Feds Fine Wake Forest $13K for Repeated Animal Protection Violations: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
June 18, 2024

Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382

Winston-Salem, N.C. –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding $12,850 in fines issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against Wake Forest University for multiple violations of federal animal welfare law:

A growing pile of animal corpses at Wake Forest University is a testament to the university’s incompetence and proof that it doesn’t deserve another penny from taxpayers. PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) urging the agency to defund the university after the feds fined the school for violations of not just one but SEVEN separate federal animal welfare regulations. Staff neglect, ignorance, and incompetence injured and killed monkeys, caused distress and pain to cats who had been subjected to surgeries, and suffocated a rabbit. Experimenters went off script, administering drugs or performing procedures that had not been approved, according to the just-released U.S. Department of Agriculture report. Fining the university nearly $13,000 is an unusually drastic step for the agency.

NIH must defund Wake Forest and redirect its resources toward modern, non-animal research methods outlined in PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.