Influencers to Launch New PETA Tour Exposing Dark History of Animal Tests
For Immediate Release:
January 27, 2023
Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382
Social media influencers will be PETA’s special guests for an exclusive look at the West Coast launch of “Without Consent,” an eye-opening exhibit exploring the troubled history of experiments on animals.
When: Tuesday, January 31, 12 noon
Where: Bruin Plaza, 308 Westwood Plz., Los Angeles
PETA’s provocative landmark installation—which debuts at the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) and will be viewable between January 31 and February 3 before embarking on a months-long tour—features 24 panels bearing concise descriptions and photographs of nearly 200 experiments on animals conducted from the 1920s through today and challenges institutions, including UCLA, to rethink exploitative, expensive, and cruel experimentation. As neuroscientist and Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik describes it, “‘Without Consent,’ PETA’s new traveling exhibit is a must-see. … Check it out in a city near you and do your part to help create a better future for all!”
“‘Without Consent’ tells the true stories of animals tormented and killed in painful experiments that they did not and could not consent to,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on universities and other institutions to replace the primitive use of animals with state-of-the-art technology and human-relevant research methods.”
The 110 million animals killed every year in U.S. laboratories are individuals who experience pain and fear—yet they’re burned, force-fed chemicals, sickened with disease, and robbed of their babies. At UCLA, experimenters burned and blocked pigs’ arteries to cause sudden cardiac death, induced epilepsy in rats who then experienced “wet-dog shakes” from tubes and drugs inserted deep into their brains, and caused trauma to rats’ brains by implanting electrodes in their skulls, among other cruel procedures.
“Without Consent” is modeled on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and makes the point that experiments conducted on vulnerable humans—including orphans in tuberculosis and psychological experiments, immigrant women in gynecological surgeries, soldiers in LSD and poison gas tests, and impoverished Black men in syphilis experiments—were once acceptable and are now considered unethical. The exhibit reveals that it’s high time to extend consideration to other nonconsenting sentient beings who suffer and die in everything from floor-cleaner product tests to mother-infant separation studies.
The recent groundbreaking passage of the FDA Modernization Act—which removes the mandate for animal tests in drug development—has the potential to speed drug development for humans awaiting treatments. Archaic animal tests, most of which were developed nearly 80 years ago, can now be easily replaced with sophisticated 3D tissue printing, organs-on-chips, and other high-tech research methods.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
