Are animals abused and mistreated?
Poor animal care is bad research. In addition, mistreatment of animals can cause government agencies to fine and/or close down a research facility. Research funds could be stopped. A researcher convicted of cruelty to animals can be suspended or dismissed, fined or even jailed. The animal rights movement usually relies on a handful of instances that occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s to bolster their claim that animals in research are being abused behind close doors at a medical facility. Federal legislation on the 1980s significantly strengthened the rules and regulations of animal care to prevent this. In fact, many of the pictures of animals depicted in alleged abused situations are actually cases where the incidents were staged or the pictures were manipulated. In addition, pictures depicting routine animal care, such as spaying and neutering, are also used as pictorial “evidence” of animal experimentation. The fact is, in thousands of studies and experiments since 1980, NIH fou
