‘Too Graphic’: San Antonio TV Stations Run Controversial PETA Ad Aimed at Monkey Laboratory
For Immediate Release:
November 21, 2023
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
Because experiments on monkeys at the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) are so gruesome that no TV station could possibly air them, PETA used CGI to create a controversial new ad that reveals—without showing any real animals, gore, or blood—who pays the real price for pharmaceutical drugs tested on animals. Though the spot was rejected by TV stations across the country—calling it “too graphic” and citing probable “viewer complaints”—it’s currently running on local stations in San Antonio.
In the 15-second video, a “customer” wants to know how much a prescription will cost—and a computer-generated monkey, tattooed with an ID number as real monkeys in laboratories are, wheezing through a breathing tube, and missing parts of several fingers, like the monkey at the SNPRC whose fingers had to be amputated due to staff carelessness, has the answer: “Too much.”
“If a computer-generated monkey is ‘too much’ for TV, imagine how consumers would react to seeing real footage from the SNPRC’s laboratories, where monkeys are caged, mutilated, tormented, and killed for pointless experiments that don’t benefit human health,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is rallying viewers to stand up against these real-life horrors and join us in calling on the SNPRC to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.”
Even though studies show that 90% of all basic research—most of which involves animals—fails to lead to treatments for humans, the SNPRC is still imprisoning and tormenting more than 2,500 primates for experiments. Ninety-five percent of new medications that test safe and effective in animals fail in humans.
Another PETA-produced video, this one targeting the dairy industry, will confront moviegoing families at a local cinema. In it, a computer-generated calf chained up behind a shop’s cash register and swarming with flies reveals that a wedge of cheese costs “too much.” The calf is ear-tagged with the name and number of an actual calf in a photograph sent to PETA by a whistleblower at Daisy Farms near Paris, Texas. The group’s subsequent undercover investigation revealed that despite the dairy company’s claims to the contrary, cows crammed inside massive, filthy sheds were kicked, whipped, or jabbed and calves were separated from their mothers just after birth and force-fed, one fatally.
PETA’s monkey video will run 34 times on FOX affiliate KABB and NBC affiliate WOAI through December 18, and the calf video will be seen more than 1,500 times at AMC Rivercenter 11 through December 22.
PETA’s motto reads, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
