U.S. Army Bankrolling Blunt Trauma Tests on Live Pigs for Designing Human Body Armor: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
August 30, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Shalin Gala regarding reports that the U.S. Army has signed $8 million in contracts with the Medical College of Wisconsin, which subcontracted with the University of Virginia and Wayne State College in Nebraska, to test blunt trauma impacts on live animals in order to inform new human body armor designs:

Subjecting live pigs to an accelerating device that causes body blows and organ damage will do nothing to improve body armor for humans, since pig anatomy and physiology are drastically different from those of humans.

If that weren’t bad enough, the U.S. Army goes even further in its disturbing “Policy 84,” which allows for the use of weapons to wound dogs, cats, primates, and marine animals in experiments—so PETA is demanding that top Pentagon brass ban these grotesque weapon-wounding tests on animals, which the Army claims are “classified … in the interest of national defense and foreign policy.”

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 the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.