Los Angeles, CA: In an anonymous communiqué received by thePress Office, Students and Workers for the Liberation of UCLA Primatesclaim to have placed an incendiary device beneath an automobilebelonging to primate vivisector Goran Lacan. UCLA confirms thedestruction of two vehicles, but in deceptive wording, their pressrelease states the vehicles destroyed were not in front of the home‘owned’ by Lacan. University flaks also try to portray Lacan as a‘former’ primate vivisector, ignoring publications both this year andlast in which he principally authored studies detailing torture andmurder of vervet monkeys in the study of human anorexia, obesity andmethamphetamineaddiction.

In response, theNorthAmerican Animal Liberation Press Office researchers compiled asummary of the hideous experiments UCLA vivisector Goran Lacan hasrecently been involved with. Despite the dishonest press release putout by UCLA, Lacan has authored scientific papers detailing primatetorture, abuse and killing as recently as May of this year. As aninstitution that profits from animal exploitation, UCLA cannot betrusted to present the truth, so the Press Office will. If the UCRegents are willing to lie soobviously about a researcher’s work, it should surprise no one theywould also lie about whether the correct home was targeted byanimal liberationists.

PressOfficer Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a medical doctor and former vivisector, isnot surprised at UCLA’s painstaking wording in order to mislead theirstudents and the public. “UCLA, vested as they are in animalexperimentation and abuse, cannot be trusted to present the truth.” Dr.Vlasak states further: “It is typical of the opposition to statemisleading details about an underground action in attempts to “drawout” those responsible, and also to turn public sympathy away fromliberationists and from the real victims, in this case the primatesdying inside UCLA’s laboratories. I would hope that those opposed to animalabuse, including supporters of liberationist ideology, understand thatthis is thesame old rhetoric used by the opposition, a not very bright oppositionat that.”

Goran Lacan published a paper entitled “Modulation of Food IntakeFollowing Deep Brain Stimulation of the Ventromedial Hypothalamus inthe Vervet Monkey” in February of this year. In this horribly cruelstudy, Lacan ispurportedly trying to findtreatments for ANOREXIA in monkeys, and whether “DeepBrain Stimulation” or DBS,would be a good treatment for this mental disorder. His DBS protocolsinvolve implanting invasiveelectrodes deep into the monkey’s brain and then sending electricalpulses into their brain with the electrodes. It’s an incredibly painfulprocedure that carries with it a whole host of complications and sideeffects. Here are some excerpts from the paper:

“Twoadult… malevervet monkeys…were housed in individual cages for the duration ofthe study…The CRW human stereotactic device was attached to the frameaffixed to the animal’s head for subsequent stereotactic surgicalmanipulations. After making a midline incision, the skull was accessedbilaterally and 1.5mm-diameter holes were drilled for the approach tothe hypothalamic targets.Three anchoring titanium screws (OD 1 mm,length 3 mm) were placed around the bur hole, and the guide tube wassecured to the skull with acrylic cement. The IPGs were activated andinactivated transdermally on the animal’s back by a magnet aftertemporarily restraining it to a corner of the cage.”

“At theinitiation of bothDBS-on periods, the animals became acutely agitated. Over a period of30 minutes, they defecated and urinated, had an erection, andrepeatedly masturbated.”

The DBS period continued for up to 8 more days. Lacan alsoassistedprimate vivisector Baldwin Way in experimentation and publicationof research papers involving methamphetamine addiction experiments invervet monkeys in 2007. In this experiment, vervet monkeys injectedwith two doses of METH (2 mg/kg, intramuscularly, 6 hoursapart) showed at 1 month, iron increases in substantia nigra parsreticulata and globus pallidus, with concurrent increases offerritin-immunoreactivity and decreases of tyrosinehydroxylase-immunoreactivity in substantia nigra; these injections ofMETH into primates continued as they aged.

Anotherexample of the evil experiments Lacan is directlyinvolved in is: Long-Term Methamphetamine Administration in the VervetMonkey Models Aspects of a Human Exposure: Brain Neurotoxicity andBehavioral Profiles. And instill another 2007 experiment, Goran Lacan published “ArchitectonicDistribution of the Serotonin Transporter within the OrbitofrontalCortex of the Vervet Monkey.” Quoting the study:

“Subjectsin thisstudy were 12 drug-naive adult male vervet monkeys (Chlorocebusaethiops) that were housed in outdoor group enclosures at the UCLA/VAVervet Research Colony, Sepulveda, CA.”

As highlighted in the recent communique issued by animalliberationists, “those who experimented onprimates in the past, currently or thinkingabout it in the future, it may not be tomorrow or next month that hisalfs will find you…” (To read thefull communiqué, visit http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques_home.htm)

The American College of Poultry Veterinarians, decried the measure as economically disastrous for California egg producers

Congratulations to The Humane Society and Wayne Pacelle. You can read the full LA Times article here.

By endorsing cage-free eggs at the end of his column, George Skelton implies that he finds industrial chicken-farming practices abhorrent. I disagree, however, with his counter-assertion that the marketplace is an appropriate arbiter of ethical issues. Would the marketplace ever have eradicated slavery?

When business losses are at stake, and when our legislators rely on businesses for campaign funding, only the ballot initiative process will allow a motivated minority to raise questions that merit statewide consideration.

You can read George Skelton’s full column here.