VetQuest’s False Claim Prompts Urgent PETA Action

For Immediate Release:

14 March 2019

Contact:

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

VETQUEST’S FALSE CLAIM PROMPTS URGENT PETA ACTION

Group Urges Minister to Uphold Rejection of Proposed Animal Experimentation Facility in Canterbury

Canterbury – In July of last year, following a 25,000-strong petition by PETA, Canterbury City Council rejected a planning application by VetQuest Research Ltd to establish an animal testing facility in the local area. The company appealed the decision, and one of its directors contacted planning officials under the guise of being a “third-party representative” and wrongfully that, after talks with VetQuest’s principle director, PETA had withdrawn petition countering the application.

Because VetQuest is now taking the council’s refusal to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire – who has the power to overturn the decision – PETA has rushed the minister a letter urging him to uphold the council’s rejection of the planning application and to set the record straight about VetQuest’s unfounded assertions regarding the appeal.

“Sensitive animals are in danger of being used as living test tubes,” says PETA Science Policy Adviser Dr Julia Baines. “PETA is urging the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to reject this unwarranted appeal and not to fall for the seemingly shady attempt to misrepresent this nightmarish facility as something benign.”

After being contacted by PETA’s legal representatives, VetQuest admitted that it had never contacted the group regarding the planning application. The company acknowledged that PETA has never indicated support for the building of an animal testing facility or given it any reason to alert the police.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes speciesism, a supremacist worldview, and notes that if built, this facility would subject cows, pigs, birds, and sheep to cruel experiments to test vaccines and other substances. The animals would be forced to undergo regular blood draws and would be confined to metal pens for months on end, denied the opportunity to fulfil their natural instincts to roam and graze. The planning statement simply notes that the animals will be “taken away” at the experiments’ end. PETA will continue to do all it can to ensure that animals are never used and abused.

PETA’s letter is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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