Volkswagen Apologizes for Cruel and Corrupt Monkey Inhalation Test
“The Volkswagen Group clearly distances itself from all forms of animal cruelty. Animal testing contradicts our own ethical standards,” a representative from German carmaker Volkswagen wrote to PETA on Saturday, after news broke of the company’s horrendous animal experiment that had been rigged to meet environmental standards.
PETA immediately contacted the company’s CEO after reading a report from The New York Times revealing that 10 macaque monkeys had been locked inside airtight chambers for four hours and forced to inhale diesel exhaust fumes emitted from a late-model Volkswagen Beetle as well as another vehicle. After subjecting them to this abuse, experimenters cut out samples of their lung tissue to check for inflammation. It’s not known what happened to the monkeys after these tests. A video clip of similar experiments can be seen in Episode 1 of the new Netflix documentary series Dirty Money.
PETA is pressing for a permanent ban on all experiments on animals.
Volkswagen commissioned the experiment after the World Health Organization moved to classify diesel exhaust as a carcinogen. The test—carried out at the infamous Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute (LRRI) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2014—was “deliberately manipulated” so that the Beetle would “produce artificially low emissions.” (Volkswagen has since pleaded guilty to manipulating its emissions-test data.)
LRRI has a sordid history of neglecting and abusing the animals imprisoned there.
When a monkey at LRRI who “experienced adverse complications” stopped eating, the attending veterinarian wasn’t consulted, and the animal eventually died in her enclosure. In another case, an anesthetized dog died when his lungs overinflated after a device to measure his pulmonary function was used improperly. LRRI also came under fire after six guinea pigs suffocated when they were tightly packed inside a small enclosure to be transported—and left there for nearly an hour.
In 2011, LRRI was cited for six violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act—including for the strangulation death of a monkey who became caught on an experimental jacket and for the escape of an infant monkey—and fined $21,750.
In a follow-up report from The New York Times that noted PETA’s contact with the company, Volkswagen said that the experiments were wrong and it apologized “for the inappropriate behavior that occurred and for the poor judgment of individuals who were involved.”
Help PETA Save Animals From Cruel Laboratories
While Volkswagen has admitted its lapse of compassion, other experimenters remain in the Dark Ages, treating sentient beings as mere laboratory tools and simultaneously preventing real scientific progress. That includes experimenters at Texas A&M University, where dogs are bred to have crippling canine muscular dystrophy and then subjected to painful experiments.
