Animals Liberated from University of Iowa Labs

In the early hours of November 14, 2004 members of the Animal Liberation Front (A.L.F.) rescued over four hundred animals from the clutches of cruel and heartless vivisectors at the University of Iowa. If not for the brave efforts of these compassionate activists, these animals would have been forced to continue to face horrific treatment at the hands of the university’s researchers, having holes drilled into their head, being forced to suffer through severe dehydration, electrocution, and extreme cold, as well as the forced ingestion of cocaine, methamphetamine and PCP.

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Rescuing animals from these desperate conditions is not terrorism as the university, animal industry groups, and even some welfare groups condemn these actions as. No, it is the only thing any caring and sensitive person can do when faced with such atrocities. Moreover, by also destroying critical laboratory equipment and records, and releasing video of the animals to activists and the media the A.L.F. exposed university researchers for what they really are.

The resulting uproar on the University of Iowa campus is best evidenced by the exchange of letters in a local newspaper between the University President who condemned the action as criminal and students who called into question the use of animals in experiments and applauded the actions taken by the Animal Liberation Front.

Below is the communique sent out by the Animal Liberation Front shortly after the raid on the University. In additional communiques, the A.L.F. offered details about the horrific experiments the vivisectors were conducting, and providing their names, addresses and contact information. This type of detailed information provides a springboard for continuing action against these vivisectors. Now it is up to activists to take that information and pick up where they left off.

The Animal Liberation Front is claiming responsibility for the liberation of 401 animals from the University of Iowa in the early hours of November 14th, 2004. All animals on the third floor of the UI psychology department -- 88 mice and 313 rats -- were removed, examined and treated by a sympathetic veterinarian, and placed in loving homes.

Additionally, two animal labs and three vivisector's offices were entered and all contents relating to animal research were destroyed.

These are:

4th Floor - Spence Labs:
Vivisector Ed Wasserman's lab entered. Dozens of computers and devices used in experiments on live pigeons were destroyed.

Basement - Spence Labs:
Lab of vivisector Mark Blumburg and others entered. Surgical equipment and small animal stereotaxic devices, as well as "shock boxes" and other instruments of torture destroyed.

4th Floor - Seashore Hall
Primate researcher Joshua Rodefer's office entered. Computer discs, hard drives, paperwork and photos showing Rodefer's work confining drug addicted primates in small glass boxes removed. The remaining paperwork detailing his monstrous work addicting primates and rats to narcotics was soaked in acid and the computer destroyed.

1st Floor - Seashore Hall
Primate researcher Amy Poremba's office entered. Computers destroyed, documents removed, and the remainder soaked in acid.

This raid was carried out to halt the barbaric research of the UI Psychology Department's 7 primary animal researchers: Professors Poremba, Freeman, Blumburg, Johnson, Robinson, Rodefer and Wasserman.

This was not thoughtless vandalism but a methodical effort to cripple the UI psychology department's animal research. Only equipment in rooms where animals were confined and tortured were targeted. Only computers belonging to or used in the work of vivisectors were destroyed. Only documents of animal researchers waere doused in acid. The acid a deliberately chosen paper dissolving agent. Our goal is total abolition of all animal exploitation. Achieved in the short term by delivering the 401 animals from UI's chamber of hell. And in the extended term by shutting down the labs through the erasing of research and equipment used in the barbaric practice of vivisection. The entire raid was a careful and deliberate 5-pronged assault on UI's animal research.

Behind the laboratory doors we found drug addicted rats, rats subjected to stress experiments involving loud noise, rats undergoing thirst experiments, unanesthetized rats with protruding surgical staples and oozing wounds, and mice and rats affixed with grotesque head implants. Inside the labs of UI's Psych Department, we found a bloody torture chamber showcasing the cruelest whims of our earth's sickest minds. Professors Freeman, Poremba, Rodefer, Johnson, Robinson, Blumburg, and Wasserman are monsters. Tonight 401 animals are spared their reach.

Our deepest sadness is reserved for the animals on the 4th Floor kept from our arms, those we were unable to save, including hundreds of mice and rats, pigeons, guinea pigs, and 8 primates.

No animals were released into the wild. All 401 were placed in comfortable, loving homes.

We acted as operatives not only of compassion, but good science. Animal research is not only cruel but hazardous -- as data derived from the animal models is not applicable to humans and therefore dangerous.

Our bypassing of UI's sophisticated, key card-access, 4-walled security system (perimeter, elevator, corridor, animal room) should be interpreted as a two-fold message:

1) Our utter seriousness in achieving animal liberation.
2) If you torture animals and we not be stopped from liberating them.

On the ears of these monsters who know only profit and blood, who hide behind unjust laws, our breath has been wasted. Justice for the victims of vivisection will be achieved not by the blows of boycott nor protest -- but of our sledgehammers to laboratory doors.

Let this message be clear to all who victimize the innocent: We're watching. And by axe, drill, or crowbar -- we're coming through your door.

Stop or be stopped.

A.L.F.

Communique Addendum 1.0

The continuation of vivisection is maintained only insofar as it remains outside public sight and scrutiny. The ongoing research uncovered at UI's Psych Dept. is of such a sadistic nature as to be inexcusable by all but the sickest minds. UI code requires all animals be kept behind locked doors of windowless rooms, and most often on floors locked to the public. UI has also tagged this raid as mere vandalism and denied an animal liberation motive despite numerous slogans left painted at the site, all to divert attention from it's animal research. We confiscated paperwork from UI's 7 primary researchers to give the public a glimpse into the sickness kept from their eyes:

Prof. Freeman:
Drills holes into the skulls of rats and affixes head implants in neurology experiments involving "electrical brain stimulation". Rats removed from his lab were grossly disfigured by surgically implanted devices on the skull.

All animals in his lab were rescued.

Johnson:
Exposes rats to a series of "chronic stressors" including loud noise and strobe lights for the aim of "experimentally induced depression". Also performs experiments involving the withholding of water from rats.

All animals in his lab were rescued.

Blumburg:
Currently subjects infant rats to prolonged cold exposure. Famously deranged mind on record as stating the cries of animals in labs are an automatic response and convey no more emotion than a sneeze.

All animals in his lab were rescued.

Poremba:
Currently confines 8 rhesus monkeys in the NE corner of the Psych building's 4th floor, subjecting them to numerous stressors including reward/punishment experiments. Places primates in a "behavioral conditioning box", also known as a "shock box", where primates are subjected to shock experiments. Inside her office we found pieces of primate brain encased in glass and blueprints to the building.

Rodefer:
Addicts primates and rats to cocaine, methamphetamine, and PCP in redundant drug experiments. His drug possession license filed with the DEA stipulates the drugs be kept in a locked safe in the building's basement. However 2 stashes of narcotics were found in his 4th floor office, including the inside pocket of a jacket, suggesting he is himself addicted to the drugs he has for years forced on animals.

January 28, 2005
ALF Makes New Photos Available from University of Iowa Raid in November

Iowa- Graphic photographs, removed from laboratories during the recent raid on the University of Iowa, have recently been obtained by the Press Office and are available to the press upon request. Shown are non-human primates used at UI in depraved psychological experiments.

In November, members of the Animal Liberation Front entered laboratories at the university and freed more than 400 imprisoned animals that faced lives of misery and torture at the hands of experimenters. No one has been charged by authorities in the case.

Steve Best, PhD was recently at the UI campus to deliver a lecture in support of the ALF, providing stimulating discussion on the topic and infuriating those whose careers depend upon the relentless torture of animals in order to publish reams of data generally useless for improving human health.

Jerry Vlasak, MD, himself a former animal researcher and now an outspoken critic of animal research, states that “Researchers in labs like the one raided at UI are wasting valuable research dollars in futile attempts to apply data obtained from non-humans to human patients. Psychological experiments are even less likely to be useful, as the complex psychosocial differences between humans and animals are so different.”

The recent photographs were taken during the raid, and show non-human primates restrained in stereo-tactic devices; another shows a researcher glibly holding a test subject in a gruesome display of disrespect.