PETA Challenges Charles River Labs’ Twisted Tests on Mice in New TV Spot

New Nongraphic Pixar-Style Ad Illustrates World From Mouse’s Point of View

For Immediate Release:
October 14, 2019

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Because Charles River Laboratories is the largest breeder of animals for use in experiments—and because it harms and kills mice in painful tests for chemical, pesticide, and pharmaceutical companies—PETA is running a new TV ad showing the world from a mouse’s perspective.

The nongraphic spot—made in partnership with 160over90, an Endeavor company—features an adorable cartoon mouse mixing chemicals in his laboratory classroom in the forest and proclaims, “Animals experimenting are cute. Experimenting on animals isn’t.” It ran this morning on CBS/WBZ Boston and will continue to run this week at the following times:

• Wednesday at 8:38 a.m. (during CBS This Morning)
• Thursday at 1:05 a.m. (during The Late Late Show With James Corden)
• Friday at 11:30 a.m. (during The Price Is Right)
• Saturday at 1:27 a.m. (during The Late Late Show With James Corden)

“PETA’s new ad will remind people that mice are thinking, feeling beings who deserve to live and that they don’t belong to humans to be abused and killed,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Viewers will see immediately that Charles River Laboratories has robbed animals of everything that’s natural and important to them so that experimenters can torment them in archaic, unreliable tests.”

Studies show that 90% of basic research—most of which involves experiments on animals—doesn’t lead to treatments for humans. Government officials also admit that 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective on animals fail in human trials, either because they simply don’t work or because they cause adverse effects.

Charles River has a long history of violating the federal Animal Welfare Act, including failing to provide animals with adequate veterinary care, pain relief, and adequate housing, among other issues. Rabbits with lesions 4.5 inches deep were given no medical care, and unqualified personnel caused such severe injuries to monkeys’ fingers that the digits had to be amputated. At Charles River’s Nevada facility, 32 monkeys were baked alive when a thermostat malfunctioned and no one noticed, and a monkey was scalded to death when her cage was run through a high-temperature cage washer—while she was still locked inside

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or click here.