This afternoon, PETA supporters stormed the Senate meeting at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) with a sign reading “QMUL: End Cruel Sepsis Experiments”, proclaiming, “Mice are not lab equipment! They are thinking, sensitive individuals.” to call on the university to stop torturing mice in cruel and ineffective sepsis experiments.
“QMUL experimenters are puncturing the mice’s colons and letting sepsis ensue, causing suffering for useless experiments that have no benefit to human health,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA is calling on university leadership to end this torture and adopt state-of-the-art, human-relevant testing methods that can save human lives while leaving mice in peace.’
More than 150 drugs have successfully treated sepsis in mice, yet none have succeeded in humans. Despite the well-documented failure in using mice to model human sepsis, QMUL experimenters are cutting open terrified mice and puncturing their intestines to leak faecal matter into their abdomens. Experimenters noted that some mice experienced severe sepsis, which can include major organ failure. Data from some of these experiments has been published in papers that were later retracted by the publisher because data and conclusions were deemed ‘unreliable’.
Mice are intelligent, complex, and social individuals with the capacity to experience a wide range of emotions. They become attached to each other, love their families, and easily bond with their human guardians—returning as much affection as is given to them.
PETA encourages everyone to urge Queen Mary to take heed of the scientific evidence, and join other institutions – including the University of Kent – that have committed to non-animal methods in sepsis research.
