With the worthy goal of preventing birth defects, the March of Dimes collects millions of dollars in donations annually. But most donors who generously open their pocketbooks are unaware that their gifts help to fund painful experiments on animals. The March of Dimes has funneled millions of dollars into laboratory studies on primates, rats, mice, cats, dogs, rabbits, pigs, sheep, guinea pigs, opossums, and members of other animal species.

Both animals and human babies are the losers, because every dollar spent to harm these animals is a dollar that could have—and should have—been used to help people.

Experimenters funded by the March of Dimes have:
sewn shut newborn kittens' eyes, then killed them after they had endured a year of blindness.

put newborn kittens in completely dark chambers, then killed them after three to five months.

removed fetal kittens from the uterus, implanted pumps into their backs to inject a drug that destroys nerves, then re-implanted the fetuses in the uterus. After the kittens were born, they were killed and studied.

implanted electric pumps into the backs of pregnant rats to inject nicotine, even though the dangers of cigarette smoking to human babies is already known.

injected pregnant rats with cocaine, though the dangers of cocaine to human babies is already known.

injected newborn opossums with alcohol, decapitated them an hour to 32 weeks later, then removed and studied the gonads (immature sexual organs), though the dangers of alcohol to human babies is well known.

transplanted organs from pigs to baboons, most of whom died within hours.

transplanted organs from guinea pigs to rats.

destroyed the ear drums of unborn lambs, then killed the mother sheep and lambs just before birth to examine the brains.

Despite these experiments, the Centers for Disease Control reports that birth defects are occurring more often. Of 38 birth defects studied over a 10-year period, an astounding 27 have increased in frequency, nine occur at the same rate, and only two have decreased in frequency.

There are many reasons for this, but the most important is that the human physiology is vastly different from the physiologies of other species. It’s true that all animals are sentient beings capable of feeling pain, but the similarities essentially end there.

For example, testing chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, and addictive substances on pregnant animals and then trying to apply the results to humans is a waste of lives and money because humans are so different from other animals. Consider that:


humans have a longer period of fetal development, so may be more
sensitive to birth defect-causing agents than other species.

genetic differences among species of animals affect the way they react to chemicals.

different species develop in utero at different rates and along different schedules, calling into question animal studies on chemicals that affect fetuses at different stages of development.

differences in the placenta may affect the absorption of chemicals among species.

the route of administration of a potential birth defect-causing agent to the animal may not be the most common route of human exposure. For instance, animals may be given nicotine intravenously, whereas human exposure is through inhaling cigarette smoke.

animals are rarely given chemicals on the same time schedule as humans. Animals are usually given a large amount of a substance over a short period, while people are usually exposed to small amounts over a long period.

stress imposed by animal handling, food or water deprivation, and restraint have been shown to affect test results.

animals learn and show intelligence differently from humans, and animal studies usually cannot detect a substance’s potential for causing learning or behavioral problems in babies.
Even birth defects researchers admit the difficulty of interpreting animal tests because any substance can harm fetal development if given in the right dose to the right species at the right time. This is called "Karnofsky's Law" and it’s often used by experimenters to excuse the inaccuracy of animal studies.