‘Bloodied,’ Bandaged ‘Pigs’ to Converge On Johnson & Johnson Annual Meeting

PETA Rep Will Deliver Statement to Shareholders Blasting Company’s Use of Thousands of Animals in Painful, Deadly Surgeries

For Immediate Release:
April 24, 2013

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

New Brunswick, N.J. — Covered in fake blood and bandages, two PETA members wearing pig costumes while hobbling on crutches will join others to protest outside Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) annual meeting in New Brunswick on Thursday. They’ll also be holding signs that read, “Don’t Cut Me Up” and “I Am Not Lab Equipment.” Inside the meeting, a representative of PETA, which owns stock in J&J, will read a statement condemning the company’s deadly experiments and training exercises on dogs, pigs, and other animals.

When:   Thursday, April 25, 9 a.m.

Where:  Outside the Hyatt Regency, 2 Albany St. (at the intersection with Burnet Street), New Brunswick

“It defies reason that Johnson & Johnson would choose to use cruel, painful, and inferior training methods in one facility and superior, non-animal methods in another,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. “For the sake of animals and shareholders, the company needs to get its act together and stop maiming and killing animals.”

At least two J&J companies—Ethicon Institute of Surgical Education in India and Ethicon Endo-Surgery in the U.S.—have used animals in lethal experiments, even as the company used non-animal simulators for the very same purpose at other facilities. According to federal reports, last year, in the U.S. alone, J&J’s Ethicon and Ethicon Endo-Surgery facilities experimented on 1,221 animals—including 36 dogs, 56 rabbits, five sheep, 14 goats, and 1,110 pigs. All these animals experienced pain. The use of animals in medical-device training contradicts J&J’s own principles as stated in its “Our Commitment to Ethical Animal Care and Use.” The use of animals for laparoscopic training has been eliminated in all top American medical colleges.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.