Boston, MA, Machipongo, VA - "No One Knows How Many . . . The Use of Birds in Agricultural and Biomedical Research" is a powerful new brochure produced through the collaborative efforts of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society and United Poultry Concerns. The brochure, which is based on a White Paper supported by NEAVS and written by Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry Concerns, is a revelation of horror.

"Millions of birds are used in grotesque experiments and suffer and die horribly at the hands of vivisectors," says NEAVS President Dr. Theodora Capaldo. "NEAVS is deeply concerned that while birds are extensively experimented on, few people know the suffering and torment they endure in laboratories in the United States and around the world."

One reason that countless birds are exposed to callous, cruel, and wasteful research in the United States is that birds and farmed animals have been arbitrarily excluded from the Animal Welfare Act, even though the Act was designed to cover all warm-blooded sentient animals. Thus unprotected, birds are subjected to food deprivation, artificially induced diseases, heat stress, debeaking, slaughter experiments, and much more, through funding provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other federal agencies funded by U.S. taxpayers.

NEAVS and UPC are asking people to urge the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to include birds in the Animal Welfare Act in fulfillment of the Act's original intention.

Chickens and other domestic fowl are especially vulnerable to vivisection because, at the very time society has begun to demand less cruel treatment of birds and other animals raised for food, genetic engineers are pushing the technologies of farmed animal abuse in whole new directions. "These birds have not only the tragedy of being considered food," says UPC President Dr. Karen Davis, "They are fair game for all sorts of hideous research - everything from being forced to 'model' the effects of cigarette smoke inhalation and high-cholesterol diets to having their faces disfigured in experiments designed to make them grow teeth or sprout extra beaks. Thus far neither conscience nor law has protected them. This has to be changed."

For a complete copy of Dr. Davis' White Paper, please visit NEAVS' website at www.neavs.org. Or visit United Poultry Concerns at www.upc-online.org. For copies of the brochure, "No One Knows How Many . . . The Use of Birds in Agricultural and Biomedical Research, please send a SASE to NEAVS or to UPC, ATTN: Bird Brochure.

The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending animal experimentation in laboratories, product testing, veterinary and medical schools, and public and private classrooms. United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.