Stop Tormenting Dogs! PETA Supporters to Rally Against UMass Chan Experimenter at D.C. Conference

For Immediate Release:
May 19, 2026

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

On Thursday, PETA supporters wearing dog masks will gather outside the ARISE IV 2026 Consensus Conference—attended by University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan) experimenter Matt Gounis—calling for an end to his invasive, painful, and deadly experiments on dogs. The action follows PETA’s bombshell whistleblower exposé alleging systemic animal welfare violations across UMass Chan laboratories.

Gounis subjects dogs to repeated invasive surgeries, including cutting into blood vessels in their necks to create artificial aneurysms and induce strokes, before killing them. Whistleblowers report that the dogs were deliberately underfed to keep their body weight at or below about 42 pounds (19 kilograms), because state and federal laws would require purchasing larger cages for dogs any heavier. Laboratory records and photographs show the dogs’ visible ribs and protruding hipbones.

“While Matt Gounis mingles at a medical conference, dogs in his laboratory have been starved until their ribs showed, cut open repeatedly, and killed,” says PETA neuroscientist Dr. Katherine Roe. “PETA urges UMass Chan to end these cruel experiments and transition to state-of-the-art, animal-free research methods that actually benefit humans.”

Where:           Washington Marriott Georgetown, 1221 22nd St. NW, Washington, D.C.

When:             Thursday, May 21, 12 noon

Why:               In addition to experimenting on dogs, Gounis chairs UMass Chan’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, charged with ensuring compliance with animal welfare regulations. A whistleblower in UMass Chan laboratories has documented starved and neglected animals, chronic veterinary understaffing, inadequate pain management, delayed or withheld treatment, and unsafe housing conditions, as well as repeated failures to stop experiments, or treat or euthanize animals before they reached an extreme state of suffering or death. 

UMass Chan has a long history of animal welfare violations, including citations for critical violations of federal animal welfare laws and an official warning after experimenters continued subjecting a pig to multiple cardiac procedures for days, even after he was observed “lying down, lethargic,” and exhibiting signs of poor circulation. He was later found dead.

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.