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is, in fact, a manipulation of public opinion about how researchers
care for animals.” She continues:
If their attachment were real, why wasn’t an emergency
evacuation plan in place? Why were the animals abandoned
to certain death? Researchers at University of Texas and
Baylor College “lost the animals entrusted to [their] care.”
Why isn’t this neglect being viewed as criminal animal cru-
elty? Why are those responsible not being called to task?
The answer is simple: because they were “laboratory ani-
mals”—therefore, no one has done anything wrong!^45The International Primate Protection League urged its members
and the public to write letters calling for an investigation of the
deaths and the fi ring of any employees found responsible for the
lack of preparation and the failure to evacuate the animals. Brad-
ford Goodwin, of the University of Texas, received over a hun-
dred letters. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
contacted the NIH, asking them to require that federally funded
projects evacuate their animals in impending disasters. The NIH
claimed not to have the authority to make such stipulations.^46 Simi-
larly, the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine appealed
to the presidents of the University of Texas Health Science Cen-
ter and Baylor College of Medicine, urging them not to replace the
animals who died in fl ood. The committee recommended that the
institutions instead turn to human clinical trials, epidemiological
studies, in vitro research, and the techniques emerging from the
human genome project. The group suggested that the fl ood had pre-
sented an opportunity for the TMC institutions to become leaders
in alternatives to the use of animals in research. Instead, the Uni-
versity of Texas was using more animals in 2004 than at the time
of the storm. The response to the disaster had been simply not to
house animals in the basement.
In response to the deaths of eight thousand animals at LSU’s
Health Sciences Center labs following Hurricane Katrina, PETA took
similar but stronger steps. The group contacted Michael Johanns,