Feds Issue Warning After Days-Old Piglets Die at University of Alabama-Birmingham: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
August 18, 2025

Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382

Please see PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna’s statement regarding a rare official warning issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against the University of Alabama–Birmingham for serious violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, including allowing two newborn pigs to die slow and painful deaths, likely from sepsis, without informing a veterinarian of their obvious distress:

Every level of the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s (UAB) laboratory hierarchy brims with incompetence. Shamefully, days-old piglets were used in pointless surgeries that experimenters botched, leaving them with infections that ravaged their tiny bodies while staff ignored their obvious suffering, never bothering to alert a veterinarian. An official warning, reserved for the most egregious offenders, underscores that the university cannot be trusted to comply with minimal animal welfare laws and should replace all experiments on animals with human relevant, animal-free research.

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.