Flashback Friday: May 1984 – Raid on the University of PA Head Injury Lab

[Omaha Steve]

I got the email Friday. I have not tried to watch the video yet. Should it be posted in GD?

OS





Over thirty years ago the ALF exposed the horrors of vivisection when it expropriated sixty hours of audio- and videotape of footage shot by researchers inside the University of Pennsylvania’s Head Injury Clinic in Philadelphia.

The footage, released as a 26 minute film produced by PETA called “Unnecessary Fuss,” shows the researchers mocking and laughing at baboons as brain damage is inflicted on them with a hydraulic device.

(The title of the film comes from a statement made by the head of the lab, neurosurgeon Thomas Gennarelli, to The Globe and Mail newspaper before the raid. Gennarelli declined to describe his research because, he said, it had “the potential to stir up all sorts of unnecessary fuss …”)

As a result of the publicity generated by “Unnecessary Fuss,” the lab was closed, the chief veterinarian fired and the university placed on probation.

Sadly, though, Gennarelli continues to practice elsewhere.

You can view “Unnecessary Fuss” here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0BEA79A8CB922B88

Find a detailed account of the ALF raid in Ingrid Newkirk’s book, “For the Animals”