Mizzou Researchers Blinded Six Adorable Puppies And Then Killed Them For Science

El Taco10 years ago

I thought last year was pretty horrendous for Mizzou, but apparently we haven’t reached rock bottom quite yet. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Mizzou had been off the radar for a bit this summer — a good and much-needed thing for the university. But it appears my friends from CoMo are back with a vengeance.

Now, the good people at the University of Missouri are purposely blinding and killing puppies for “research.”

From The New York Daily News:

In a study published on April 7, four researchers at the university were looking to find the effects of topical hyaluronic acid to heal eye damage in dogs for its pilot study.

After the six beagles — all less than a year old — were purposely blinded in their left eyes, the researchers split them up into two different groups, one that received the acid for treatment, and one that didn’t.

Neither group of the puppies in the experiment recovered from the severe damage to their eye.

All six were killed after the pilot study was over, with the damaged eyes removed and stored for future research.

The university has defended its study, telling the Daily News that animal research was necessary to find answers to ‘some of the most important medical questions.’

Guys. Come on. WTF?! What kind of ship are we running over there?

I’ve heard of some twisted studies, but one where you purposely blind six pups and then kill them when your treatment doesn’t work out is pretty damn high on the “That’s-Fucked-Up-O-Meter.”

I’m no scientist but you could’ve maybe tried this research on dogs that were already blind. Or, you know, not tried this research at all. Or, better yet, tried it on yourselves. Either you win the Nobel Prize for fixing your blind eye or you remain blind in that eye and can never practice science ever again because you’re a shitty scientist.

According to the Riverfront Times, the first outlet to report this news, a university spokesperson did not respond when asked why the dogs weren’t re-homed instead of killed. Odd.

For a school that’s built upon producing top-notch journalists (including myself), you might want to lay low from the media for a while. It’s bad. It’s allllll bad..

[via The New York Daily News]

Image via YouTube