People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a lawsuit against Mississippi State University and Iams in January 2006 to gain access to documents related to animal experiments. Iams, a brand of Procter & Gamble produces pet food and health products.
PETA has requested a rehearing of its case as the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned the previous ruling of allowing the documents to be released, according to the Mississippi Public Records Act.
Lori Kettler, PETA senior counsel for legal and corporate affairs, said the court relied on Iams’ conclusions without having them backed up.
“We hope that the court will reconsider its decision and allow the information that is clearly not confidential business information to be released,” she said. “At a minimum, we hope that the court will remand the case to give us an opportunity to present evidence on why the information is not confidential.”
In 2002 and 2003, PETA conducted an investigation and documented the conditions that the dogs were in, Kettler said.
“People have a right to know what happens to animals in these laboratories,” she said. “All we want is the information that tells us how the animals are being treated, not proprietary information.”
The evidence gathered from the investigation was part of the reason PETA requested information about Iams’ experiments from universities around the country, she said.
“These experiments are not required by law and are 100 percent unnecessary,” she said. “These animals suffer for no reason at all.”
If there is nothing to hide, why would Iams and MSU spend so much time and money trying to prevent access to this information, she said.
“We do wonder why Iams and MSU don’t simply release the information to the public,” she said. “We don’t know the answer to this question, but we believe that the public has a right to judge for itself.”
University officials were not able to comment on the pending litigation.
Kent Hoblet, dean for the College of Veterinary Medicine, said most animal research deals with environmental health.
“Catfish, poultry, food safety and environmental health are the big areas of research,” he said. “Most of the research is pretty mild stuff concerning animal research.”
Kirk Schulz, vice president for research and economic development, said several types of animal research are done at the university.
“With doing research on an animal experiment, you must have your equipment pre-approved prior to setting your research project,” he said.
The university can lose the ability to do funded research if it puts its projects through the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee improperly, Schulz said.
“This is huge, so we must be careful how we conduct our research,” he said. “This is not a problem for Mississippi State because we have faculty who know the rules and abide by them.”
A committee like this provides a check that the research is appropriate, he said.
“This is a very formalized process with steps,” he said. “We are interested as well in conducting responsible research.”
Animal testing has become a controversial debate.
“They have people fearing for their lives in California because of the research they are doing,” he said. “This is not supposed to happen in America.”