February 28, 2012
Wayne's Blog: Progress Against Selling Pets for Invasive Experiments
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Thousands of cats and dogs fall prey to Class B dealers every year. Michelle Riley/The HSUS
This month, the National Institutes of Health announced that beginning on Oct. 1, 2012, grant recipients cannot use NIH funds to buy cats from “Class B dealers.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture licenses these dealers as middlemen to round up dogs and cats from animal shelters, auctions, private individuals, and other “random sources”—in some cases, through “free to good home” ads and even pet theft.
Class B dealers then sell these animals, many of them former pets, to research laboratories where they undergo painful experiments. Undercover investigations have documented sickening conditions at some of these Class B facilities.
