PETA Celebrates End of Dog Breeding for Muscular Dystrophy Experiments at TAMU

Until Lab Stops Lying and Dogs Stop Dying, Group Promises More Legal and Campaign Action

For Immediate Release:
September 12, 2019

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Under pressure from 500 physicians, many scientists, people with muscular dystrophy, and PETA, Texas A&M University (TAMU) has ended its miserable breeding program for canine muscular dystrophy experiments. The university has also been busted for lying: Even as university officials were stating that the school wasn’t breeding dogs to suffer from the devastating muscle disease, as many as 100 puppies were born in the campus laboratory.

PETA and its supporters have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at TAMU—and there is more to come. Clever protests, celebrity actions, disrupted football games and public meetings, multiple lawsuits, call-ins, support from 500 physicians, testimonials from people with muscular dystrophy, even a “dog” riding public transit—the group has done everything that it could think of to help the caged animals who are suffering every day with a disease that ravages their bodies and are subjected to experiments that do little but line the pockets of their captors.

“A university that breeds and tortures golden retrievers apparently has no problem lying about what it’s doing,” says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Alka Chandna, Ph.D. “Ending the breeding of these dogs is a first step—now, Texas A&M must stop tormenting them and release the few remaining ones to decent homes.”

The university issued statements containing brazen lies and insisted that the dogs were “already affected [with canine muscular dystrophy],” despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary that PETA collected from lead experimenter Joe Kornegay’s publications and documents from the university itself.

Muscular dystrophy patient Johnathon Byrne, who must use a wheelchair at all times, was illegally detained and harassed by TAMU simply for asking if he could see the dogs who have a disease similar to his. He has filed a lawsuit against the university for denying his First Amendment rights.

TAMU even stooped to censor visitors’ messages on its Facebook page, as the school used a filter that automatically deleted posts and comments if they contained words such as “PETA,” “cruelty,” and “lab.” Again, PETA was forced to file a lawsuit to restore the First Amendment rights of everyone who wanted to speak out against the school’s cruel experiments on animals.