PETA Liberates Mice and Rats at Taiwan Universities!
It’s a good day for mice and rats in Taiwan! Thanks to a whistleblower, PETA’s Laboratory Investigations Department got a tip that led us into high-level talks with National Yang-Ming University’s president about her school’s cruel pharmacology experiments. And what do you know—the university has decided to end not one but two of these outdated tests in less than nine days and instead use humane non-animal alternatives!
Part of the first experiment called for students to pump the chemical strychnine into the stomachs of approximately 150 mice through surgically-attached stomach tubes. That’s right, strychnine—and then the students were required to observe and record the animals’ convulsions. The second experiment required the students to inject pentylenetetrazol, a convulsion-causing chemical, into approximately 135 mice. The students then had to inject acetic acid into the animals, which caused their bodies to contort painfully.
Now, both experiments have been canceled—and nearly 300 mice will be spared these terrible procedures every semester. The university will still conduct experiments on animals—including one cruel blood-pressure manipulation experiment in which students slice open animals’ windpipes and blood vessels—but the university has also agreed to dramatically reduce the number of rats who are used in that experiment—to just one.
These victories come after PETA successfully convinced National Taiwan University College of Medicine to end similar experiments on animals earlier this year.
This is a great start for National Yang-Ming University and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, where school officials are beginning to realize that animal experimentation is not just unnecessary—it’s inaccurate and completely inhumane.
Written by Amanda Schinke
