I came across this article in another newsgroup, I imagine most of you might
have already seen this but it was news to me. The only reason this selfish
prick is apologizing is because of politics. Sorry for the harsh words but
just the thought of someone as cruel and selfish as him possibly becoming
President is sickening.

ps. Before anyone says I'm politically motivated to post this, note that
I'm in Canada, I couldn't care less about American politics but I do hate
people who torture animals for their own personal enjoyment, gain, or
because they simply have no respect for life other than their own.

http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?Stor...1-071056-3546r

Frist asked to atone for killing cats
By DEE ANN DIVIS
Science and Technology Editor

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
R-Tenn., is being asked by an animal advocacy group to support
legislation for better animal treatment to make up for fraudulently
adopting cats from animal shelters then experimenting on and killing
them while he was a medical student.

A Dec. 31 letter from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
asked Frist to make amends by pressing for reforms that would replace
old-style tests where animals are subjected to painful and sometimes
deadly procedures with newer, more humane approaches. They also
requested that he help fund research to find non-animal alternatives.

***************
Frist acknowledged in a 1989 book that he routinely killed cats while
an ambitious medical student at Harvard Medical School in the 1970s.
His office said it had no record on how many cats died. Frist disclosed
that he went to animal shelters and pretended to adopt the cats,
telling shelter personnel he intended to keep them as pets. Instead he
used them to sharpen his surgical skills, killing them in the process.

*****************

The newly elected leader of the Senate Republicans revealed the
practice in his book "Transplant: A Heart Surgeon's Account of the
Life-and-Death Dramas of the New Medicine."

"It was a heinous and dishonest thing to do," Frist wrote, in a passage
quoted by The Boston Globe. On Tuesday, Frist's press aide, Nick Smith,
told United Press International that "Senator Frist denounces the
activities that he did while he was in medical school -- as he has done
before."

It is not clear if Frist's actions were illegal. Many states ban
shelters from knowingly letting their animals be taken for such
purposes.

Massachusetts put such a ban in place in 1983. Frist was a student in
the Boston area from 1974 to 1978. A total of 14 states have passed
such laws. Four states -- Iowa, Minnesota, Utah and Oklahoma -- still
have laws that allow labs to demand the release of animals for
experimental use.

But such regulations, called pound seizure laws, only govern the
actions of the shelters.

"The pound seizure law probably would not apply there because the
shelter did not intentionally sell the animal to him for this purpose,"
said Debora Bresch, a lawyer and a lobbyist for the American Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"They thought they were adopting the animal out to him," said Bresch.
"What he did was fraudulent and probably was illegal."

"It would probably would be considered cruel back even then," added
Stephen Musso, senior vice president and chief of operations of ASPCA.

Though Musso said he personally had not heard about the Frist incident,
he told UPI, "We wouldn't want to see anybody taking an animal out of
an animal shelter and doing anything with it -- first of all that would
be harmful; second of all, different than the intentions that they gave
to the people at that shelter or humane organization."

Attitudes toward animal experimentation have shifted, said Gary
Patronek, director of the Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy in
North Grafton, Mass.

"The fact that laws have passed prohibiting the practice of pound
seizure in 14 states is evidence of the fact that society's attitudes
have changed," Patronek told UPI. "The laws reflect the attitudes. If
there isn't a broad social consensus about something, then typically
the laws don't change."

The demographics have changed also. By the end of 2000, a total of 34
percent of American households had at least one cat -- a sharp rise of
8 percent in only two years. The American Pet Products Manufacturers
Association also said in their 2001-2002 National Pet Owner Survey that
39 percent of all U.S. households owned at least one dog in 2000, about
the same percentage as in 1998.

Though Frist's practice has been known for 11 years, the matter appears
to be gathering new attention since his election as Senate majority
leader. E-mail with copies of news articles mentioning the incident are
bouncing around the Internet, said Bresch.

One Frist supporter said the senator's opponents are fueling the
interest in the issue.

"What is happening here is that people are doing profiles of the
senator, and they are desperate to find something wrong with him and to
come up with something bad in his past," he pointed out.

Whether Frist will come to the aid of animal legislative causes remains
to be seen. His spokesman said they had not seen the PETA letter and
therefore would not comment on it.

PETA, normally more combative and high-profile, took a somewhat
restrained tone in its letter. There was no mistaking PETA's opinion,
however, as the organization asked Frist to make an effort on the
animals' behalf.

"There could be no better way of making some small amends to those
animals whose trust you betrayed when you took them from shelters," the
letter said.

(With reporting by Nicholas M. Horrock in Washington)