Setting the record straight on ABP
In a recent article (“With election, town-gown relations at key juncture,” Sept. 9) on the relationship between New Haven and Yale, the Yale Daily News reported that:
“Yale chose not to renew the lease of Au Bon Pain at 1 Broadway. Yale gave 25 employees only four days notice that they would lose their jobs. ‘It’s out of the blue,’ said Richard Gattison, a shift manager who had worked at Au Bon Pain for nine years told the News, ‘It’s a lot of people who are just going to be collecting unemployment for a while, including myself.’ He added that he was not given any explanation for the store’s closure.”
Au Bon Pain, which is headquartered in Boston, Mass., originally leased the Broadway location in 1994. Because University Properties’ mission is to continually improve downtown retail in order to draw more people into downtown and thus build the city’s tax base, UP has long planned to upgrade the building and enhance the tenant mix at 1 Broadway, one of the most prominent retail corners in the city. Thus the renewal lease that Yale signed with Au Bon Pain in 2009 made specific provision for the possible redevelopment of the building and provided that in the event Yale chose to redevelop it, Au Bon Pain would vacate provided they received six months’ prior written notice. University Properties’ decision to go forward with the redevelopment of the building was no surprise to Au Bon Pain. Yale duly notified Au Bon Pain in writing in December 2012 that the property would be redeveloped and asked them to vacate by June 2013.
We agree that it is regrettable that the employees had such short notice from Au Bon Pain, but the relationship of Yale to Au Bon Pain was that of landlord to tenant. No landlord would have any way of knowing what Au Bon Pain chose to tell or not to tell its employees, nor would any landlord be permitted by Au Bon Pain to step between employer and employee to manage those communications. Thus the notion that Yale failed to give the employees adequate notice is incorrect and unfair.
Abigail Rider
Sept. 12
The author is Associate Vice President and Director of University Properties for Yale.
Ending animal experiments
The article (“Protein receptor signals Alzheimer’s breakthrough,” Sept. 10) on medical research at Yale University once again cites another new “finding” in a rodent, this time for Alzheimer’s disease. For decades, thousands of these predictive types of “hopeful” animal studies at universities across the nation have not translated therapeutically to the human clinical setting, amounting to the wasting of billions of our tax dollars. Much like the bully in the schoolyard who uses his stronger muscles to physically intimidate his classmates, Yale’s animal researchers and their administrators operate in similar fashion, utilizing their advanced academic degrees to grossly mislead an uneducated public and media with their continued misuse of the animal model. This publicly funded research is valuable in perpetuating their careers while increasing their employer’s endowment along with creating valuable budget surpluses. The fiscal federal formula in disbursing competitive research grants is to award 30–50 percent of the grant as net profit to the University for which they can use for any purpose. At Yale, this revenue amounts to tens of millions annually.
Alas, irrefutable evidence exists that has exposed this scientifically invalid research method. This lifesaving evidence can be found on the website of Americans For Medical Advancement, whose data is logically analogous in predictive value to the way a mathematician flawlessly proves a valid theorem.
Since Yale has yet to evolve in this area of research, the most hopeful solution in helping suffering medical patients is to form a legislative patient advocacy coalition to meet with our wonderful local U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro. She can begin the process of sponsoring a modernization bill that defunds useless animal experiments while shifting these wasted billions to research that is actually rooted in science, not fiction. This is clearly and easily achievable only when public demand asserts itself accordingly.
In addition, Yale students can accelerate the process by organizing a much-needed academic debate in inviting the world’s foremost expert, AFMA’s Dr. Ray Greek, to logically present the scientific invalidity of animal experimentation. Our scarce tax dollars have a simple right to be validated by those who are still spending valuable resources on this invalid research paradigm. Unfortunately, history has shown that this type of animal researcher rarely avail themselves to such debates.
Gerald Ardigliano
Sept. 10
The Author is a Coordinator at Medical Progress Through Awareness