Every year, UBC conducts thousands of experiments involving animals, including on pigs, mice, cats, monkeys, and others. Many of the experiments are highly invasive and painful. Most of the research is conducted with little public knowledge or scrutiny.

According to the UBC student newspaper, the UBYSSEY, the University of British Columbia (UBC) is one of the largest bio-medical campuses in Canada. Each year, UBC's Animal Care Center distributes some 100,000 animals, including cats, pigs, mice, rabbits, rats, non-human primates, and other animals to dozens of UBC-affiliated research projects. UBC maintains over thirty animal care facilities across its campus and throughout the rest of Vancouver.

In February, 2010, Stop UBC Animal Research formed out of concern for animals at the university. Our months-long investigation of UBC revealed disturbing details. For instance, one UBC researcher has experimented on cats for 30 years. In 2008 he received a five-year, federally funded grant for continued animal research. In his papers, the researcher described how he had cut open the backs of cats to expose their vertebrae, inserted titanium screws into the cats' spinal columns to inhibit movement, and built restraint chambers around the cats' exposed vertebrae to give researchers access to the cats' spinal columns and to fix the animals in a sitting position for recording sessions.

We also discovered UBC researchers have conducted studies in which they:

• Administered electroconvulsive shock to monkeys to induce seizures

• Poured a saline solution into newborn piglets’ lungs to induce respiratory failure

• Captured wild songbirds, withdrew their blood, then decapitated some of the birds

• Exposed mice to cigarette smoke for up to six months in emphysema research

• Blinded monkeys in vision studies

 

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

The Canadian Council on Animal Care's most recent data shows the numbers of animals used in "science" in Canada have risen steadily, with nearly 2.3 million animals in 2008, up from less than 1.8 million in 1998. As the home of a rapidly expanding industry of animal experimentation, UBC is at the forefront of this trend.


Despite UBC’s extensive animal research, the university and the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) – which oversees animal experimentation – have provided little information about UBC’s activities. The public is largely in the dark about the university’s research, even though much of it is funded with taxpayer dollars.


Though the CCAC conducts assessments of UBC’s research to determine if UBC has adhered to voluntary guidelines, those assessments are secret. UBC has refused to release critical data or details of procedures used on animals. The university has even failed to comply with freedom of information law requirements. In short, there is little transparency at UBC, giving the impression the university doesn’t want the public to know what is happening to animals behind closed doors.


DISCLAIMER: Though the below photos are not from UBC, they capture the grim reality of what typical experimentation on animals looks like.


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Images of research on animals

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