Images: Monkeys in Drug research studies
The research of Charles W. Bradberry has involved heinous cruelty to animals for decades. His lab is one of the most shocking and cruel in the city. Bradberry's research focuses on addicting animals (mainly monkeys) to cocaine over a period of multiple years, doing studies with water deprivation for days or weeks, cutting open their skulls and implanting devices in their brains, and forcing them to do tasks- often while withdrawing from the drugs they became addicted to. This research is particularly sickening as there is no shortage of human drug addicts willing to participate in this kind of research (whether to do the drugs or to participate in research that could help them kick their habits).
GOVERNMENT GRANTS
Bradberry is funded by at least two government grants: One from the NIAA which is good until August of 2010 and another from the NIDA good until June of 2014. These grants are made up of tax payer dollars and go towards cruel, unneccessary, and misleading research on other animals. Here is where your money has been going recently:
RECENT PUBLISHED RESEARCH
In one study [1], Bradberry and colleagues confined rhesus monkeys to primate restraint chairs and implanted catheters into their backs that would administer cocaine to them. They used these monkeys in this way, allowing them to self-administer IV cocaine in multiple studies for two years. Basically, these moneys were shooting up cocaine for years under the "care" of these researchers, developing addictions to the drug. There is mention that these same animals were being used in other drug studies for up to 4.5 years or more. The monkeys in this study were also deprived of water on many occasions- only being allowed water at their own want during the weekends (only until midday Sunday). This method is used to force monkeys to do tasks on a touch screen because when you are deprived of water for long enough, you will do anything for a drink. The researchers called this a "reward".These intelligent, sentient animals (often compared to 3-5 year old human children) have spent their lives confined to small cages, addicted to drugs, and/or deprived of water for years upon years, with money granted to these researchers by the state.
In another study [2], female monkeys were used with similar histories of years of cocaine addiction and abuse. These monkeys were restrained to chairs with catheters for cocaine and cocaethylene administration implanted in their backs. These animals' heads were cut open and devices were implanted in their brains to record from their brain cells.
Neither of these articles say what happened to these animals when these studies were finished. They were either killed or still remain behind the walls of Biomedical Science Tower 3, addicted to drugs and alone in cages, waiting for the next abuse to be inflicted upon them.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Charles Bradberry's Work address and contact information:
Office: Biomedical Science Tower 3, Room 4066
3501 5th Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Telephone:412-383-6200
Fax:412-383-6799
E-mail: bradberrycw@upmc.edu
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References
[1] Liu, Heitz, and Bradberry. (2009). A touch screen based Stop Signal Response Task in rhesus monkeys for studying impulsivity associated with chronic cocaine self-administration. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 177, 67–72.
[2] Baeg, Jedema, & Bradberry. (2009). Orbitofrontal and Anterior Cingulate Cortex Neurons Selectively Process Cocaine-Associated Environmental Cues in the Rhesus Monkey. The Journal of Neuroscience. 29(37), 11619 –11627.
