Video: PETA Allies Disrupt QMUL Event to Demand End to Cruel Sepsis Experiments on Mice
Video: PETA Allies Disrupt QMUL Event to Demand End to Cruel Sepsis Experiments on Mice
London – Just moments ago, PETA supporters wearing mouse masks crashed Queen Mary University of London’s (QMUL) 40th anniversary celebration of its William Harvey Research Institute, interrupting remarks by Professor Panos Deloukas to deliver an unscheduled speech detailing the agony mice endure in the university’s cruel and pointless sepsis experiments.
Photos and video footage of the disruption are available here and here.
Today’s action is the latest salvo in PETA’s campaign urging the university to end the grisly experiments, which consistently fail to lead to effective treatments for humans. Earlier this month, PETA erected a billboard near the campus ahead of the university’s Open Days event depicting a dead mouse alongside the message, “Septic Fail. Mice Suffer and Die in Sepsis Tests at QMUL – With No Human Benefits.”
“Slicing mice open and deliberately puncturing their intestines to trigger sepsis is grotesque cruelty, and these ghastly experiments help no one,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA urges QMUL to end this barbaric junk science and switch to superior, animal-free research methods that actually advance human health.”
More than 150 drugs have successfully treated sepsis in mice, yet none have been effective in treating humans. Despite the well-documented failure in using mice to model human sepsis, QMUL experimenters are cutting open terrified mice and puncturing their intestines to leak faecal matter into their bodies. Experimenters noted that some mice experienced severe sepsis, which can include major organ failure, tremors, and gasping. Some of these experiments have already been retracted from the scientific literature because data and conclusions were deemed ‘unreliable’, and at least three more papers are under investigation over concerns regarding the integrity of data from experiments on animals.
Mice are intelligent, complex, and social individuals who experience a wide range of emotions. They become attached to each other, love their families, and easily bond with their human guardians – returning as much affection as they receive. PETA encourages everyone to urge QMUL to heed the scientific evidence and join other institutions – including the University of Kent – that have committed to non-animal methods in sepsis research.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a mouse is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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