The BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Burn Fund directly funds burn research on live rabbits and mice in its Wound Healing Research Laboratory led by Dr. Aziz Ghahary.

The BC Fire Fighters have been exposed for cruel animal research before. In the 1990s, animal advocacy organization Lifeforce exposed BC Fire Fighters for funding research which involved burning rats with boiling water. As a result, the BC Fire Fighters promised to pull funding for animal research. However, with the establishment of Dr. Ghahary's lab in 2005, research on animals has resumed.

Dr. Ghahary's research involves using a tool to punch wounds through the full thickness of rabbits' ears (including cartilage). For mice, the wounds are punched into the full thickness of the skin on their backs. The wounds are then subjected to various test substances or deliberately infected with bacteria. The animals are left to suffer with their wounds for up to 35 days before being killed.

Numerous examples in the wound healing literature show data gathered from animal research were misleading and in fact delayed advancements in human patients. In today's world where superior alternatives exist, animal research is a crude relic of the past.

Two other Fire Fighter's Burn Fund organizations exist in Canada (Victoria and Manitoba) and neither support research on animals. Instead they dedicate themselves to the treatment, support, prevention and education of burn and fire injuries.

Please sign our petition to tell the BC Fire Fighters to stop funding cruel, archaic, animal research.