Bill Maher: Stop animal experiments

NEWSDAY
NEW YORK -- Comedian Bill Maher says Columbia University is up to something politically incorrect.
The sharp-tongued stand-up spammed nearly 1,800 faculty and staff this week with an e-mail lambasting the school for its experiments on primates, saying "wasting money to ... disfigure and terrorize animals puts Columbia in an ugly and embarrassing position."
The university responded by defending its research practices and saying its academics are committed to the highest standards of animal care.
In his letter, Maher, an animal rights advocate, says one Columbia experiment has pregnant baboons being injected with nicotine and morphine while their fetuses are operated on in utero.
Vet calls PETA
He says a university veterinarian called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to report her colleagues' work habits after seeing experimenters remove a monkey's eyeball to induce a stroke.
"Even Poe, in a morphine-induced nightmare, couldn't have dreamed up anything as scary as this," Maher says, in directing staffers to a Web site, www.columbiacruelty.com.
A Columbia University official would not comment on the group's spam tactic but defended university practices.
Human lives saved
"Thousands of human lives are saved because of animal research conducted here," said spokeswoman Susan Brown. "Columbia, in doing this research, is committed to the highest possible standards of care and the humane treatment of all the animals in its research program."
She would not comment on the substance of the letter.