World Day for Animals in Labs: Small Protesters Hit Parliament With Big Problem

For Immediate Release:

24 April 2020

Contact:

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

WORLD DAY FOR ANIMALS IN LABS: SMALL PROTESTERS HIT PARLIAMENT WITH BIG PROBLEM

PETA Calls On the Government to End Cruel Tests on Animals

London – Despite social distancing (or because of it), PETA held a protest with an army of adorable animal figurines outside the Houses of Parliament today to mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories. Similar protests were staged around the world, from Paris to Sydney.

Animals in laboratories suffer on a massive scale: in 2018 alone, 3.52 million procedures were carried out on animals in Great Britain. Many – including mice, rats, guinea pigs, dogs, rabbits, and monkeys – were poisoned, burned, cut apart, emotionally traumatised, forced to swim for survival, or infected with diseases. In 2017, an additional 1.81 million animals were used as breeding machines, killed for their body parts, or left to languish in cages for their entire lives.

Yet studies show that 90% of basic research – most of which involves experiments on animals – fails to deliver treatments for humans.

“Reliance on the broken model of animal testing must end,” says PETA Science Policy Adviser Dr Julia Baines. “The government has a moral obligation to advance human health, and it can do so more effectively by recognising the delays caused by flawed experiments on animals. To provide effective treatments and vaccines urgently required by patients, it’s vital that we switch to innovative human-relevant technology – and there’s no better place to start than with coronavirus vaccine testing.”

PETA is calling on the government to commit to phasing out all animal experiments and redirecting resources to superior, non-animal methods such as sophisticated tests using human cells and tissues and advanced computer-modelling techniques which would benefit humans and animals alike.

High-resolution images are available here. PETA opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

#