PETA to Texas A&M Interim President Junkins: ‘Close the Dog Lab Before You Go!’

For Immediate Release:
May 19, 2021

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

There’s still time for Texas A&M University interim President John L. Junkins to do the right thing by releasing the dogs from the school’s disgraceful canine muscular dystrophy (MD) laboratory, so tomorrow, PETA supporters will descend on the university’s Board of Regents meeting to urge him to do just that before he leaves his post on June 1.

When:    Thursday, May 20, 1 p.m.

Where:    177 Joe Routt Blvd., College Station, TX 77840 (Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center, Century Ballroom)

“The clock is ticking for President Junkins to relegate Texas A&M’s shameful years of dog abuse to the history books,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on him to leave a legacy of kindness, end the tests, and let the dogs be adopted into homes where they’ll be safe and loved at last.”

Video footage released by PETA shows golden retrievers and other dogs at Texas A&M—who were deliberately bred to develop a crippling and painful form of canine MD—struggling to walk, swallow, and even breathe. Thanks to efforts by physicians, people with MD, and PETA, the school has ended its dog-breeding program. Many dogs were released for adoption, but 20 remain in barren cages. Nearly 40 years of these experiments have failed to produce a cure or a treatment to reverse MD symptoms in humans.

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 or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.