PETA Files NIH Complaint Against Johns Hopkins University After USDA’s ‘Critical’ Violation Involving a Dead Dog

For Immediate Release:
April 10, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Shalin Gala regarding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s newly released citation of Johns Hopkins University for a “critical” violation of federal Animal Welfare Act regulations, including failing to properly specify in the approved protocol the route of administration of potassium chloride for a dog, who was given the compound intravenously and subsequently suffered cardiac arrest and died:

Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is where animals go to endure horrific deaths. The USDA has cited the school for its latest “critical” violation, which resulted in the cardiac arrest and death of a dog, and today, PETA filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health, which continues to throw more taxpayer dollars at JHU each year than at any other university in the country, to the tune of $1,664,708,575 in the last two years alone.

JHU’s animal laboratories have a long history of noncompliance, neglect, and nonsense. For years, the university failed to obtain mandatory permits to use owls in invasive brain experiments and then skirted Maryland law to continue harming and killing these birds. The USDA cited JHU for a “critical” violation that resulted in the death of a rabbit who had been implanted with a tumor yet improperly monitored for declining health. The agency also cited the school for another “critical” violation involving a pig subjected to a heart experiment who had to be killed when both of his elbows were found broken, supposedly as he was moved from one area to another, and he was left to suffer without veterinary care. JHU experimenters also used an unsterile technique when cutting into monkeys’ skulls, and according to a USDA citation of the school, “50% of the cranial implants performed by the principal investigator had a negative outcome resulting in euthanasia due to infection from environmental contaminates [sic].”

JHU must redirect its resources toward modern, non-animal research methods by adopting PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.

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