Texas Tech Piglet Dies After Being Denied Water; PETA Files NIH Complaint

For Immediate Release:
January 19, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding a posted inspection report and citation issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against Texas Tech University for a critical violation of federal animal welfare regulations. According to the report, the hose supplying water to a pen confining four piglets became disconnected for an “unknown period of time.” Laboratory staff only noticed the issue after the piglets “appeared thin” and three were observed to be “less active.” Although water was then given to the animals, one piglet had been denied water for so long that the animal “began to display neurologic signs of salt toxicity and seizures” and was euthanized.

Texas Tech University’s negligence and incompetence constitute animal abuse, and PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), calling on the agency to turn off the money spigot to the school. If Texas Tech laboratory staff can’t remember to give piglets something as basic as water, the university has no business experimenting on these smart, social, and sensitive animals. The agony of dying of thirst is the same whether the victim is a pig or a human.

Texas Tech received more than $5 million in taxpayer money from NIH last year, but such largesse brings with it a legal expectation that the university will comply with minimum animal welfare laws. Texas Tech should modernize its research program by leaving cruel and archaic experiments on animals behind and using only sophisticated, human-relevant research methods instead.

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