PETA’s ‘10 Worst Laboratories’ List

9. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In 2001, PETA sent an undercover investigator into UNC’s laboratories and found cruel “binge drinking” experiments on animals as well as nightmarish living conditions for tens of thousands of rodents. UNC officials vowed to clean up their act when PETA’s investigation resulted in a federal investigation, but after hearing reports of “business as usual” only a year later, PETA sent in another investigator. Once again, we found that animals were not receiving veterinary care, were suffering from enormous tumors, were thrown into the garbage while they were still alive, and even had their heads cut off without being given any anesthesia. Despite a second corroborating NIH investigation, UNC refuses to address its persistent animal care issues and claims that all is well. The following are among the violations that were found and that UNC continues to ignore and repeat:

• Seriously sick and injured animals were denied euthanasia and left to die without any veterinary care.
• Mice were found to have had oversized tumors that had become ulcerated and then burst.
• Suffering animals were denied pain medication after surgeries.
• Animals were denied food, water, and sanitary housing.
• Experiments on animals were conducted using expired protocols.
• Animals lived in extremely crowded conditions and died from cannibalism and suffocation.
• Animals’ toes were amputated for identification purposes.
• More animals were used in experiments than the protocols permitted.
• Experimenters failed to provide environmental enrichment to various species.

Take a look at the full results of PETA’s UNC investigations and discover why UNC’s claims can’t be trusted.

As for the “binge drinking” studies, they’ve been going on for decades at UNC, and they’re still being conducted. In fact, UNC has at least 20 active NIH grants to study alcohol abuse in rats and mice and many additional grants to study the effects of cocaine, heroin, and other illegal drugs. Over and over again, UNC experimenters demonstrate that administering massive volumes of alcohol to rodents causes liver damage, brain damage, and potentially death. But these data haven’t taught us a thing about human alcoholism or binge drinking. As Dr. Vincent P. Dole, addiction expert at Rockefeller University, says, “Some 60 years of offering alcohol to animals has produced no fundamental insights into the causes of the self-destructive behavior (in humans) or even a convincing analogue of pathological drinking.”

UNC-Chapel Hill combines useless experiments, poor animal care, and lax oversight, producing a deadly situation for animals.

Please write, call, fax, or e-mail the head of the university and politely ask him to stop these atrocities:

James Moeser, Chancellor
Office of the Chancellor
103 South Bldg.
Campus Box 9100
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-9100
919-962-1365
919-962-1647 (fax)
chancellor@unc.edu