2009 - Oakton Community College Drops Cruel Rat and Salamander Lab
PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department (LID) learned about an Oakton Community College anatomy and physiology course in which dozens of rats and salamanders were dissected alive so that students could observe their working organs before the animals were killed. LID immediately contacted the school to urge its administrators to end the cruel procedures. We sent information about modern, humane, and educationally superior simulators and rallied our members and supporters to urge the school to drop the cruel laboratories. In response, the school evaluated the information we provided and announced that the use of live animals in all classroom experiments has been replaced with sophisticated computer simulations and other learning methods that do not involve animals.
2009 - UC Irvine Drops Cruel Rat Lab
PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department (LID) learned about a University of California-Irvine neurosciences course in which 200 rats per year were being killed after holes were drilled into their skulls and their brains were damaged in crude classroom experiments. We sent a letter to the school to urge its administrators to end the cruel procedures, and we included information on modern, humane, and educationally superior simulators. We also filed a complaint with the university's animal care committee and asked our members and supporters to urge the school to drop the cruel laboratories. After evaluating the information we provided and reviewing the course, the school announced that it has completely replaced the use of animals in these experiments with sophisticated computer simulations.
2009 - PETA Helps Save 4.5 Million Animals
After learning that a massive animal testing program in Europe was going to cause even more animal suffering as a result of duplicative testing, PETA initiated a joint letter to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which oversees the program, asking it to intervene. Now, in a huge victory for animals, ECHA has announced a process that will spare as many as 4,410,000 animals from cruel tests.
2009 - Heartland Regional Medical Center Ends Cruel Cats Labs, Purchases Manikins
After PETA's Laboratory Investigations Division learned that cats were having hard plastic tubes repeatedly forced down their throats in cruel intubation training exercises at Heartland Regional Medical Center (HRMC) in St. Joseph, Missouri, we sent a letter to the director of the course detailing how animals suffer in these procedures and explaining that modern non-animal simulation methods are educationally superior. We filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and asked our members and supporters to contact the hospital and encourage its administrators to end the use of cats for these training sessions. HRMC has announced that it has ended the use of cats in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support course and replaced them with state-of-the-art human patient simulators.
2008 - Chimpanzee Research Center Gets Served
PETA filed a complaint against the University of Texas' Michael E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine & Research, a chimpanzee research center that allowed six chimpanzees to escape over a five-month period, including a chimpanzee named Tony who was shot and killed. In response to the complaint, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined the careless facility nearly $3,000 for violating proper animal handling regulations.
