Our Mission

SERAT's mission is to educate the public and academic administrations, primarily at Duke and UNC, about:

1. The use of animals in laboratories at Duke and UNC.
2. More effective ways to manage and cure human disease. Animal research is archaic and most of the time can not be extrapolated to humans. The alternatives/options are more predictive of how a drug or procedure will react in humans. We are suggesting a paradigm shift, which has happened many times in scientific history, to a more predictive model that does not use animals. Some of the alternatives/options that are more predictive are imaging (CTscans, etc.), cellular (ie. Petri dish), epidemiology, clinical, genetic, emotional and socioeconomic studies. For more information, please see curedisease.com, navs.org, and vivisectioninfo.org.
3. The huge waste of tax money on animal experiments which are not predictive of how a drug or procedure will react in humans. Vioxx is an example of this. We are not getting a good return for our money!
4. How to question the usefulness of this research. For example, studying binge drinking in rats (research at UNC) and autism and gambling in primates (research at Duke) will not help cure or manage these diseases in humans. These are just two local examples of the way our tax dollars are being wasted; animals are being subjected to cruel research, yielding no positive results to human health.
5. Holding universities accountable by annually requesting USDA Facility Reports, USDA Inspection Reports, and other documents as needed (ie. Minutes from IACUC meetings, animal protocols and treatment records, etc.)

SERAT will concentrate our efforts on a local level and provide assistance and support to national campaigns.