Protestors to Urge Pitt Trustees to End Cruel Mouse Experiments
PETA, Pitt Students Will Demand End to Sepsis Experiments Shown to Be Ineffective
For Immediate Release:
September 27, 2017
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
What: As members of the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) Board of Trustees arrive for their meeting on Wednesday morning, a group of PETA supporters, local Pittsburgh residents, and Pitt students will gather outside the William Pitt Union for a spirited protest against the school’s painful and deadly sepsis experiments on mice.
When: Wednesday, September 27, 9 a.m.
Where: William Pitt Union, 3959 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh
During the experiments, mice’s intestines are punctured so that fecal matter and accompanying bacteria leak into their abdomens, producing sepsis—a life-threatening reaction to severe infection. Racked with agonizing pain, the mice experience difficulty breathing and succumb to multi-organ failure. Earlier this year, PETA released an exposé of Pitt’s laboratories revealing that many mice used in sepsis experiments were, as one Pitt veterinarian described, “falling over dead” inside cages.
A 2013 landmark study documented the irrelevance of data from mice to human sepsis, burns, and trauma and compelled Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, to comment, “No wonder drugs designed for the mice failed in humans: they were, in fact, treating different conditions!” The study found that 150 drugs that successfully treated sepsis in mice failed in humans. In spite of this, Pitt experimenter Rajesh Aneja has received $1.4 million in federal funding to conduct cruel and worthless sepsis experiments on mice.
“Pitt’s sepsis experiments produce unchecked and unimaginable misery in mice—while squandering limited health resources and failing human patients,” says PETA Chief of Laboratory Case Management Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA is calling on the Pitt Board of Trustees to step in and end these worthless and wasteful studies.”
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
