On Campus at NKU
In real life, Kent B. True is campus minister for the Christian Student Fellowship at NKU, where I am known by the rather silly-sounding name of Harold N. Orndorff, Jr. Sometimes I try to set the record straight around campus, as I recently did when an indignant PETA person demanded that NKU labs stop messing with rats. You'll see what I mean below. The first section is the letter from PETA. Next comes my letter to the NKU campus newspaper, which they printed. (By the way, the director of the lab loved it, and sent me kudos - but who's surprised? I was backhandedly defending his rat-maltreating ways!) Then comes my follow-up letter. The paper didn't print this one - I guess they had enough of my style. Read on and have some fun with me.
* * * *
A letter from PETA to NKU
By: Matthew Mongiello
Issue date: 3/22/06 Section: Letters to Editor
While People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is ethically opposed to all
exploitation of animals, we typically reserve action for those particularly
cruel and unnecessary abuses.
I believe Dr. Mark Bardgett's biopsychology lab fits both criteria. The rats
used by Bardgett undergo a procedure called stereotaxic surgery, in which steel
spikes lock the animal's head in place so that a piece of brain can surgically
be cut out. The rats are then put through a series of experiments involving
electric shock and other noxious stimuli before they are finally killed.
Even if these procedures are performed perfectly - a big "if" for inexperienced
undergraduates - there is no denying that pain, distress and death await these
animals.
The real argument is over the necessity of experimenting on animals. Simply,
animal use is not necessary to teach undergraduate students about biopsychology
research design. Bardgett and others have invoked unrelated Alzheimer's disease
and schizophrenia research in defense of the course, but beginner-level training
experiments are not legitimate disease research. They produce no original
scientific data and their only purpose is teaching research design to novices.
Bardgett and others also point out the cost of non-animal methods, a straw man
argument because only a few of the relevant technologies are expensive.
More basic equipment for eloctroence phalograph (brain activity) and
electromyograph (muscle/nerve activity) studies is already available to the
class. Other technologies that measure skin conductance, heart rate and eye
movement are inexpensive and readily accessible. Other schools use these
noninvasive methods, and I've heard no explanation why NKU cannot manage to do
the same. . .
PETA is asking that the biopsychology lab be redesigned and that animals
experimentation ends after the spring 2006 semester. I urge concerned students,
faculty and alumni to contact President James Votruba and tell him it's time to
give the animals a break.
Matthew Mongiello
Research Associate for PETA
* * * *
A letter from ME to PETA
By: Harold N. Orndorff, Jr.
Issues date: 3/23/06
Even though PETA and NKU are locked in a great struggle over the rights of
rodents, I believe a compromise is still possible. Matthew Mongiello of PETA
says the practices of Dr. Mark Bardgett’s biopsychology lab are “particularly
cruel and unnecessary” because they involve “noxious stimuli.”
While there is a sense in which any letter from PETA is itself a noxious
stimulus, let us pass over that little fact and try to make some peace with PETA.
Mongiello objects to stereotaxic surgery on rodents. What if all the students in
the biopsychology lab were issued tiny little hard rubber mallets? These could
be used to “manually anesthetize” the rodents. The suffering of rodents would be
alleviated, and the required equipment is low-tech and affordable!
With a workable compromise now in hand, I must say that it is a little
presumptuous of Mongiello and other PETAites to presume to speak for members of
another species. It would be one thing if Mongiello were to help organize the
rodents into their own union, something like the Union of Rodents and Allied
Techno-experimental Species (URATS). But Mongiello should have enough respect
for other species to allow them to speak for themselves.
So I urge concerned students, faculty and alumni to contact President James
Votruba and tell him it's time to turn a deaf ear to self-appointed rodent
spokespersons, and deal directly with URATS.
Regarding “PETA: NKU is harming rats”
from 2/15/06 -
I, for one, am glad to hear that. I thought I saw one the other day attempting
to slip into and infest one of our famous NKU tunnels. I had hoped “NKU” would
use its big concrete foot to kill that one, but it appears that “NKU” missed it.
Those cute little lab rats in the photograph that accompanied the article:
couldn’t they get a shot of local lab rats? Those were foreign lab rats, from
some placed called Illinois. How are we supposed to have a decent Amber Alert
for lab rats if we don’t even have a picture of the rats in question?
Professor Bardgett said that alternatives to rodent-harming procedures would
cost $100,00 per year. Is he implying that a few precious rats aren’t even worth
$100,000?!? Oh, the inhumanity, I mean, inrodentity, of it all!
As founder and president of People for the Destructive Treatment of Animals, I
want to make it clear that our organization supports the destructive treatment
of animals, especially lab rodents. We would make an exception for Pinky and the
Brain, however, because their genes have been spliced, and it was always
entertaining for humans to watch them try to take over the world.
Note to PETA: I’m almost certain I saw NKU, or at least one of its employees,
trying to kill a fly the other day. Flies have feelings, too, you know. Students
at NKU are urged to form a local chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of
Insects in order to address this grave injustice. Please don’t delay - insects
are being murdered every day!
Harold N. Orndorff, Jr.