PETA Statement: USDA Cites OHSU for Failing to Feed Animals

For Immediate Release:
January 13, 2022

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo concerning a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture violation at Oregon Health & Science University documenting that a Mongolian gerbil died after workers failed to feed the animal:

Failing to feed animals imprisoned in a laboratory takes a special brand of incompetence, but Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) seems to excel in this realm. According to a just-posted federal inspection report obtained by PETA, the university was cited for not providing five Mongolian gerbils with food. The animals were already being underfed as part of an experiment. One of them became lethargic and eventually died.

This disaster follows years of violations, including operating on the wrong monkey; running live monkeys through a mechanical, high-temperature cage washer; leaving a sponge inside an animal after surgery; allowing monkeys to escape; failing to give water to voles, who died as a result; and failing to provide adequate veterinary care. Just last year, a marmoset monkey died after he developed an infection following experimental brain surgery. Our government needs to pull the plug on the hundreds of millions of grant dollars that flow into OHSU every year and support human-relevant, non-animal research instead.

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