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In This Issue

• The Colombia Spectador... Online!
• President Bollinger Cancels Barnard
• Locals Don't Care About J.J. Food
• Allegations of Animal Intimidation Rock MEALAC Professors, Laboratories
• Six-Year Old Held in Terror Scare
• Saving the World, One iPod at a Time
• Letters to the Feditors
• A Slow Descent into Health
• Eat Shit and Die - or Learn to Love It
• Cholera Gives Me That Lovin' Feeling, Diarrhea
• An Open Letter to My Unborn Son
• Disorders to Earn You Psych Services' Lovin'
• On Dieting
• Bladder Stones and Other Terrors
• The Life and Times of Deranged Freak Babies
• Is It Abuse, or Is It Medical Care? See for Yourself!
• A Fed Tradition Continues Unfettered
• Johnny Cash Conquers the Martians
• Neverland Ranch v. Pleasure Island
• Marauding Interviewer
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 20.7

Ted Holden

Benjamin Scheffield GS '06 describes his emotional distress following inhumane treatment.

Ted Holden

Artist's Composite Sketch

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Zionists, a Boston-based non-profit group "dedicated to a clear and honest understanding of animal rights, as well as Zionism," has released a study condemning the treatment of animals in labs run by MEALAC, Columbia's Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures department. Entitled Unbecoming Cruelty, the report made a big splash when PETAZ held a private viewing for journalists, showing them pictures and video of laboratory conditions.

A host of the lab animals have come forward with accusations of intimidation by MEALAC professors. Benjamin Scheffield, GS '06, a capuchin monkey and Israeli Air Force veteran, told The Spectator of an encounter he had with Prof. Joseph Massad. "I was asleep, locked in my cage in the basement of Kent, when Prof. Massad came in and started stomping around. I woke up and asked him to keep it down, but he just looked at me and said, ‘How many Palestinians have you killed?' Then whenever I tried to say anything, he stuck his fingers in his ears and went, ‘Lalalalalalalalala.' I mean, I really worked hard for Israel to let me into the air force, what with my being a monkey and all. Like it's not bad enough that I'm stuck with this work-study job as a lab animal, now he has to insult my politics? I hope PETAZ can help."

Several of the complaints focus on Prof. George Saliba. "Sally," CC '05, (a pseudonym), is a baboon and one of Saliba's most vocal accusers. She set aside some time to share her allegations with this reporter. "My left eye was removed so the lab's researchers could have easy access to a blood vessel that they clamped to give me a stroke. After they induced the stroke and finished the study, they just left the clamp hanging out of my eye socket, so I went to Prof. Saliba's office hours to complain. When our talk turned to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he took off his glasses, got right in my face, and said, ‘You have green eyes; you are not a Semite.' And I was like, ‘I just got one eye cut out, and now you pick on me about the one I've got left? How insensitive can you be?'"

For its part, MEALAC has stood behind the professors, noting that its academic staff must be free to voice their opinions if the department is to maintain its credibility. PETAZ is against animal experimentation on principle but adds that if lab tests are absolutely unavoidable, injured animals should be euthanized, not subjected to snide political comments. President Bollinger has appointed an ad hoc committee to examine the climate of political debate between researchers and animals in the University's labs.

Professors Massad and Saliba declined to comment, but in a phone interview, MEALAC chairman Marc Van De Mieroop said, "The results of the research we do in the labs are helping human beings every day. It's unfortunate that PETAZ finds the conditions sub-optimal, but the fact is that many of my professors disagree with the monkeys on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If the monkeys feel intimidated out of expressing themselves in the course of the research, then for that I am sorry. It would be damaging to academic freedom, though, to limit the rights of professors to expound their views in the labs."

Pending the recommendations of the ad hoc committee, the University has suspended animal testing in MEALAC labs. Benjamin Scheffield and Sally are still held in the research facility, anxiously anticipating the resumption of their vivisection under less politically offensive circumstances.