‘Mouse’ in Tank to Protest at University of Delaware Graduation

PETA Demands an End to Tania Roth's Sadistic 'Child Abuse' Experiments on Baby Rats in a UD Laboratory

For Immediate Release:
May 30, 2019

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Newark, Del. – On Friday, a PETA “mouse” will be submerged in a tank outside the University of Delaware’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences graduation ceremony to protest employee Tania Roth’s “child abuse” studies on baby rats. These tests include the notoriously cruel—and widely criticized—forced swim test, in which rats are placed inside inescapable beakers of water and have to swim to keep from drowning, purportedly to shed light on depression in humans.

When:    Friday, May 31, 11:30 a.m.

Where:    25 E. Main St. (near the intersection with S. College Avenue), Newark

“As these new graduates head out into the world, vulnerable young rats will continue to be tormented behind closed doors at the hands of Tania Roth,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA is calling for an end to these curiosity-driven, scientifically irrelevant tests that harm animals and fail abused children.”

Roth’s other experiments include injecting baby rats with opioids and force-feeding them alcohol, stuffing pregnant mothers into cramped restraint tubes and blasting them with strobe lights, and electrically shocking infant rats. She has spent nearly $2 million in public funds on these tests, but her two decades of cruel experiments have failed to produce a single treatment for abused children.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, which is a supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.

For Media: Contact PETA's
Media Response Team.

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 Ingrid E. Newkirk

“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?” READ MORE

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind