A controversial animal rights group is accusing George Billman, a professor of physiology and cell biology at Ohio State, of abusing dogs used in his research.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has accused Billman of “redundant” experiments, which have led to the death of more than 700 dogs in the last 27 years.

Billman’s studies have focused on the heart, specifically cardiac arrest. According to PETA, these studies have been both unnecessary and cruel.

According to PETA, Billman has called for experiments that require a surgical operation on dogs to insert a cuff around an artery. The dog then runs on a treadmill while the cuff is tightened, inducing a heart attack.

“The things that Billman is doing in his laboratories, the hypotheses that he is looking at [ask the questions], is exercise good for the heart, is omega-3 heart protective?” said Alka Chandna, PETA’s laboratory oversight specialist. “These are things that have been known for decades.

“If we are reading the medical records correctly, dogs who were sick were not given proper veterinary care, dogs who were extremely sick were not monitored properly and ended up dying in their cages.”

Earle Holland, associate executive director of University Communications, said that PETA’s accusations are misleading.

“This is not the first time that PETA has made these inaccurate claims about what this work is or other work that is being done by the university,” Holland said.

He said that the accusations are, at least partially, a simple attempt to garner attention.

“You can’t look at this without realizing that a secondary motivation of PETA is to increase the number of people contributing to their organization,” Holland said.

The university has issued a response via its Web site, hoping to set the record straight about what Billman actually does.

The response says that Billman’s research focuses on events that occur at the cellular level during cardiac arrest. They said his research has discovered non-invasive methods that may be helpful in identifying both dogs and humans that have the greatest risk for heart problems, and shows the positive effects of omega-3 fatty acid injections. They conclude by saying that only 30 dogs are used annually, compared to the thousands euthanized by area pounds each year.

Chandna says that these discoveries won’t change PETA’s mind.

“According to the animal welfare act, if knowledge can be gained through sources other than animals, that is preferable to using animals. And knowledge can be gained from non-animal methods in the sorts of hypotheses Billman is looking at,” she said.

Holland says that this is yet another inaccurate claim by PETA.

“PETA is in the business of stopping research on animals. … Currently, you can not do biomedical research without using experimental animals,” he said. “You just can’t take digital cells and extrapolate that out to a complete living organism, it’s bad science. The FDA still mandates that before drugs can go on the market, they must be tested on animals. The lack of actual availability for these alternatives that PETA and these other organizations are suggesting makes it impossible for us to comply with these suggestions, and they know that.”

PETA has sent formal letters urging an investigation into Billman’s practices to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and to the National Institute of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare. What they would like to happen and what they expect to happen are two different things.

“We would like to see the laboratory shut down and we think that there is a very strong case for that,” Chandna said. “But I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that. However, I think we can expect that at the very least the laboratory will be cited and fined.”

OSU officials say they will continue to support Billman and his work.

Richard Oviatt can be reached at [email protected].