RRR = Real Ridiculous Research
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

In Defense of Animals (IDA)
April 2012

NIH wants you to believe that the animal experiments it funds with your tax dollars are about cures and vaccines, and comply with the NIH's mission "to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability." And that is why In Defense of Animals has researched and compiled our Top 10 List of the Most Ridiculous Research on Animals for 2011 – comprising only the tip of the iceberg – to show you what real animal research looks like.

With a budget of $32 billion, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the world's largest funder of biomedical research. It is also the world's largest funder of experiments on nonhuman animals.

NIH wants you to believe that the animal experiments it funds with your tax dollars are about cures and vaccines, and comply with the NIH's mission "to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability."

And that is why In Defense of Animals has researched and compiled our Top 10 List of the Most Ridiculous Research on Animals for 2011 – to show you what real animal research looks like.

Culled from articles published in 2011, these are real experiments were funded by the NIH, approved by federally mandated oversight committees, and published in several of the literally thousands of peer-reviewed journals. These experiments – the cream of the crop – show that your tax dollars and animals’ lives are frivolously wasted on research that adds nothing to medical progress and tells us nothing we care to know - or didn't know already.

One can only wonder what happens in the experiments that don't get published...

Top 10 Most Ridiculous Research on Animals for 2011

10) DRUG-INDUCED ARTHRITIS IN RATS MAKES EXERCISE HARDER

9) RATS WHO RUN AROUND MORE APPEAR TO BE MORE ANXIOUS

8) PRAIRIE VOLES STUDY SUGGESTS SINGLE MOMS RAISE LESS LOVING CHILDREN

7) DIETING HAMSTERS CHOOSE FOOD OVER SEX

6) RAT BITTER-TASTE NERVES APPEAR TO WORK

5) CONTAGIOUS YAWNING IN CHIMPANZEES IS EMPATHETIC

4) ALLIGATORS' SOUNDS AND ANATOMY DIFFER FROM HUMANS'

3) LEMON-FRESH SCENT CAN INDUCE ERECTIONS IN MONKEYS

2) RATS FIND MILES DAVIS IS BETTER WITH COCAINE

1) LABS ARE STRESSFUL PLACES FOR MONKEYS

This Top Ten List - comprising only the tip of the iceberg - relaunches IDA's Real Ridiculous Research campaign. Every year, NIH spends billions of tax dollars to underwrite experiments on animals. IDA's RRR campaign will, on an ongoing basis, expose to the public, Congress, NIH Advisory Councils and the media how the NIH is (mis)using scarce taxpayer dollars on wasteful and stupid animal experiments. 


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