Back to Cruel: ‘Mouse’ to Protest Pitt’s Animal Laboratories at Start of School Year

As Classes Commence, PETA Will Pull Back the Curtain on the University of Pittsburgh’s Painful Experiments on Mice

For Immediate Release:
August 31, 2017

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

What:    It may be a new school year, but the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is still performing its painful, pointless experiments on mice and other animals—and a large PETA “mouse” mascot in a cage will make sure that students know what’s going on by leading supporters in a spirited protest at a busy campus intersection on Thursday. Video footage of the experiments will be screened on an iPad, and protesters will carry posters with images of the abused mice, including some who were used in excruciating sepsis studies, in which Pitt experimenters puncture mice’s intestines so that fecal material leaks into their abdomens. The animals experience acute pain, fever, chills, and difficulty breathing as their bodies succumb to severe infection. Those who don’t die during the experiments are killed at the end of them. Nearly 900 mice are being used in these studies, even though research shows that results from sepsis experiments in mice are inapplicable to humans.

When:    Thursday, August 31, 12 noon

Where:    Intersection of Schenley Drive and Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh

“Pitt’s worthless experiments on mice betray the public’s trust, waste public funds, cause animals to suffer and die, and are bad science,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on students to band together against these studies, which result in nothing but poor lifeless mice who didn’t want to die.”

PETA ran an ad in Pitt’s student newspaper earlier this year calling out the numerous oversight issues at the school’s laboratories, including animals who were denied adequate veterinary care and monkeys who were driven insane by confinement.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.