UBC President Stephen Toope
Office of the President
The University of British Columbia
6328 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2
Phone: 604-822-8300

 Every year, UBC conducts thousands of experiments involving animals, including pigs, mice, cats, monkeys, and others. Many of the experiments are highly invasive and painful. Most of the research is conducted with little public scrutiny. In 2010 alone, UBC used a shocking 200,000 animals in research.

'Stop UBC Animal Research' has discovered UBC researchers have:
- Cut open the backs of cats, inserted screws into their spines, and built restraint chambers along the cats' spinal columns
- Administered electroconvulsive shock to monkeys to induce seizures
- Poured saline solution into newborn piglets' lungs to induce respiratory failure
- Injected toxins into the brains of monkeys to cause a form of "parkinsonism"
- Exposed mice to cigarette smoke for six months in emphysema research
- Blinded monkeys in vision studies

UBC President President Toope and urge him to "have a heart" by ending animal research at UBC!! YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE OF THESE ENOURMOUS SUFFERINGS!!

A. Gedik
 Netherlands

Dear UBC President Toope,

I am ashamed to be part of a species that objectifies animals, seen as commercial products to eat, wear, and exploit for entertainment and testing. However, of all the inherently cruel conditions humans inflict on animals, nothing is more destructive and immoral than vivisection, unparalleled in both its cruel intent and apathetic nature. To subject animals to unnatural medical conditions and practices for the purpose of theorizing potential human treatments is not only scientifically illegitimate but it is also fundamentally inhumane. As a means of fostering social validation, vivisectors consistently promote the idea that animals are responsible for producing lifesaving equipment and treatments and that those who are against vivisection are opposed to medical advancements. That illogic would be laughable if millions of animals were not tortured to support such. Indeed, to grant animals the power to cure and prevent disease while experimenting on those same animals is a contradiction in both practice and thought. With respect to such idiotic assertions, when do you establish the innately flawed practice of animal experimentation as the fault when people die as the result of unpredicted drug reactions?

From a pragmatic standpoint, if we could adequately determine the effects of drugs using animals in general, then, as I see it, human trials would be completely unnecessary. Therefore, if we acknowledge that data from animal testing cannot be extrapolated to humans, as demonstrated by the need for human testing trials prior to a general administration of drugs, then why are animals used at all? To determine a general idea relative to safety of them? If animals cannot be used to predict a human outcome in general, then how can they be used to predict safety? It's a ridiculous premise, one on which you place the lives of humans and the death of animals with a publicity machine using deceptive statements and misleading assertions fabricated by unscrupulous "scientists" to garner social approval. Indeed, to establish your legitimacy, you constantly promote the idea that those opposed to animal testing are supportive of human suffering. What an insidious remark, effective in its subtlety to gain public endorsement while at the same time fostering a hatred towards anti-vivisectionists, labeling us as misanthropists. I can assure you, I am neither ethically challenged nor stupid: your false assertions are nothing but pathetic attempts to rationalize a morally deficient industry where you capitalize on the fear of people and exploitation of animals.

Allow me but another moment to correct your disclaimers that animals are treated well, absent suffering and pain. The arrogance of such proclamations is astounding. Humans are unable to adequately describe pain in other species other than to accept its existence; to attempt such is based on pure conjecture and open to interpretation. Furthermore, tens of thousands of animals are deliberately denied pain relief while in obvious states of such, the theory being that introducing pain relief would compromise testing results. How can you honestly submit that introducing diseases to animals, subjecting them to pain, suffering, and agony, denying them companionship and comfort, and imprisoning them for life as done from a position of caring? Your claims are nothing but disingenuous rhetoric meant to deceive unknowing people: if you honestly cared about the well-being of animals, you would adamantly oppose vivisection.

Animal experimentation is unnecessary, unjustified, and unprincipled, its only function to financially benefit those who exploit animals; you are not invisible and your actions are indefensible. Animals have rights to live free from pain and suffering regardless of your objections to acknowledge such, and as long as you profit on the torture of animals, complicit in their abuse and death, I will continue campaigning on their behalf.

A. Gedik Amsterdam
 Netherlands