Sometime this year, the March of Dimes' Walk America event will reach an incredible milestone -- it will have raised over $1 billion since its inception in 1970. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine could not pass up this opportunity and is seeking activists to leaflet at upcoming Walk America events to "shine a spotlight on the dark side of the March of Dimes" (has Neal Barnard seen Star Wars once too often?)
According to PCRM, not only has March of Dimes-funded research produced no progress in preventing birth defects, but in fact the charity has intentionally ignored the best solutions to solving birth defects (which, of course, do not require using animals).
This is just the sort of ridiculous distortion that led the American Medical Association to condemn PCRM in 1991 for "misrepresenting the critical role animals play in research." Apparently Barnard and company still haven't figured it out.
Source:
PCRM needs volunteers. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Press Release, January 1999.