Veterinary Students' Training at St. Kitts Campus Involves Mutilating and Killing Healthy Donkeys, Sheep, and Goats

For Immediate Release:
August 21, 2008

Contact:
Shalin Gala 757-622-7382

Chicago -- In the latest action in its campaign to stop the surgical mutilation and killing of healthy animals at the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, PETA has just purchased 65 shares of stock in Ross' parent company, Chicago-based higher-education giant DeVry, Inc. PETA plans to use its position as a stockholder to pressure DeVry into requiring Ross to join other veterinary schools in using only modern teaching methods that do not harm healthy animals. In response to PETA's campaign, Ross announced earlier this year that it would end invasive and terminal surgeries on healthy dogs, but the school continues to require students to cut up and kill healthy donkeys, goats, and sheep. PETA wants the school to adopt the more modern teaching methods now in use at veterinary schools around the world, such as using sophisticated simulators and providing treatment for sick animals.

Anguished Ross students--including some from the U.S.--complained about cruel teaching procedures in which donkeys' nerves and ligaments were severed and sheep were suffering from infected surgical wounds. As a result, PETA asked St. Kitts government officials to investigate the veterinary school for violations of the island's Protection of Animals Act. So far, St. Kitts officials have refused to take these life-and-death allegations seriously.

In related actions, PETA has held protests at the St. Kitts campus and at Ross' New Jersey headquarters and its student-recruiting seminars across the U.S. PETA has enlisted the support of celebrities, including comedian and TV show host Bill Maher, and has also persuaded a growing number of travel agencies to sign on to a boycott of St. Kitts until Ross stops mutilating and killing healthy animals.

"DeVry has the power to bring this veterinary school into the modern age, but so far, it has refused to act," says PETA Laboratory Investigations Director Kathy Guillermo. "As stockholders, we have a chance to rally other shareholders to pressure DeVry executives to end to this unnecessary suffering and death."

For more information, please visit PETA's Web site StopAnimalTests.com.