Senator Rand Paul Prompts Truth From Experimenters, PETA Thanks Him

For Immediate Release:
February 4, 2021

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

When an animal experimenter tweeted that Sen. Rand Paul had described his experiments as “spraying alcoholic rats with bobcat piss,” he asked his peers on Twitter to “incorrectly summarize” their work.

The result was a refreshingly honest stream of professional confessions the likes of which PETA has never seen before. We researched the experimenters’ work and confirmed that what they say is actually accurate.

Here are two examples:

“Forces monkeys to become tweakers and then kills them”

—Posted by David Jentsch, SUNY Binghamton

“Deafens, murders, and mutilates mice”

—Posted by “MadScientistPhD,” who is most likely Mike Kasten, University of North Carolina School of Medicine

Many may consider Rand Paul to be controversial, but we just had to thank him.

“We urge you to keep telling it like it is and do all you can to redirect funds from animal studies to superior animal-free methods,” wrote PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo in a letter to Paul.

For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Paul follows.

February 4, 2021

The Honorable Rand Paul

U.S. Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Paul,

On behalf of PETA and our 6.5 million members and supporters, I wish to thank you for your refusal to mince words when describing an animal experiment. According to @The_Gilp, whom we believe is Nicholas Gilpin, professor of physiology at Louisiana State University, you described his animal studies as “spraying alcoholic rats with bobcat piss.” This has inspired a tweet storm of confessions by animal experimenters, including these:

Forces monkeys to become tweakers and then kills them

Posted by David Jentsch, SUNY Binghamton

Deafens, murders, and mutilates mice

Posted by “MadScientistPhD,” who may be Mike Kasten, University of North Carolina School of Medicine

Traumatize teen rats and feed them comfort foods to death

Johnny Figueroa, Loma Linda University

This rare glimpse of truth-telling by those who imprison and harm animals in laboratories—despite the failure of 90% of basic research to lead to treatments for humans—is a rare and self-revelatory glimpse into a very secretive world. As it’s a world largely funded by American taxpayers, we certainly have the right to know what’s being done in our name and with our dollars. These descriptions are also alarming as we struggle in a pandemic. The need for medical research that doesn’t waste resources is evident. We have the COVID vaccines because companies, while conducting some animal studies, were allowed to bypass the years-long animal trials that are normally required.

Perhaps you will find the attached list of shockingly honest descriptions useful. While the experimenters were asked to “incorrectly summarize” their work as they imagine you would, we know from our research into their published papers and public records that these experimenters are admitting what they do behind closed laboratory doors.

We urge you to keep telling it like it is and do all you can to redirect funds from animal studies to superior animal-free methods. Toward that end, we invite you to review our strategy for this transition, which you can see here.

With respect,

Kathy Guillermo

Senior Vice President

Laboratory Investigations

PETA