Cleveland Animal Protective League
1729 Willey Avenue; Cleveland, OH 44113
email: contact@clevelandapl.org
Paul Murray, Director, Animal Research Committee
The Cleveland Clinic
9500 Euclid Avenue; Cleveland, OH 44195
ph: 216-444-0543; fax: 216-445-4658; email: pmurray@ccf.org
Robert Stern, Executive Vice President
Micrus Endovascular Corporation
821 Fox Land; San Jose, CA 95131
ph: 408-433-1400; email: Ras@mircruscorp.com
COPY: The Cleveland Clinic Foundation
9500 Euclid Avenue; Cleveland, OH 44195
ph: 216-444-2200, 800-223-2273 ext. 42200
website-affiliated email: WebMail@ccf.org, webmaster@ccf.org
COPY: The Cleveland Clinic / Department of Neurosurgery / S80
9500 Euclid Avenue; Cleveland, OH 44195
ph: 216-444-5670, 216-445-3449; fax: 216-445-452
web email: http://www.clevelandclinic.org/contact/form.asp
Dear Cleveland Animal Protective League, Mr. Paul Murray, Mr. Robert Stern, and Cleveland Clinic:
I am shocked to read about a Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon who deliberately stimulated a brain aneurysm in a mixed-breed dog for a medical sales demo at the clinic's Lerner Research Institute. While the clinic has reported the unauthorized dog lab to the USDA — claiming hospital policy forbids lethal use of animals for the sole intent of sales training — this response is insufficient.
The American Board of Neurological Surgeons and the State Medical Board of Ohio ought to invalidate this neurosurgeon's medical license. Apparently the hospital's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee had not yet evaluated his application to rupture this dog's arteries and blood vessels in a room full of salespeople. Without official consent, the neurosurgeon destroyed a large healthy dog to demonstrate how the instrument's coil inhibits blood flow to an aneurysm.
I strongly encourage the Cleveland Animal Protective League to upgrade its current inquiry to a thorough investigation. If warranted, please prosecute this case as a violation of animal cruelty law and seek appropriate penalties. I urge Micrus Endovascular Corporation to institute a formal policy that requires an animal-free environment for all training exercises involving its medical equipment.
Furthermore, I respectfully ask Cleveland Clinic to inform the public of its internal review and do everything possible to prevent future animal death and suffering. Please generously fund the implementation of animal-free research methods that are not only more humane, but also more applicable to human health.
In general, science derived from distressed animals doesn't result in accurate extrapolation to humans. Lab variables such as pain, confinement, loneliness and repeated handling generate deceptive data. Findings published in Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science show researchers are unable to separate the effects of stress hormones from the drug or procedure under analysis.
Growing recognition of the physiological, cellular, genetic and psychological disparities between species has prompted the development of expedient non-animal systems. As you know, options range from in vitro cell and tissue culture models and genetic/protein analysis to epidemiology, videos and mathematical modeling, virtual organs and 3-D models, autopsy/biopsy studies, advanced MRI imaging, and a multitude of other human-focused tools.
Cleveland Clinic's neurosurgeon could have easily used a silicone model in place of a sentient dog to conduct his sales training drill.
Old-fashioned animal experimentation is non-predictive and misleading. When carried out exclusively for marketing purposes, it is an ethical travesty. Thank you in advance for ensuring the offender is suitably punished and enforcing policies to prevent similar wrongdoing.
Sincerely,
