Tag: animal testing

World News Alert from My Big Bed: Animal Testing

~ Sassy ~ 1 Comment

I am a dog. I contribute to the fabulous Anipal Times.

Bloop. Bloop. News Alert. News Alert.

May, 2025. Several protest organizations protested, demanded, investigated, and pleaded until they were arrested for freeing corralled beagles and test animals. Yet these brave arrests led to historic, federal first-ever charges against the breeding and lab testing facilities mandated by the federal government’s National Institute of Health (NIH). This pressure caused a grand jury to indict many animal testing labs, and the authorities finally charged the breeders and labs with federal crimes.

News alert: lawsuits, transparency, public protests, subpoenas, and grand juries work.

The NIH’s last in-house Beagle testing lab has been permanently closed. The so-called government doctors face charges, jail time, and fines exceeding $35 million. Rescuers have saved thousands of animals and provided them with new homes. The end of government, taxpayer-funded animal testing has come.
*Sassy Appaws! Appaws!

People worldwide have shamefully bred and purchased animals, especially Beagles, for experiments involving drugs, flea meds, and other items. Governments worldwide require these tests before allowing an item on the market.

Using AI and other predictive methods makes the use of animals and animal testing unnecessary, obsolete, and cruel. The biggest offender was Envigo, which bred, held, corralled, and sold over 5000 beagles per the White Coat Waste Project for the world’s cruel use in experiments.
*Sassy sobs

Finally, in 2025, a change in government allowed our federal courts to subpoena those involved for four decades, 43 years, in testing animals in labs.

Dr. Dawn Marie Gau was indicted on seventeen felony charges in 2025.

Dr. Gau and others pleaded guilty to supplying dogs and animals worldwide for experimentation. Dr. Gau pleaded guilty to seven of the seventeen charges.

Dr. Dawn Marie Gau’s convictions in July 2026 include animal cruelty, conspiracy to violate the Federal Animal Welfare Act, and conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act.

The judge handed down sentences of 12 months in prison (suspended) and 7 years of supervised probation. These were the first ever federal convictions for animal exploitation and supplying worldwide. These convictions also freed 5000 dogs, and the $35 million in fines closed the Envigo breeding facilities.

Officials have permanently closed these NIH labs and breeding facilities, with more convictions expected.
*Sassy Appaws!

The only remaining NIH Federal Government run lab and Envigo breeding are both closed due to the convictions.
*Sassy Appaws!

The Beagle Freedom Project (BFP) also shut down a large testing lab in Nowata, Oklahoma, that provided animals for flea-med testing.
*Sassy Appaws!

As your world news alert dog reporter, I am thrilled to report that overall in 2025-26, these grand juries, subpoenas, and convictions compelled the NIH and Envigo to free all the laboratory animals immediately and end the breeding facilities.

Officials forced Envigo to shut down its dog breeding operations, yet they still sell research products.

Rescuers took the animals to a thirty-acre property called Freedom Fields to start the adoption and rehabilitation required by the federal court. Thousands of animals have found new homes through adoption.
*Sassy Appaws!

A massive effort to find these animals homes has been in full swing since June 2025 and continues today.
Dance paws!

We know bad labs and breeders will still be out there, but we hope jail time and threats of federal charges will stop them cold.

Join us in celebrating the demise of Envigo and the National Institute of Health’s animal testing and breeding labs.

Wave goodbye to the last in-house NIH animal testing lab and unnecessary, outdated, cruel experiments and worldwide sales policies.

If you can, adopt a Beagle and hug your pets.
High paws.

Over and out from Sassy, reporting for World News Alert from My Big Bed.

Animals and Poison Ivy

~ Mr. Breeze ~ Leave a comment
Chipmunk Eating Poison Ivy
Chipmunk Eating Poison Ivy (AI)

Animals don’t usually get poison ivy. However, the active ingredient, urushiol, is highly allergenic to most humans.

Non-primate species can roll in poison ivy and at most get some irritation. This means that cats and dogs can transfer the oil onto their humans without getting contact dermatitis themselves.

Mangoes, cashews and pistachios are popular foods that contain urushiol.

Mangoes: The oily skin, rind, tree sap, and leaves of the mango plant contain urushiol. Only the flesh is safe to eat. It’s not advisable to bite into an unpeeled mango.

Cashews: Raw cashew nut shells are coated in caustic oils similar to urushiol. This is why cashews are never sold in their shells. Cashews are a superfood and very popular in vegan recipes. They must be roasted to neutralize the toxin before you eat them. Unfortunately, the shells are removed by hand, and the workers get terrible burns.

Pistachios: Pistachio shells can contain trace amounts of urushiol, though usually not enough to trigger an allergic reaction.

Urushiol is not a universal poison. Different species tolerate it very differently. A chipmunk may eat poison ivy without a reaction, a cat may carry it home on its fur, and a human may break out in hives after an unnoticed contact. Nature sometimes spares the who walks in the leaves and punishes the person who pets it.

As an aside, this difference is Why Animal Testing is Illogical.

Why Animal Testing is Illogical

~ Mr. Breeze ~ 1 Comment

Animal testing is illogical. Although humans and many other species have similar DNA, and though most organ systems are similar, subtle differences make using animal models to test food, drugs and cosmetics unreliable. Here are just three ways animals don’t react the same as humans.

Rats are known to be more resistant to a certain mushroom toxin than humans. Some mushrooms, notably the Fools webcap, contain a nephrotoxin called orellanine. Rats can eat mushrooms that are deadly to humans.
Feeding a food to animals is not a valid test.

In 2006 a new immune system boosting drug, TGN1412, which had been successfully tested in animals, went to human trials. The subjects were only given the equivalent of 1/500th the safe dose for “non-human primates,” macaques. A single amino acid difference between macaque and human DNA caused violent immune system reactions in humans. Within 90 minutes of the injection, the test subjects suffered searing pain. Within a few hours they suffered multiple organ failure. On a positive note, all the test subjects survived.
Giving a drug to animals is not a valid test.

Dogs and cats don’t usually get poison ivy. Most humans are highly allergic to the active ingredient, urushiol oil. Non-primate species can walk through poison ivy and at most get some irritation.
Applying cosmetics to an animal’s skin is not a valid test.

Fortunately, modern medicine has a number of alternatives to animal tests. One promising technology is Organ Chips, tiny devices about the size of a USB memory stick that contain living human cells.

Lots of drugs don’t make it through the animal trials, but who knows whether the drug companies have thrown away the Magic Bullet simply because it didn’t work on animals?