Sanofi to Face Pressure Over Cruel Forced Swim Test From Newest Shareholder: PETA

For Immediate Release:
April 26, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Paris –

During the annual meeting of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, a “mad scientist” wearing a white lab coat will act out the cruel and pointless forced swim test outside the Palais des Congrès de Paris by dropping plush rat toys into huge beakers of water. PETA, one of Sanofi’s newest shareholders, has submitted a question asking when the public can expect the drugmaker to stop using and funding the widely discredited near-drowning test, as many large pharmaceutical companies have already done.

When: Tuesday, April 30, 2:30 p.m.

Where: Palais des Congrès de Paris, 2 Pl de la Prte Maillot, Paris

In the forced swim test, experimenters dose mice, hamsters, or other small animals with a test substance, put them in inescapable beakers of water, and force them to swim to keep from drowning, supposedly to shed light on human depression. Scientists have heavily criticized this test as a poor model of depression, and using it could even rule out new drugs that may be effective in humans.

A cartoon illustration featuring an experimenter drowning mice in the forced swim test — *Credit: Sharon Murdoch for The Dominion Post*

“PETA wants shareholders to know that Sanofi refuses to ban a debunked experiment that forces tiny animals to panic and swim for their lives,” says PETA neuroscientist Dr. Emily Trunnell. “Sanofi must stop wasting time and other resources and get behind modern, animal-free, and human-relevant depression research.”

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.