PETA Global 2019 Issue 3

I n his groundbreaking novel that became the basis for the filmThe Secret of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien wrote about secret experiments on animals at the National Institute ofMental Health. Now, PETA has obtained never-before-seen footage from inside those very laboratories. In these “off-limits” facilities, rats andmice are tormented and badly hurt, mentally and physically, in experiments designed to induce and crudely “measure” extreme panic, terror, trauma, and despair. 1. The Foot Shock Test: The footage shows rats and mice locked in a chamber with an electrified grid floor. Experimenters deliver shocks to their feet at unpredictable intervals, leaving them anxious, depressed, and overcome by a sense of helplessness. They jump and scramble around the chamber, often colliding with walls. Some of them freeze in place, terrified to move a muscle after receiving a shock, not knowing where the next one will come from. 2. The Tail Suspension Test: Animals’ full bodyweight is dangled by only their sensitive tail. Deeply distressed, they labor to right themselves but can’t, so they drop down for a moment then try again – and again. The experimenters time how long the frantic animals struggle. 3. Social Defeat Experiments: Animals are forced into stressful situations from which there is no escape – for example, a submissive male may be placed in the cage of an aggressive and dominant one. In addition to inducing Here are four of the horrors revealed by the footage.

The Real Secret of Rubbish ‘Research’ Exploits Rats andMice NIMH

“These crude, cruel tests don’t improve human health in the slightest. There’s no excuse for their use, and they should

anxiety and depression, the trauma can devastate an animal’s immune function, cardiac and circadian rhythms, and metabolism. 4. The Forced Swim Test: Mice who have been dosed with an experimental substance are dropped into water-filled, escape-proof beakers and observed as they paddle frantically, trying not to drown. They try to climb up the sheer sides and dive underwater, desperately seeking some way out, and they keep swimming for as long as they can – until finally, they give up and float. They are so frightened that they often defecate or cry out. Long used by drugmakers to “test” antidepressants and other drugs, these procedures are notoriously unreliable – less predictive of a drug’s efficacy in humans than a coin toss – and AbbVie, DSM Nutritional Products, and Johnson & Johnson agreed to halt their use of them after discussions with PETA. “Cruel experimentation is not a boon to science. It’s an impediment – a giant, expensive roadblock to real treatments and cures – and it needs to end now,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. Taxpayer funds must be redirected into effective and relevant epidemiological, clinical, and in vitro studies.

be banned outright.” – PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo

Forced swim test: © Fst Exhibition (bit.ly/2VMJoSk) | charcoalnih (bit.ly/2HlHijf) | CC BY 3.0 (bit.ly/1E6HPMf) • Rat: © iStock.com/GlobalP

Take Action Now Please watch PETA’s video, share it with others, and urge NIMH to stop financing

these cruel experiments – visit PETA.org/NIMH . Ask Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, and Pfizer to follow Johnson & Johnson’s example and ban the cruel forced swim test at PETA.org/ForcedSwim .

“As a practicing physician, I am baffled by the resistance to compassion and the reluctance to modernize medicine that I see so commonly.” – Dr. Neal Barnard

Ratsky was saved by a student.

She and the other rats in the college psychology course had been denied water for days and put in a cage that delivered only a few drops when they pressed a bar. At the end of this “learning” experiment, they were to be killed by being put in a trash can and doused with chloroform. But Ratsky escaped that fate when then-student Neal Barnard, the doctor who went on to found the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, took the little white rat home. After a few cautious days, she ventured out of her cage and was soon perched on his chest, waiting to be petted. If she didn’t get enough attention, she would playfully nip his nose and scamper away, inviting him, much like the dogs we know and love, to “come and get me!”

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THE TINIEST VICTIMS