Video: Casey Affleck PSA Exposes Texas A&M’s Betrayal of Golden Retrievers
Speak Up Against University’s Canine Muscular Dystrophy Experiments, Star Urges in New PETA TV Ad
For Immediate Release:
February 4, 2019
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
In a new TV commercial, Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Casey Affleck tells the heartbreaking story of Jelly, a dog who was bred to suffer from canine muscular dystrophy (MD) and who eventually died after enduring years of experiments at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Affleck urges viewers to contact the college and object to the abuse. The commercial will air in Austin on Fox throughout the week.
“She was born in a lonely laboratory in North Carolina,” Affleck begins. “Because they bred her to have canine muscular dystrophy, she was barely able to eat. When Jelly was 5, she was moved to Texas A&M University, where she got even sicker. … And when they were done with Jelly, she was killed. But dogs like her are still suffering.”
Affleck joins MD patients and more than 500 physicians—100 of whom have treated people with the disease—who’ve called for an end to the experiments after viewing video footage of the laboratory obtained by PETA. Three decades of experiments on crippled dogs like Jelly have failed to lead to a cure or even a treatment that reverses the symptoms of MD.
In an accompanying Q&A video, Affleck shares his own story of adopting his beloved canine companion, Bella. “They found her laying on the train tracks,” he says. “She’d been hit by a train. And she had only three legs. And so they operated on her, and they saved her, and now she’s very happy.”
Affleck believes that all dogs deserve to be adopted into loving homes, just as Bella was. That’s why he encourages fans to use their voices for the dogs still imprisoned in TAMU’s laboratory: “It’s not quite enough to just be bothered by it,” he says. “You have to speak up.”
Affleck joins a long list of celebrities—including Lily Tomlin, Nikki Sixx, Bill Maher, and Miami Dolphins quarterback and TAMU alumnus Ryan Tannehill—in urging TAMU to stop these tests.
PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on.” For more information, please visit PETA.org.
