PETA Calls For State Audit of UConn After COVID-19–Related Animal Killings for ‘Non-Essential’ Experiments

Following Euthanasia of Animals as Part of School’s COVID-19 Response Plan, Group Questions Why Extraneous Experiments Were Ever Conducted or Funded by Taxpayers

For Immediate Release:
September 1, 2020

Contact:
Amanda Tumbleson 202-483-7382

Today, PETA sent a letter to the state auditor urging an audit of the use of public money, personnel, property, equipment, and space by the University of Connecticut (UConn) for animal experiments deemed non-essential during the COVID-19 pandemic. This apparently led to the euthanasia of animals in the school’s laboratories.

In its letter, PETA notes that in the last fiscal year, UConn received nearly $357 million in state appropriations, some of which may have gone toward funding animal experiments that were ultimately postponed or canceled. In March, the school informed its staff that “all on-campus research activities … must stop and labs must close by 8 p.m. on Monday March 23,” urged its experimenters “to immediately reduce animal numbers and number of cages,” and told them that “[b]reeding must be reduced to the minimum possible; no increases in cage counts will be permitted and plans should be in place for reductions of cage counts in the future.” These directives likely led to the killing of hundreds or more animals whom the school deemed extraneous. PETA questions why state funds were wasted on experiments considered non-essential.

“UConn’s experiments on animals were undoubtedly cruel, and apparently not even the school can justify them,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA is calling on state officials to follow the money and prevent taxpayer waste—and animal suffering—in laboratories that should never have received funding in the first place.”

Numerous published studies have shown that animal experimentation wastes resources and lives, as more than 90% of highly promising results from basic scientific research—much of it involving animal experimentation—fails to lead to treatments for humans. (Please read under “Lack of benefit for humans” here.) And 95% of new medications that are found to be safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials.

PETA’s letter to Connecticut State Auditor John C. Geragosian is available upon request. The group—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 click here.