PETA Coronavirus Statement: No Time for Failed Testing Methods
For Immediate Release:
January 31, 2020
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo on the use of animals for coronavirus experiments:
As the coronavirus outbreak threatens to become a worldwide pandemic, laboratories are busy planning to infect animals in deadly pathogen tests—even though this antiquated 19th century approach has a history of delaying treatments, wasting funds, and causing more harm to human patients, who are now suffering from dangerous 21st century diseases. The public is fearful of this coronavirus, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that killing animals in laboratories will be the solution. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and given that the pathogens that cause pandemics typically jump from farmed animals to humans, it’s time to stop breeding and eating billions of animals each year. Concerned people should go vegan, since filthy farms and markets crammed full of sick animals are breeding grounds for both viruses and superbugs.
Background
In 2012, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) stated that “research involving chimpanzees has rarely accelerated new discoveries or the advancement of human health for infectious diseases.” Chimpanzees are humans’ closest genetic relatives, so logic dictates that using other species in tests to combat human infectious diseases is even more futile. Furthermore, 95% of new drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human trials, according to NIH. PETA has put forward a detailed plan for scientific authorities to embrace cutting-edge, non-animal testing methods—such as organ-on-a-chip technology, sophisticated computer simulations, three-dimensional cultures of human cells, epidemiological studies, and other modern techniques—instead of poisoning and cutting apart animals in junk experiments.
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.
