Years of records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act have exposed a legacy of inhumanity at  Wayne State University in Southeastern Michigan. The evidence indicates that dogs are being forced to undergo painful and invasive surgeries intended to cause heart failure, with little to no benefit to medical science1.

Since 1991, Wayne State faculty and staff have used dogs in heart failure and hypertension experiments2. Currently, those experiments involve performing numerous surgical procedures on each dog, implanting up to nine medical devices in each dog's heart and near major blood vessels, and drastically increasing the dog's heart rate by forcing them to run on treadmills with surgically implanted electrodes to induce heart failure1. Vascular clamps are used to restrict blood flow to a kidney to cause hypertension. To control the devices and collect data, up to nine cables and wires are surgically tunneled between the shoulder blades of each dog, running out to a vest.

The surgeries are so intensive that, up to 25 percent of dogs are expected to die during or shortly after the procedures before any data are collected, rendering their participation in the tests completely inconsequential.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in early 2020 demanded the University "suspend activities that are not necessary to sustain or protect life," yet dogs continue to be subject to painful heart failure experiments3.

Together with the Michigan-based Attorneys for Animals, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national non-profit of more than 12,000 doctors, formally requested an investigation from Michigan Attorney General and Wayne County Prosecutor into WSU's violations of the executive order. The experiments are still in progress.

Bills in the Michigan legislature like House Bill 5090 (SB971)4 and House Bill 44965 are both aimed at reducing the number of dogs used in laboratory testing. The former would "prohibit the conducting of research or training activities on dogs in a manner that causes pain and distress," while 4496 would "require research facilities to offer laboratory animals no longer used for research, for adoption before euthanization."

No medical schools in the U.S. use animals for training anymore, but they're still being used in harmful experiments at schools like Wayne State University. Over the course of their three dog testing programs that span 30-years, the school has spent $12-million in taxpayer money with little to show for results.

Sign the petition below and help us end these unnecessarily cruel experiments on animals by supporting the Michigan State Representatives who have sponsored these bills.

More on this issue:

1. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 97 October 2019), "Dog Experiments at Wayne State: Decades of Pain and Futility."
2. Michigan Department of Community Health, Cardiovascular Health, Nutrition and Physical Activity Section (February 2015), "Cardiovascular Disease in Michigan."
3. Reina Pohl, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (9 April 2020), "Wayne State University Violating Statewide Lockdown by Continuing Dog Experiments."
4. Michigan Legislature (8 October 2019), "House Bill 5090 (2019)/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=2019-HB-5090)."
5. Michigan Legislature (24 April 2019), ""House Bill 4496 (2019)/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=2019-HB-4496)."