Attendees at the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) Postgraduate Open Day Event had a more memorable experience than expected today when a group of PETA supporters stormed the famous Octagon inside the Queens’ Building bearing signs that read, “QMUL: End Cruel Sepsis Experiments,” and chanting, “Sepsis experiments should be cruelty free.” The action is part of PETA’s ongoing campaign calling on the university to stop tormenting mice in cruel and useless sepsis experiments, which consistently fail to lead to effective treatments for humans.
“Prospective QMUL students should know that the university is using their tuition fees to torture and kill terrified mice in cruel and pointless experiments that have done nothing to advance human health,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA urges QMUL to stop wasting animals’ lives on these cruel experiments and switch to cutting-edge, animal-free research that actually helps humans.”
More than 150 drugs have successfully treated sepsis in mice, yet none have been effective in treating 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 bodies. Experimenters noted that some mice experienced severe sepsis, which can include major organ failure and abject suffering. 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 who 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 they receive.
PETA encourages everyone to urge Queen Mary to heed the scientific evidence and join other institutions – including the University of Kent – that have committed to non-animal methods in sepsis research.
