Kategorie: Animals

Today, PETA supporters took the stage at the Adobe Summit at the Venetian Convention & Expo Center, where they confronted Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks during his speech. He then told those gathered, “We do use animal testing to discover human pharmaceuticals” before protesters were dragged offstage and arrested. It’s the latest in ongoing work to expose the pharmaceutical company’s shameful refusal to ban the cruel forced swim test, which doesn’t help humans.

Photos and video footage are available here.

In the forced swim or “despair” test, mice, hamsters, or other small animals are dosed with a test substance, placed in inescapable beakers of water, and forced to swim to keep from drowning. This is purportedly done to study human depression. The test has been heavily criticized by scientists as a poor model of depression and could rule out effective new drugs for humans. Eli Lilly has tormented 3,400 mice and rats in this test since 1993, but none of the drugs it has attempted to develop by using it are on the market.

“Nearly drowning tiny animals in an attempt to understand human depression is about as useful as tossing tourists into the Venetian canals,” says PETA neuroscientist Dr. Emily Trunnell. “The forced swim test just doesn’t hold water, so PETA is calling on Eli Lilly’s CEO to ban it at his company.”

It’s not the first time Ricks has faced criticism over the forced swim test. PETA has delivered the message outside his home, during his speech at an Indiana luncheon, and at annual Eli Lilly shareholder meetings, along with tens of thousands of e-mails from consumers.

Numerous other companies—including Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, AbbVie, Roche, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk A/S, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, and Bristol Myers Squibb—have all banned the test.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The post VIDEO: Eli Lilly CEO Faces Off With PETA at Adobe Summit appeared first on PETA.

Below, please see a statement from PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman in response to reports that SeaWorld is facing a lawsuit stemming from a fireworks explosion in a south Orange County warehouse that killed three people:

Not only have these fireworks stored for SeaWorld tragically killed three people, they also cause pain and suffering every time they’re used. The deafening blasts deeply disturb marine mammals held in SeaWorld’s cramped concrete tanks, terrify local wildlife as well as dogs and cats, and send veterans back to the worst days of war, which is why PETA is calling on the abusement park to end these fireworks shows now.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that fireworks are also terrible for the environment, releasing harmful chemical pollutants into the air and water with every blast.

For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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To encourage empathy for animals who are mutilated and killed in university laboratories, PETA will visit the University of Texas–Austin on Tuesday to launch Abduction—a unique virtual reality experience landing on college campuses across the country. In the eerie experience, visitors enter a mysterious truck and put on a virtual reality headset. They seemingly find themselves stranded in the desert with a couple of fellow humans, abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a terrifying experience similar to what animals endure in laboratories. They watch as others are subjected to experiments—inspired by real tests done on animals—knowing that they’ll be next.

When:      Tuesday, March 21, 1 p.m.

Where:    On the corner of Speedway and 21^st Street closest to Jester in Austin

Watch the trailer here. Broadcast-quality footage of the Abduction virtual reality experience is available upon request.

Experiments at UT-Austin have included subjecting rats to alcohol binges for four days in order to cause brain damage and trapping starved rats in chambers that delivered painful shocks to their feet before killing them. Other experimenters cut open frogs’ skulls to expose their brains, immobilized them, mounted them on a foam tray while they were still alive, and then subjected them to loud noise. Experimenters also forced mice to consume alcohol for 20 days, locked them in chambers and forced them to inhale ethanol vapors, repeatedly took blood from their tails, then killed them and cut off their heads.

Due to laboratory staff negligence at UT-Austin, a monkey was given inadequate pain relief, a marmoset sustained injuries because a cage hadn’t been properly secured, and a vole was improperly euthanized and found alive, likely in a pile of dead bodies.

“Many students don’t know that on their own college campuses, frightened and confused animals are being tormented, mutilated, and killed in cold, barren laboratories, with no way to escape or even understand what’s happening to them,” says PETA Senior Director Rachelle Owen. “PETA’s mission is to open young people’s eyes to this cruelty, help them understand what it feels like, and motivate them to join our call for a switch to superior, non-animal research.”

Studies show that 90% of all basic research—most of which involves animals—fails to lead to treatments for humans, which is why PETA is pushing universities to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.

Abduction—which was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the virtual reality creation studio Prosper XR—has stopped at several other college campuses from coast to coast.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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