BIOMEDICAL COMMUNITY FIGHTS PETAS MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AND ITS ALL IN FUN

Infection - Animal Helpers© Version is a new game intended to teach children and adults the facts about the crucial role animals play in fighting the war against disease. Researchers aim to counteract PETA's misinformation campaign targeted at young children.

Columbus, Ohio, February 10, 2003 -- We are calling it accidental learning," explains M. Sue Benford, Executive Director of the Ohio Scientific Education & Research Association (OSERA) and a former childhood cancer survivor who has benefited from animal helpers in research. OSERA has launched a new version of the educational board game InfectionTM. The Animal Helpers© Version is intended to teach children and adults the facts about the crucial role animals play in fighting the war against disease. If animal-rights (AR) groups, like the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), had their way, all animal-supported research would be stopped immediately, curtailing the development of safe and effective medical treatments. According to PETAs director, Ingrid Newkirk, "A rat is a pig is a boy is a dog," Newkirk told Katie McCabe of The Washingtonian.

Benford says the biomedical community is fighting back against the multi-million dollar misinformation campaigns carried out by organizations like PETA, which has successfully used games such as, "a maze game in which children devise an escape route for a mouse trapped in a laboratory with a scientist holding a syringe and knife," to recruit young children into their ranks.

Research involving animals is used to develop treatments for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and many other illnesses; however, most children do not have first-hand experience with these diseases. By playing the game, kids and adults are faced with actually having a number of diseases and also with trying to cure themselves," explained Benford. When they draw an animal helper wild card they quickly understand how research can help them. By the same token, when they draw an AR card they see how devastating the effects can be on people with illnesses." The game is geared for teachers to use during the unstructured times in the day like indoor recesses, latchkey programs, and with substitute teachers. Science teachers have also expressed interest in using the game as a classroom teaching tool.

The dire outcomes of AR activities are not without their consequences," said Benford. Many examples exist of the negative impact extremist groups have had on getting a treatment to the people who need it. Recently, Ohio State University researcher Michael Podell was driven out of his lab by constant threats and harassment by AR extremists. Once a person plays our game, they wont read about one of these incidents in the newspaper without remembering how the AR activities affected their own disease situation," said Benford.

According to the creator of InfectionTM, Dr. Dan Sullivan of Earwig Enterprises, The Animal Helpers addition to the game helps educate as to the contributions animals have made in the medical field. Without the use of animal studies many advances in medicine would not have occurred."

The game retails for $38 and is available at the www.osera.org website or by calling Earwig at (408) 942-5453. For interviews and more information contact: M. Sue Benford, at 614-784-1961, OSERAdirector@aol.com.