USDA Cites Boston U for Naked Mole Rat Deaths: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
June 21, 2022

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s citations of Boston University for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act in incidents including allowing 16 naked mole rats to die as a result of acute heat stress.

If Boston University laboratory staff can’t even maintain room temperatures at levels that don’t cook animals to death, the school should lose its license to conduct experiments on animals. Federal inspectors revealed that last December, temperatures in a room in which naked mole rats were caged rose so high that 16 animals died from heat stress.

The federal inspection report also documented experimenters’ failure to conduct a search for alternatives—as is legally required—for procedures that inflict pain or distress on animals.

Last year, the university received $172,981,948 from the National Institutes of Health—and about half of that money was directed toward experiments on animals. Boston University must redirect its resources toward modern, non-animal research methods that will actually help humans, and we urge officials there to adopt PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.

For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.