Cats-On-Meth Begins Again at The Ohio State University.
After 4 years of not using cats and expiration of the NIH grant in 2006, OSU
has received a grant to again begin infecting cats with FIV, Feline Immunodeficiency
Virus, and inject the cats with amphetamines, meth.
August 23, 2007 - The OSU IACUC approve the
use of 24 cats to conduct a prospective study to
establish that methamphetamine accelerates the development of AZT resistance
in FIV infected cats.
September15, 2007 - An NIH grant from The National Institute on Drug Abuse begins for a project entitled: Do Psychostimulatory Drugs Enhance Lentivirus Infection?
Specific Aim #2 is designed to test the hypothesis in vivo via a proof-of-principle study in the FIV/cat system to evaluate the effect of METH on the development of AZT resistance in vivo.
Contacts: - click to bring up an email window.
Lane Wallace, chairperson IACUC
Lawrence Mathes, Principal Investigator
E. Gordon Gee, President of The Ohio State
University
205 Bricker Hall
190 North Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210-1357
Update 11/12/07 - The Official OSU Response and Our Comments
Stop the funding contact your US House representative. A list can be found at http://www.house.gov/ . Locally in Columbus contact Deborah Pryce or Pat Tiberi
For background information on the Cats-On-Meth experiments click the following
link:
http://www.poetwill.org/mathes_neff_cats.htm
The Cats
A review of the amendment indicates that no new cats will be ordered but that the cats will used that are currently in the Mathes lab. Our latest request has been fulfilled and indicates thirty-one (31) cats currently being used in protocol 2002A0047. Click to learn about the cats.
Demonstrations
Thursday, October 11th
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
OSU Veterinary
Hospital located a 601 Vernon Tharp St.
and Saturday, October 27th - Noon to 2:00pm
The Ohio State University responds with this Oct. 10 press release- FELINE VIRUS, ANTIVIRAL DRUG STUDIED TO UNDERSTAND DRUG RESISTANCE
The Lantern also ran a story Oct. 15th - Researchers study drug for feline virus
The Other Paper ran a story October 25th - OSU again infects cats, and a protest resumes
And a followup letter was printed the next week - Hey, OSU:It's about the animals, not 'winners'
OSU claims we made Podell cry and our response in The Other Paper - Letters
Comments can be made on the Lantern site and POET posted the following (with some slight modifications)
Editor
Actually the OSU experiments discussed here have a much more narrow focus than the OSU press release indicates. These experiments will infect cats with FIV (an AIDS-like virus) and inject them with methamphetamines, "meth". Cats will be given AZT to determine if taking meth inhibits the benefits of taking AZT.
That's it plain and simple. OSU explains that cell tissues will be used for some of the work, but cats must be used to confirm the cell work. No they don't.
The experiments are just another example of how OSU wastes and uses animals lives in experiments which will do nothing to actually help people.
NEW: Protocol 2002A0047, In Vivo Test System To Study Pathogenesis & Therapy Of Retroviral Disease - modified over the years to now bring back cats-on-meth. Approved to use 168 weanling cats and 84 adult cats in 2002, 24 of these cats will move into the FIV/Meth/AZT study. Read a brief history of these experiments which actually began in 1990. Included is information from the new amendment.
Background for Cats-On-Meth
Since 2002, following the departure of Michael Podell, OSU, NIH, and Lawrence Mathes seemed to have not been using cats for the infamous Cats-On-Meth protocol. While NIH continued to fund the grant, because they didn't want animal activists to think they had won on the issue, OSU and Mathes, the new PI,seemed to indicate that cats would NOT be used.
Podell's original plan was to infect up to 120 cats with FIV -- feline immunodeficiency virus, which is an animal model for HIV in humans -- and then addict the cats to methamphetamines to see how the drugs affected the progression of the disease in the brain.
So far, 42 cats have been killed to study brain changes, Mathes said.
But, at least for the next year, no cats will be used because the focus now is on analyzing tissue from those already euthanized and testing viral response to drugs in cell cultures. The cultures, which Ohio State purchases, were cloned from skin or tumor cells from live or dead cats. Using them is one way to reduce the number of live animals required.
And from The Lantern
Holland said the research no longer involves the testing of animals.
"We are not using cats in our research at this point in time or in the foreseeable future. The research has shifted to conventional, basic tissue culture work. No animals are being harmed," Holland said.
The NIH grant expired May 31, 2006. P.O.E.T. using NIH search engine pubmed, could find no additional published works above what Podell/Mathes published in 2002.
Updated-October 26, 2007
