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You are probably aware of the dog and cat meat trade in some Asian countries and the efforts of animal welfare advocates to stop it, but if you are an American taxpayer, you may not know that you may have helped finance this trade.
According to a new report released by Dr. Jim Keen, veterinarian and researcher White Coast Waste Project (WCW), a former veterinarian of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the USDA has bought dead cats from these markets, then nurtured their brains, hearts, and languages to live, healthy kittens in a Maryland lab from 2003 to 2015.
That's not all: the USDA also bought dead dogs from animal shelters in Brazil and fed the kittens with the same parts of their bodies.
The object of this "cannibalism for kittens" – this is what Justin Goodman, vice president of the WCW Conference and Public Policy – rightly called – was to study the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis, a disease in humans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the parasite is a major cause of death from foodborne illness in the United States. People can also become infected after accidentally swallowing cat stools.
People with healthy immune systems rarely experience symptoms of the disease. That's why the USDA study makes no sense.
Of course, human bodies are not the same as cats and most people are not (hopefully) infected with toxoplasmosis after eating parts of dogs and cats. In addition, as Goodman and Keen maintain, there is no point in infecting and killing kittens, because scientists can work with samples they have already collected.
Goodman said that this "useless" experiment highlighted the ominous lack of accountability and transparency "at the USDA." Although the study apparently ended five years ago, due to this lack of transparency, Goodman said that this could still happen.
Keen, who left the USDA in 2015 after exposing her livestock abuse and who is now volunteering for WCW, discovered this study by browsing research papers published by the USDA and its affiliates. "We only thought we would find routine experiences," he told the Washington Post. "We never knew it was happening."
He told NBC News he did not see the logic.
In addition to "kitten cannibalism", US taxpayers are funding other cruel cat tests at the Animal Parasitic Pest Research Laboratory at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland. . According to NBC News, the laboratory uses cats as they are the only host animal producing parasitic eggs. At least 3,000 cats have suffered and died during these laboratory experiments that began in 1982.
Researchers breed kittens in the laboratory and then force them to eat raw meat contaminated with the parasite T. Gondii. Once the scientists recovered parasitic eggs from kittens' feces for use in other experiments, they euthanized and cremated them instead of treating and eliminating them.
KITTEN Act would put an end to these horrible tests
To stop these tests, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) And Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) Reintroduced the KITTEN Act (Kittens whose experimentation is traumatic now) in Congress. "The USDA's decision to shoot kittens after their use in research is an archaic practice and horrible treatment, and we must end it," Merkley said in a press release.
Deeply disturbing that @USDA buys cats and dogs from notoriously inhuman meat markets in Asia, and then feeds the animals on animals they are experimenting with. We can advance scientific discovery while treating animals with humanity – we need to #KITTENAct NOW. https://t.co/0WylYLtcHk
– Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) March 19, 2019
The 2018 Farm Bill pbaded by Congress last year included the law on the prohibition of the trade in dog and cat meat, which prohibited slaughter, trade and commerce. import / export of dogs and cats for human consumption in the United States. The fact that the USDA supports that this trade abroad hopefully will allow to pbad the adoption of the KITTEN law on the agenda.
As WCW's Goodman said, the USDA's terrible cat experiments should be "relegated to the litter level of history".
Move to action
- Join more than 270,000 people who have signed this petition calling on the USDA to stop killing kittens.
- Sign this petition urging Congress to pbad the KITTEN Act to end this cruel practice once and for all.
Creating a Care2 petition is easy. If you have a problem that is important to you, why not start your own petition? Here are some guidelines to get you started. Soon, the Care2 community will commit to help you.
Photo credit: Alexas_Fotos
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