Be careful when you donate to charities - particularly for medical research, its important to know what you are really funding: Tens of thousands of pounds of donations to the British Heart Foundation will finance the experiments at Maastricht University in Holland. Researchers will use 39 Labradors in the tests, which are designed to improve pacemakers for humans and to combat heart disease. Scientists say that dogs and humans have similar hearts and that Labradors are a good choice because their hearts are a similar size. They say tests on pigs, sheep and goats have been unsuccessful. After the dogs have been fitted with pacemakers under anaesthetic scientists will increase the rate of the pacemakers for up to six weeks, causing the animals’ hearts to beat unnaturally fast. Documents obtained by the Anti- Vivisection Coalition and passed to the Sunday Express show researchers accept the dogs will suffer severe pain and distress. They classify the experiments as grade five on their “discomfort” scale of zero to six and they say up to 30 per cent of the Labradors could die during the experiments. The rest will have their hearts removed for analysis before being put down. The university and the British Heart Foundation’s ethics committee have backed the experiments, which have caused outrage in Holland. Full article here: express.co.uk/news/uk/507823/British-Heart-Foundation-fund-testing-on-labradors
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 07:14:19 +0000