*Please DON'T donate, just sign and share to help end canine testing* AN OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES CEO BIRGIT GIRSHICK Dear Ms. Girshick, My name is Chip. I am a dog walker from Sterling, less than a twenty minute drive from your facility on Union Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. I am not a scientist. I am not a lobbyist. I am just a man who loves dogs. I was troubled when I found out what your company was doing to beagles and other animals at your facility on Union Street. I have driven past that building many times. It pains me to know those dogs are there, what they are going through, and the fate in store for them if nobody steps in. These things are not abstractions to me — they are a daily ache. I am asking you, person to person, to let them go. Please stop canine experiments entirely at 55 Union Street. Stop what is already underway. Cancel what is pending. Adopt out all the dogs inside with the help of verified rescue groups, fosters and adopters. They are waiting, I promise you. Please. Let those beagles go to loving homes. The science is moving away from animal testing. The emerging field of New Approach Methodologies represents the next generation of biomedical research. These are not fringe ideas. They are where the science is going. And they require exactly the kind of highly skilled, well-compensated workforce that Massachusetts already cultivates. The academic infrastructure at MIT, Harvard, Tufts, and UMass, combined with one of the densest biotech corridors in the world, makes this Commonwealth the natural home for that evolution. Imagine a facility in Worcester that once housed research dogs becoming a center for cutting-edge, human-relevant science — the animals retired to loving homes, the workforce retrained into higher-skill roles, and Massachusetts planting its flag at the frontier of twenty-first century medicine. That is a story worth telling. It is a legacy worth building. The reputational repair alone from such a move would be staggering. But more than strategy, more than brand — this is simply the right thing to do for those dogs. I am one solitary citizen. But I believe ordinary people still have the right to ask great things of powerful institutions. I am asking. With hope, Chip *Please don't donate, just sign and share to help end canine testing*