For immediate release:
August 13, 2021
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Washington – Today, an attorney for the PETA Foundation, representing 30 barn owls used in deadly taxpayer-funded brain experiments at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), filed more than 13,000 words with the US District Court in response to a federal government proposal to dismiss the group’s historic lawsuit. PETA’s first-of-its-kind lawsuit, originally filed in April, challenges the 2002 Helms Amendment to exclude barn owls held in JHU prison, along with other laboratory-born birds, mice and rats, from minimum protection measures. Federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) as an unconstitutional death sentence.
In PETA’s groundbreaking lawsuit, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Animal and Plant Health Administrator Kevin Shea are named defendants because they are enforcing AWA law. Thanks to the Helms Amendment, JHU experimenters, including students, can conduct invasive tests on owls without having to adhere to any AWA-approved remedies that are provided to other animals. When the bird’s brain is damaged beyond the possibility, the owls are killed.
Thus, the Helms Amendment acts as a death sentence for the owls.– and the claim states that U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits congressional death sentences through the power of attorney clause. In addition to advocating the repeal of the Helms Amendment, an adviser to the PETA Foundation is urging the federal government to demand strict screening and humane treatment of owls in the JHU laboratory, as well as tens of millions of other species, including birds, mice and animals. laboratory-born rats that are currently carrying out deadly experiments in laboratories across the country without AWA protection.
“Owl brains turn to mush in Johns Hopkins labs with no federal oversight or protection due to an unconstitutional loophole in federal animal welfare law,” says PETA’s director of litigation, Asher Smith. “The Constitution clearly states that Congress cannot use legislation to impose punishment on anyone, and since inanimate corporations enjoy this right, of course, it should also apply to living, breathing animals.”
The lawsuit was joined as the next friend of the barn owl by recent JHU alumnus, former Maryland health minister, animal rights activist and actor Evanna Lynch.
PETA, whose motto is in part that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes arrogance, a worldview focused on human excellence. For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…