Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) experimenter Eliot Spindel has been killing infant monkeys (like Thimble, pictured here) in nicotine studies for 24 years. But that's not enough for him--Spindel has a ticket to ride the federally-funded gravy train and continue these needless experiments until 2012.

Since 1992, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has given Spindel at least $7.6 million of our tax dollars to conduct experiments on animals that tell the public what we already know: Nicotine is detrimental to human health. Yet Spindel continues to implant nicotine pumps into the backs of pregnant monkeys, delivering daily doses of the addictive substance to the mothers. He cuts their babies out at various stages of development, kills them, dissects their lungs--and passes this off as science.

"Among the most horrifying things I witnessed at the lab were the times when baby monkeys were stolen away from their mothers. This was a chaotic, ugly, heart-wrenching scene. A worker wearing thick leather gloves would reach into the cage where the baby clung to her mother's breast, and snatch the baby by one shoulder and arm and rip her from her mother who was screaming and desperately fighting to keep her baby safe. Once removed, the entire room of monkeys would erupt into total pandemonium -- screaming, thrashing, and crashing against the sides of their cages -- some even reaching out through the bars in vain to get the baby back."
                               --IDA's Matt Rossell, who worked as a caretaker in Spindel's lab from 1998-2000

Please Take Action to urge OHSU and NIH officials to end funding for Spindel's experiments, and to redirect tax dollars into useful efforts to help people stop smoking, and to keep young people from ever lighting up.