Eyewitness Video Shows Debilitated Dogs Suffering at French Laboratory

For Immediate Release:

1 December 2016

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

EYEWITNESS VIDEO SHOWS DEBILITATED DOGS SUFFERING AT FRENCH LABORATORY

PETA Calls for an End to Cruel Muscular Dystrophy Experiments on Beagles, Golden Retrievers, and Other Dogs

London – PETA has obtained eyewitness video footage (available here) shot inside France’s Alfort National Veterinary School, where dogs are deliberately bred to develop crippling and painful muscular deterioration and weakness. As muscular dystrophy (MD) – including a particularly aggressive form called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) – ravages their bodies, they struggle to walk, swallow, and even breathe.

PETA is calling on the French charity AFM-Téléthon to stop funding these cruel experiments on animals and instead to support only modern, non-animal research projects. The group is also calling on Alfort National Veterinary School to switch to humane research methods. The eyewitness video was given to PETA by the French animal rights group  .

“Decades of painful experiments on generations of debilitated and suffering dogs have failed to result in a cure or even a treatment that can reverse the course of muscular dystrophy in humans”, says Dr Julia Baines, PETA’s science policy advisor. “PETA is calling for an immediate end to these cruel, useless experiments as well as for increased support for promising non-animal research.”

In the footage, one dog’s face is covered with vomit because his oesophageal muscles have grown too weak to allow him to swallow properly. Drool drips from the mouths of dogs whose jaw muscles have weakened. Reportedly, some are completely crippled before they even reach 6 months old, and half die before the age of 10 months. Some can no longer eat normally and must be fed through a stomach tube. Those who survive long enough develop heart problems. One employee acknowledged, “I wouldn’t like to be in the beagle’s place. The suffering is real”.

PETA notes that there are obvious limitations to applying results from dog experiments to humans. Meanwhile, cutting-edge techniques, such as utilising unneeded cells from DMD patients to develop disease-specific cures, developing ways to grow healthy human muscle cells that could be transplanted into patients with MD, and creating human-relevant drug-screening platforms, have led to the development of more promising therapies.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or click here.

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