WCW ads surround the V.A.’s most painful dog lab

Posted by Justin Goodman
02 May 2017 | Blog, POW

 

When neighbors and employees of the McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Richmond, Virginia go to fill up their gas tanks, they’ll be confronted with the awful truth about the federal facility’s abuse of dogs in wasteful and secretive experiments. As part of White Coat Waste Project’s national ad campaign calling out VA’s taxpayer-funded dog experiments, ads will be posted for the next month at gas stations surrounding the McGuire VAMC. The ad campaign is supported in part by a generous in-kind grant from the PVBLIC Foundation.

 

WCW recently exposed abuses at McGuire including fatal botched surgeries on dogs, public disclosure violations, and a “reckless” and incompetent surgeon who killed dogs still allowed to perform procedures on veterans.

Now, WCW has obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act revealing that McGuire is also the VA’s most painful dog experimentation lab.

Internal McGuire documents show that the facility currently has four separate projects that entail forcing dogs to suffer excruciatingly painful and deadly heart conditions, often without any pain relief.  Details of these projects have never been public before because McGuire has failed to list the projects and what they cost taxpayers on the federal research database.

In total, the records reveal that 118 puppies as young as 6-months-old at McGuire are slated to undergo invasive surgeries to damage their hearts, sever their nerves and implant devices that allow experimenters to induce heart attacks and other irregularities. In all of the projects, the puppies are forced to run on treadmills to stress their compromised hearts and are finally killed and dissected.

According to the documents, McGuire’s so-called “dog model of heart attack” experiments involve causing dogs to suffer from significant unrelieved pain and distress, including:

“pain, nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath and even [unconsciousness]”

“coughing, abdominal swelling, heavy breathing, exercise intolerance, increasing fatigue, blue discoloration of tongue or mouth, and loss of appetite”

In March, there were 19 dogs locked in McGuire’s taxpayer-funded labs. As recently as January 2017, McGuire purchased three more puppies for use in these experiments.

More than 300,000 people have written to Congress in support of WCW’s campaign to cut taxpayer funding for wasteful and deadly dog experiments. If you haven’t yet, email your congress members now.

Blog Comments

STOP THIS MURDER!!! ANIMAL CRUELTY AND NEGLECT ARE CRIMES!! THIS IS NOT SCIENCE! IT IS HORROR LIKE HITLER DID!!!

disgusting disgraceful human specimens

I am an animal lover…. Stop doing horrible experiments on them and they don’t even help humans…

Stop using my tax dollars to expirement on these helpless dogs. God did not intend His creatures be used for such a purpose.

How inhumane and ill you must be to torture innocent animals. I will personally do all I can to get you DEFUNDED.

[…] (22), o grupo norte-americano de direitos animais “White Coat Waste Project” divulgou uma análise de experimentos realizados com cães no Centro Médico McGuire, em […]

Stop this inhumane torture and lol long these dogs. No more tax money to fund these horrendous experiences on these dogs.

This is going to stop one way or another!! We will never stop signing petitions and fight animal torturers!! Inhumane and heartless “human” beings you are!! These beautiful animals deserve respect and compassion! How cruel and how RIDICULOUS!!!

Please discontinue this unnecessary and cruel practice.

I just happend to come across this site.. Alot more people would be against this abuse if they had more awareness of it.. Hopefully.. soon this will be out.. and People will fight for these animals.. Abuse is on your hands now.. please do your job to end the hidden suffering. soon.

[…] VA is currently the only agency conducting “maximum pain” experiments in which significant pain is inflicted on dogs and left unrelieved.” Only three of their […]

I am so horrified that any institution, especially one that is staffed with medical personnel, is allowing such horrors to take place. No animal deserves to be tortured. We have enough pain killers on the market. STOP inflicting PAIN on these poor, innocent dogs, rabbits and other animals. STOP THE CRUELTY!!! IT’S BARBARIC.

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