editor,
I would like to alert those concerned with animal rights to the experimentation that takes place on campus and is presumably paid for with your tuition and tax dollars. Here's the basic gist.
Plattsburgh State appears to conduct the same test, year after year, on chinchillas. The animals — sometimes restrained physically, sometimes not — are blasted with computer generated noise eight hours per day, five days a week. PSUC's report to the United States Department of Agriculture tries to reassure us, laughably, saying the noise exposures "are less severe than unprotected exposures experienced by military personnel." When the experiments are completed, all the animals are euthanized.
No doubt the experimenters would defend their work by saying they go to great lengths to protect the animals' welfare — except for that nasty bit about killing them, whoops! But even if this were true, it's hardly the point. The real issue is that animals are not means to human ends.
Please write to President John Ettling and tell him to abolish animal testing at Plattsburgh State. Here's his e-mail address: president_office@plattsburgh.edu. For information about upcoming events, including a potential protest here against experimentation, please join the "Adirondack Animal Rights" group on Facebook.
Jon Hochschartner
PSUC student
is a member of the 
28 comments
BTW, I bet I've killed more critters at the ranch than you've saved by boycotting eggs, meat, etc..., so you really aren't accomplishing much except drawing attention to yourself, kinda like your screed on sex during menstruation. Now please go back to hugging your tree.
Ultimately though, the level of oppression involved in animal testing is dwarfed by that involved in animal agriculture. My focusing in on the experimentation issue is purely tactical because I know I'd make absolutely zero headway removing meat, milk, eggs, etc. from the Downer.Peace out
2007: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/Annual_Reports/New%20York_21/21-R-0043/2007_21-R-0043_records.pdf
2005 report: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/Annual_Reports/New%20York_21/21-R-0043/2005_21-R-0043_records.pdfCheers.
Have you even bothered to read the ACUF, or is this just shooting from the hip? If you're correct that this is the "same test, year after year", then you would be justified in raising ethical concerns. The IACUC oughtn't have approved the study in the first place. In a broader sense, unless you're prepared to forgo all advances that are a result of animal testing, and all animal products in general, I'd suggest you stop investing (read:wasting) your time in pursuit of the laughably misguided "animal rights" movement agenda, and start concerning yourself more with preserving and advancing animal welfare. You might be surprised to find that there are many in the scientific community (indeed, most of it) that are concerned with animal welfare, and work awfully hard to protect and advance it. As much as you might like to rail against this imagined enemy that performs so-called "vivisection", with no concern for animal welfare, you're doing nothing more than fighting a gigantic straw man. Your enemy doesn't exist, no matter what Ingrid Newkirk or Jerry Vlasak say.
Peace
Bentham also argued for the greatest good for the greatest number, I'd wager that animal testing has saved a hell of a lot more people than animals who've died.
Now go crawl back on your patchouli-scented hippie den while I get my scope sighted in for hunting season.