A raging ERV says we could see this coming in April, when the wife of 400-million-dollar contributor T. Boone Pickens wanted to bar the veterinary school at Oklahoma State University from receiving funds. Ms. Pickens cited the cruel treatment of dogs—doomed shelter animals who were apparently appeased with cheeseburgers before being operated on and euthanized. Now, a proposed "ethics panel approved, NIH funded" anthrax vaccine project using baboons as test subjects has been canceled by the school president. "WTF?" wonders ERV. DrugMonkey also gets up in arms, writing that the NIH is "the ONLY thing that can hope to oppose the power of the wealthy donor. The NIH has to come out swinging." DrugMonkey goes on to consider the implications this decision has for OSU's facilities, which were designed for primates and funded by a range of interests. For a concise all-around view of the situation read Scicurious's open letter to OSU on Neurotopia, where she says animal research is "essential to the understanding of human and animal health and disease." You can also find OSU president Burns Hargis's response to these criticisms on DrugMonkey.
Links below the fold.
- Ongoing witch-hunt against Oklahoma scientists, Part Deux on ERV
- OSU President Blocks NIH Funded Science to Appease Philanthropist on DrugMonkey
- More on the OSU quashing of NIH-approved research on DrugMonkey
- An Open Letter to OSU on Neurotopia