Provocative Exhibit to Expose Violent History of Animal Experiments, Including at Tulane

For Immediate Release:
March 8, 2022

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

As part of 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 Tulane University and the affiliated Tulane National Primate Research Center—to rethink this exploitative, expensive, cruel, and archaic idea of science. On display at Duncan Plaza 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, March 9, 12 noon

Where:    Duncan Plaza, 1209 Gravier St., New Orleans

“‘Without Consent’ tells the true stories of animals harmed and killed in experiments that they did not and could not consent to,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “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 110 million animals killed every year in U.S. laboratories is an individual who experiences pain and fear—yet they’re burned, force-fed chemicals, sickened with disease, and robbed of their babies. In 2020, the Tulane National Primate Research Center experimented on more than 850 primates and confined an additional 4,968 individuals for other purposes, including breeding. In a study reported earlier this year, Tulane experimenters created lesions in dogs’ hearts by burning or freezing the tissue repeatedly for seven weeks, before killing them and removing their hearts. In a study published last year, Tulane experimenters injected viruses into the eyes, mouths, and noses of monkeys, causing them to develop severe breathing problems, pneumonia, inflammation, and hypothermia. The monkeys continued to suffer as the disease progressed and were eventually killed. Other Tulane experiments include attaching catheters to the stomachs of monkeys, forcing them to undergo continuous heavy alcohol intoxication for nearly six months, and then injecting viruses through their rectums.

Because 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective in animal tests go on to fail or cause harm in human clinical trials, PETA is calling on the National Institutes of Health—which gave Tulane more than $94 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 a 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 these experiments were 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.