Students Taking Action for Animal Rights, a club at ASU, has joined with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to fight for an end to classroom laboratory experiments at ASU that they say are inhumane.
PETA filed a complaint against ASU with the United States Department of Agriculture in September, citing cruelty in several laboratory experiments in anatomy and physiology classes.
PETA cited four experiments conducted at ASU in its complaint including dissecting rats, female mice and frogs as well as injecting drugs into rabbits after making incisions in their chests to observe the hearts and lungs.
Kirby Mauro, vice president of STAAR, said the group worked with PETA to put together a petition against classroom experiments involving animals.
After STAAR obtains what club leaders think is an adequate number of signatures, they will submit the petition to ASU’s Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth Capaldi.
Through obtaining student signatures, STARR members hope to both raise awareness among students and eventually remove or replace these experiments with more humane options, Mauro said.
“Because we’re only getting signatures from ASU students, it shows that ASU students actually care to see this change, it’s not just PETA and [STAAR],” Mauro said. “Also, it’s creating student awareness. Unless the students are aware, they won’t take any action.”
By signing the petitions, students are helping to take action, she said.
Mauro said PETA’s assistance has been invaluable in bringing more attention to the issues at ASU.
PETA now has a call to action on its Web site urging people to write letters to the University to stop the reported questionable experiments.
“Because [PETA is] so well known, they’ve been able to reach a larger audience and bring more media attention,” she said. “If it were just a student organization like us, I think it would get less attention.”
STAAR’s ultimate goal is to stop the traditional animal experiments and replace them with more modern techniques including computer-program simulations and 3-D models, Mauro said.
Stephanie Miller, STAAR’s president, said the group wants ASU to acknowledge that there are other alternatives to killing animals for research.
“We can get away from these archaic cruel methods of experimentation,” the music therapy junior said.
Despite the recent allegations of cruelty, many students are still choosing to enroll in anatomy and physiology classes, like biology and pre-med junior Jamie Tan.
Tan said he doesn’t view the experiments as inhumane because they’re being done for academic study and the animals are put to sleep and do not feel anything during the procedure.
He plans to enroll in an anatomy and physiology class in the spring and said the hands-on experience with animals and cadavers will ultimately benefit him and provide better preparation than the computer-simulated programs PETA and STAAR are recommending.
“Real doctors treat patients — real human beings. It’s not computer simulated,” Tan said. “That hands-on experience is really important and I think the best way to learn about the muscular and skeletal structures.”
Miller said the laboratory experiments ASU uses are out of date and called for the University to adopt newer research methods.
“We have the technology and the knowledge that we don’t need to rely on these older, more archaic methods of experimentation,” she said.
In an open forum with students on Thursday, ASU President Michael Crow said he supports alternative methods for animal research, but said he was not the person to decide if those methods are the most effective.
“I strongly support ethical treatment of animals,” he said. “We are at a moment where we need to update our thinking … and constantly be looking at what we are doing and how we are treating animals.”
Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu.
