Biomedical Researchers Get a Break

Medical researchers can continue using greyhounds in experiments because the state legislature last week decided not to act on a bill which would have restricted the dog's use.

Harvard researchers testified against the bill in February and the state legislature's Joint Counties Committee effectively killed House Bill 5279 for this session last Monday by sending it out for further study by the legislative research bureau.

If passes, the bill would have forbidden using racing dogs, usually greyhounds, for biomedical research in Massachusetts.

The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) introduced the legislation because it considers animal experiments which kill the animal inhumane and says that greyhounds can make good pets and therefore should not be used in research.

Harvard scientists use about 4,000 dogs each year, including about 500 retired racing greyhounds.

"It's a victory, because we need the dogs, but I think they should have outright turned it down instead of sending it for further study," said Dr. Ronald D. Hunt, director of animal reources for Harvard labs.

The new law would have "seriously damaged biomedical research, especially at Harvard," said Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn, who performed three successful heart transplants in recent months and who uses between 100 and 200 greyhounds in his research each year.

Cohn said the racing dogs are very important for heart research because of their strong cardiovascular system which are generally similar to a humans.

Researchers get the dogs free from owners who donate the greyhounds when their racing days are over. Dogs that are not used for research are simple destroyed, said legislators.

"From what we understand, the dogs' owners drive a big truckload of dogs out to Rhode Island and shot them," said Stephen A. Klein, staff counsel to the Joint Counties Committee.

The committee decided to table to bill instead of rejecting it outright because many of its 15 members, "lean towards the side that says dogs shouldn't be used in experiments," said John P. Carvello, staff assistant to Chairman Rep. Raymond A. Jordan (D-Hampden).

Last year, the society and other groups hoping to eliminate animals experimentation successfully backed the repeal of Massachusett's pound and seizure laws--making it illegal after October for pound animals to be used in experiments.

Under the old law, experimenters were able to obtain stray dogs and ones slated to be destroyed by the government. Groups like the anti-vivisectionist society which helped repeal the pound law introduced the greyhound bill because they felt scientists might start using racing dogs to replace the pound animals.

Researchers could breed greyhound dogs specifically for experiments if the greyhound bill is passed. Hunt estimated that it would cost Harvard $600 to raise a single dog.