Provocative Exhibit to Expose Violent History of Tax-Funded Animal Experiments at UM
For Immediate Release:
February 7, 2022
Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382
As the first stop on a national tour, PETA is erecting a large exhibit, titled “Without Consent,” that explores the troubled history of experiments on nonconsenting animals and challenges institutions—including the University of Miami (UM)—to rethink this exploitative, expensive, cruel, and archaic idea of science. On display in Brickell for five days, 24 panels will bear concise descriptions and photographs of nearly 200 animal experiments conducted at U.S. institutions from the 1920s through today. An interactive virtual exhibit is also available here.
When: Wednesday, February 9, 12 noon
Where: The intersection of Brickell Avenue and S.E. 13th Street, Miami
“‘Without Consent’ tells the true stories of animals harmed and killed in experiments that they did not and could not consent to,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Humans are only one animal species among many, and having the power to exploit the others does not give us the right to do so.”
Each of the 100 million animals currently imprisoned in U.S. labs is an individual who experiences pain and fear—yet these animals are gassed, force-fed, drugged, and robbed of their babies. Experimenters at UM have drilled into the skulls of marmosets, attached electrodes to their brains with screws, strapped them into chairs, and recorded their brain activity as they reached for food. Other UM experimenters implanted electrodes into the brains, all four legs, and backs of micro pigs; injured their spinal cords; and then killed them and removed their brains. Because 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective in animal tests fail or cause harm in human clinical trials, PETA is calling on the National Institutes of Health—which gave UM more than $170 million in taxpayer funds in 2021—to phase out the use of animals in experiments and adopt the group’s Research Modernization Deal.
“Without Consent” uses historical perspective to point out that beginning in medieval times, experiments were conducted on vulnerable humans—including orphans in tuberculosis and psychological experiments, immigrant women in gynecological surgeries, soldiers in LSD and poison gas tests, and impoverished Black men in syphilis experiments. The exhibit illustrates that just as society now understands that this was wrong, we need to let that moral awakening guide our conduct today and to extend consideration to other nonconsenting beings who suffer and die in experiments, from floor-cleaner product tests to mother-infant separation studies.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
