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Dear Friend, Experimenters grab frightened rats, yank them out of laboratory cages, and plunge them into beakers of water. The animals scrabble at the high, slippery walls, desperately searching for an escape, fearing they'll drown. There's no way out.  This isn't science—it's torture.
This "forced swim test"—originally known as "the despair test"—is the stuff of humans' worst nightmares. But for rats, mice, and other small animals in laboratories, it's a terrifying experience that they can't wake up from. The experimenters watch and take notes as the animals panic, kicking and clawing to keep from drowning—until they're utterly exhausted and they begin to float. We need your help to end the cruel forced swim test and other hideous laboratory abuse. Will you donate $5 or more right now? Experimenters at universities and pharmaceutical companies have been dropping animals into beakers for decades, bizarrely claiming that nearly drowning an animal can somehow stand in for human depression and other chronic, complex conditions. Just like the vast majority of animal tests, this abuse is less predictive of human reactions to depression medications than a coin toss. Yet experimenters like Tania Roth at the University of Delaware are still squandering millions in taxpayer dollars on the forced swim test and other intentionally distressing experiments—including tearing newborn rats away from their mothers, placing them with "foster mothers" ill-equipped to care for them, and force-feeding them drugs and alcohol—in misguided, horrifying attempts to study child abuse. PETA is determined to stop the torture that animals face in such experiments and to promote cutting-edge research methods that can actually help humans. Your much-needed support—even if it's just $5—will help us keep building on our momentum. PETA is rallying tens of thousands of caring people to take action against the forced swim test, and we've persuaded pharmaceutical giants AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Roche to pull the plug on it. We're now keeping the pressure on Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers-Squibb, and Pfizer to do the same. And PETA is tailing Roth everywhere she goes, holding eye-opening demonstrations complete with a "drowning mouse" in a tank, and placing advertisements to inform the public about her federally funded abuse—and to shut it down. Together, we're showing corporations, experimenters, and consumers that all animal tests are cruel, useless, and archaic. We won't let up until the forced swim test is a thing of the past. Thank you for your compassion and generosity. Kind regards, |
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This e-mail was sent by PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510 USA. |
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