Dogs Tormented, Killed in Michigan Labs; PETA Exhibit to Show Dark History of Animal Experiments

For Immediate Release:
September 19, 2022

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

Because Michigan laboratories used hundreds of dogs in experiments last year, PETA is bringing its free, eye-opening exhibit “Without Consent” to the University of Michigan’s hometown this week. The presentation of this provocative display comes after 4,000 beagles—some of whom have found permanent homes with Michigan families—bred for experiments were rescued from a now-shuttered breeding facility in Virginia, thanks to a PETA undercover investigation.

When:    September 21–25, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Where:    The University of Michigan, at the southeast corner of N. University Avenue and S. State Street, Ann Arbor

On display for just five days, “Without Consent” links historical experiments on vulnerable humans—including orphans, immigrant women, soldiers, and impoverished Black men—to the troubled history of experiments on nonconsenting animals, through 24 panels bearing descriptions and photographs of nearly 200 tests conducted at U.S. institutions in recent decades.

In 2021, Michigan laboratories held or used 892 dogs for experiments. Despite the availability of high-tech research methods—such as organs-on-chips and high-speed computers programmed with human data—dogs are force-fed drugs and used in a variety of invasive and sometimes extremely painful experiments. Most of them are killed. Experimenters at Wayne State University cut into dogs’ hearts, pelvises, and abdomens; inserted probes and catheters into their bodies; severed portions of their arteries; gave them drugs; and forced them to run on a treadmill.

Experimenters at the University of Michigan have cut into pigs’ groins and skulls to cause traumatic brain injuries and hemorrhagic shock. They have removed mice’s kidneys, fed them a diet high in fat and cholesterol to harden their arteries, and flooded their bodies with paraformaldehyde. And they have injected pregnant sheep with hormones to cause their babies to be born with an endocrine disorder, then removed the lambs’ ovaries, inserted hormone implants, beheaded the animals, and excised their brains.

“‘Without Consent’ tells the true stories of dogs and other animals who were harmed and killed in experiments that they did not and could not consent to,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “Humans are only one animal species among many, and having the power to exploit the others does not give us the right to do so.”

PETA is calling on the National Institutes of Health—which gave the University of Michigan more than $609 million in taxpayer funds in 2021, approximately half of which was used to fund cruel and pointless experiments on animals—to phase out animal experiments and adopt the group’s Research Modernization Deal.

An interactive virtual exhibit is available here. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.