40 Pigs Suffer Decompression Sickness in Latest Cruel, Navy-Funded Test: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
August 17, 2026

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Shalin Gala regarding a newly published Duke University experiment funded in part by the U.S. Navy that subjected 40 pigs to decompression-sickness testing, causing them to suffer gas embolisms, paralysis, hemorrhaging, and death:

Stuffing 40 pigs into diapers and diving suits, forcing them through simulated deep dives, and watching as they die, bleed, and suffer painful blood vessel blockages is only the latest example of how the U.S. Navy wastes taxpayer dollars while running aground science. Activists freed a small dog from similar experiments at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1982, and PETA urges Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to permanently sink the military’s support for decompression-sickness and oxygen-toxicity experiments on animals—which have been going on for nearly nine decades, wasting millions of tax dollars, without any change in treatments— and redirect those funds to superior, human-relevant, animal-free science.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.