PETA AU Global 2021 Issue 2

PETA’s Students Are on the Move

Take Down Animal Testing Arguments in Two Minutes

Being grilled by uninformed vivisection supporters? Challenge their misinformation with these reasoned replies.

Torn paper: © iStock.com/yasinguneysu

• They say: Major medical advances came from experiments on animals. • You respond: Most important discoveries didn’t involve animals at all, including the link between cholesterol and heart disease, the development of the X-ray, and the identification of HIV. Experiments on animals are largely irrelevant to human health and divert precious funds away from human-relevant research. • They say: If we didn’t use animals, we’d have to test drugs on humans. • You respond: No matter how many tests on animals are performed, someone will always be the first human to be tested on. And testing on animals doesn’t reduce risk: Even the US National Institutes of Health admits that 95% of new pharmaceuticals that test safe and effective in animals fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous. • They say: Using animals is the only option. • You respond: Ever heard of human clinical and epidemiological studies, high-speed computers programmed with human data, cadavers, or human patient simulators? How about “organ-on-a-chip” technology, cell-based tests, and tissue and “minibrain” models? These methods are humane as well as more reliable, more precise, and less time-consuming than exploiting animals. • You respond: This is a false equation as the choice today is actually the following: Would you rather waste time and money and hurt and kill animals by conducting unreliable and inhumane animal experiments, or would you rather modernize by using innovative, human-relevant, non-animal test methods? • They say: If we have to sacrifice 100,000 animals to help one human child, it’s worth it.

PETA provides training and mentoring, while the students provide the creativity and determination to keep pushing until every animal is free. Wish themwell! Take Action Now If you’re between 13 and 24, visit SOS.PETA.org to join the SOS revolution or even start a hub in your area. You can follow SOS on Instagram at @petaxsos .

Sending Out an SOS What? Newborn monkeys infected with a deadly virus on my campus?! That was the reaction of University of California–Davis student Kara Long when she learned that right there, in the California National Primate Research Center , thousands of monkeys – including infants – were being infected with pathogens, psychologically traumatized, and killed. Experimenters were also strapping masks onto their faces to force them to inhale smoke and pesticides and deliberately keeping them dehydrated in order to coerce them into performing tasks in exchange for a few drops of water. Kara turned her outrage into action, rallying her classmates to demand that the facility close. So far, more than 57,000 people have contacted

for everyone – regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or species. They belong to PETA’s Students Opposing Speciesism (SOS), a youth-led revolt against human supremacy, comprising more than 90 student hubs across North America. They mobilize their peers through debates and social media to take on animal-abusing industries. Putting Monkey Terrorizers on Notice A primary target of SOS is one of the world’s biggest bullies: the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds abysmally cruel animal experiments, including Elisabeth Murray’s monkey terror experiments. She gets paid to inflict brain damage on monkeys, lock them in cages, and scare them with fake spiders and snakes. Afterward, she kills them. (Learn more at PETA.org/MonkeyTorture .) Students take to the streets in monkey masks (or lock themselves in cages) to get people to think about all that’s going on in laboratories and what the animals experience. They’re calling on NIH (at 301-496-4000)

to demand an end to Murray’s experiments and flooding its inboxes and social media accounts with the heartbreaking stories of the dozens of monkeys imprisoned in her laboratory, including Wilfork, who has lost nearly all his hair from stress and is so psychologically damaged that he just stares at the floor. He’s been caged all alone for most of his life. “Can you imagine yourself in the place of the macaques in laboratories?” Kara asks. “Their suffering is almost unimaginable. But we can end it.” ‘Army of the Kind’ SOS members spread the animal rights message online via memes and art. They organize pandemic-safe protests against killing pigs for meat and encourage people to post messages on social media opposing dolphin captivity. As part of PETA’s “The Face of Fashion Is Fear” campaign, they demand that Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People stop selling leather, alpaca fleece, wool, mohair, and anything else that belongs on animals’ backs – those particular brands were implicated in a PETA investigation that showed workers abusing alpacas during shearing.

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the UC-Davis chancellor. You can, too, at PETA.org/UC-DavisMonkeyTorture . The momentum is building!

Wilfork has been caged all alone for most of his life.

Young People Side With Animals Kara is one of hundreds of students demanding empathy

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