For years, animal rights activists around the country – actually, around the world – have been trying their hardest to stop a new animal testing laboratory from opening up at Oxford University. It nearly didn’t get built and has, some would say, become a bit of a celebrity in its own right, and there probably isn’t a single person in the UK who hasn’t heard of ‘the Oxford lab’.

So it fills me with great sadness to inform you all that the lab has been built and the animal testing will soon commence. If you can make it through this ‘exclusive’ video tour of the facilities, without hurling your computer out of the window (seriously, it was a close one for me), you’ll hear your guide talk about how wonderful it all is.

Apparently, it’s ok to keep primates locked away in barren cages because they can look out of a window at the corridor.

Apparently, it’s ok that they torture primates, because actually it’ll mostly be loads of mice, ferrets and fish. Like their lives are worth less…?

Urgh, what a load of crap. Oxford University continues to look backwards instead of forwards. Any scientist worth his credentials is embracing modern, humane, non-animal research and relegating vivisection to the history books. Decades of animal research using over 100 million animals every year worldwide have failed to deliver cures for Alzheimer’s, strokes and Parkinson’s Disease, and have left us without an AIDS vaccine or an effective, modern treatment for malaria. And here’s what really gets me: ninety-two per cent of drugs that pass animal trials fail in humans. Ninety-two per cent?!

This new lab will be a symbol of suffering, not progress. If Oxford had embraced the future and made an investment in non-animal methods, the pay-off for human health would have been immense and the toll in animal suffering zero.

Image: ThePetitionSite / CC

What a busy day the animal kingdom is having! You’ve seen the news from across the pond and now here’s some breaking news from our neck of the woods. The European Commission has finally published its much-delayed first draft of the new European law on animal experiments. Yep, that’s right – a new law on animal experiments. But before you start jumping up and down, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Now of course between now and it actually becoming law, this draft will need to be looked at by MEPs and the governments of the EU (including the UK). It’s frustrating to say that it will probably take months and maybe even years, but I can guarantee you that we’ll be working hard to ensure it’s improved as much as possible – to protect animals as much as possible.

But we can’t do it all by ourselves. We’ll be needing your help soon to contact politicians and make sure this works out in the best way possible for the animals suffering and dying in laboratories every day. I mean, don’t get me wrong – there are good things in this new proposal, but it doesn’t go anywhere near as far as we’d like. Obviously, we’d like to see an end to all animal tests right now but we knew the EU would never go for that. Even so, frankly, we’re rather disappointed. More details will follow but here’s a breakdown for you to start digesting:

The law will apply to all 27 European countries.

In the last official count, 12.1 million animals were used in the EU, although not all are included in the official numbers so in reality there are probably many millions more.

The proposal introduces some new controls, including ethical review before experiments are approved, the extension of the law to cover animals not previously included (such as lobsters and octopi), and, in some circumstances, review of experiments after they’ve taken place.

We welcome the ban on great ape experimentation but regret that it contains a loophole which means it could be reversed in the future.

The proposal does not introduce desperately needed openness about the whole system – people throughout Europe have a right to know exactly what is done to animals in laboratories and how it is approved, so they can judge for themselves whether or not it is justified.

There are proposals for new controls on the use of primates but these fall far short of the timetable for a ban on primate use the European Parliament asked for last year.

I’ll keep you in the loop!

Many of us consider changing our name from time to time, maybe to escape an embarrassing past, or maybe just because we just thought it would be cool to be called Foxy McLady. But I have the name change of the century here, and it could save animals lives. Guys and gals, I introduce to you, CutOut Dissection.com. I have the pleasure of knowing this young lady, and we’re all dead proud of her here at PETA.

Just in time for Cut Out Dissection Month in the States, PETA US intern Jennifer Thornburg has officially changed her name to CutOut Dissection.com, and she’s on a mission to cut dissection out of school curricula.

Why is Ms. Dissection.com hopping mad about dissection? Any way you slice it, dissection is cruelty in the classroom. We don’t see it so much here in the UK, but millions of frogs, cats, dogs, pigs, worms, mice, rats, rabbits, and fish are killed each year around the world for student dissections. Breeding facilities that supply animals to schools rip animals from their natural homes, and some even use stolen or abandoned animal companions. PETA US went undercover at one such supply house and caught employees embalming cats and rats while they were still alive!

Read an interview with this oh-so-dedicated activist to get the lowdown on her name change and more.

PETA US: What made you decide to change your name?
CutOut Dissection.com: I changed my name in order to raise awareness about the 6 million animals who are killed and processed for dissection each year. These animals suffer painful deaths and their bodies are then used in labs, when computer stimulations, diagrams, or 3D models could be used instead. Cutting up animals in school sends the message to students that an animal’s life is worthless. I don’t think that’s a message teachers should be sending. With so many cheaper, more educational, and humane ways to learn, there is no reason for students to be dissecting in high schools today. I hope to raise awareness on this subject, and to cause teachers and students to say “No” to dissection and “Yes” to alternative ways to learn anatomy.

PETA US: Did you dissect in high school?
CutOut Dissection.com: In middle school I dissected a chicken. I wasn’t into the idea of dissecting an animal, but when I asked my teacher for an alternative, he said that I could only have it if I went vegetarian for the two weeks leading up to the dissection. I thought that was crazy at the time, so I went through with the project. Looking back, I can’t remember much from the actual dissection; I know now that using an alternative would have been much more educational, and I also know that it’s definitely not crazy to be a vegetarian too.

PETA US: What do people call you now?
CutOutDissection.com: My fellow interns call me CutOut, but my family still calls me Jenny. My favorite thing to do is to introduce myself to people as CutOut Dissection.com, which always raises a few questions. This gives me a chance to explain a few facts about dissection—such as how cats are sometimes pumped with formaldehyde while they’re still conscious.

PETA US: What have people’s reactions been to your name?
CutOut Dissection.com: CutOut is one of those names that you have to say three times, spell out, and use in a sentence before people process it. Once people get my name down, they normally want to know why I changed it. This gives me a chance to tell them about the estimated 6 million animals used in high school dissection labs throughout the United States every year. Once people learn how the animals are gassed, pumped with formaldehyde, drowned or otherwise inhumanely killed for dissection, they are shocked and want to know what they can do to help.

PETA US: You’re obviously very passionate about educating people about dissection. Why is that?
CutOut Dissection.com: Two years ago, I was an active peta2 Street Team member. I was trying to rake up some points to trade in for a shirt, and I got an e-mail saying that anything that I did relating to dissection during the month of October would be worth double the points. Because of this, I decided to work on getting a dissection-choice policy passed at my high school. When I started to research policies and why dissection is bad for the school, students, and animals, it became an obsession of mine. My senior exit project and my junior year were both dedicated to getting a dissection-choice policy passed at my high school. I was shocked when I read about how much more educational the alternatives to dissection can be, how much money they can save for the school, and how many lives could be spared. It’s shocking to me that schools still use dissection as a part of their science lessons when there are so many humane and equally educational alternatives out there that will also save schools money.

PETA US: I know you got the policy passed at your school. Congrats! How excited were you?
CutOut Dissection.com: I was super-excited, to say the very least!

PETA US: I can imagine. What did the DMV say when you got your new license?
CutOut Dissection.com: It took me two tries to get my license. On the second try, the DMV worker looked very amused and confused, but also looked like she was afraid to ask for an explanation. When she finally did ask about it, I had a good conversation with her, explaining that CutOutDissection.com is a real Web site and then explaining why I’m against dissection. She seemed repulsed by the thought of animals being drowned, pumped full of formaldehyde, and gassed as a way of death. She also looked shocked when I told her that it affects 6 million animals per year. When she called over another worker to be a witness to my paperwork, the other worker grinned and said, “Oh, I remember her!” (It happened to be the worker I had talked to on my first attempt to get my license). Overall, it was a great opportunity to start a conversation about alternatives to dissection!

Evolution. We are led to believe that we have come a long way from the days of chimps, indeed scientists must believe we are so far advanced that it’s actually ok to test harmful potions and surgical procedures on them. Well, perhaps we’re not as far removed from our cheeky predecessors as we think. A study has shown that male managers are a bit like, well… chimps and monkeys. Significant behaviour (and please feel free here to either imagine your own boss, or a lovable but ridiculous character such as David Brent from The Office) includes: marking out their territory, asserting their authority and displaying their power. “How so?”, I hear you ask.

Do any of these ring any bells? Having a bigger chair than everyone else, speaking loudly, interrupting more frequently, jealously guarding their personal space and using management jargon and acronyms. The bit I love the best, from The Independent is: “In the same way that monkeys flaunt brightly coloured body parts, or peacocks their plumage, male managers often team a dark suit (denoting gravitas) with a pink shirt or vividly hued tie.” The aim in the wild is to attract a mate, but in the office it’s to assert a place in the hierarchy. Or so the study goes.

If you’re a male boss yourself, stop and think: that monkey strapped to a chair having electrodes planted into his brain – that could be me.

Oh and I should be clear. PETA Europe’s boss is not like a chimp. I repeat, not like a chimp.

Image: Daily Mail / CC

Here’s a spot of promising news to kick-start your day! Scientists and government advisers are pushing for a change in regulations governing animal experiments, including moves to reveal more about the level of pain and suffering animals endure during laboratory experiments. At present, information only reaches the public because of investigations and shocking videos like this.

We welcome this news with open arms so the public can see more about what goes on behind closed doors, helping to unravel the secrecy that currently surrounds animal experiments. If they’ve got nothing to hide, why not share it with the world? More transparency = less suffering. The science bit is here if you want to read further, just crank your brain into gear first!

For now, this is just a recommendation for the ministers but new European law will be emerging soon, and we expect the EU and government to listen to the scientific and animal welfare community and make this important information – and more – available to the public. PETA has already had meetings with senior government officials, in which we’ve urged for a greater openness. And of course we’ll be campaigning for this and much more to be put into the new directive. Watch this space…

Image: NTNU / CC

Here at PETA Europe’s blog, we like chimps. In case you couldn’t tell from the name.

Testing on primates – or any animal for that matter – is bad. I know that, you know that, we all know that. But a new study due to be made public on Monday in Edinburgh found that 95 per cent of former lab chimps display the same symptoms as torture victims – human torture victims, that is. Put specifically, these are symptoms of ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ which include anxiety, depression, insomnia, anger outbursts and “floating limb” displays (said to be an expression of disassociating their body with the real world). And worryingly, these are being displayed for years after their incarceration and experimentation – that’s if they make it out alive, which most don’t.

Testing on great apes has not been allowed for around ten years here in the UK, but it is still legal throughout most of Europe. The European Commission will shortly publish the first draft of a new animal experimentation directive and the hope is that experiments on great apes (and other primates) will be permanently banned. It’s said it will come out in September, so watch this space but in the meantime you can learn more about Felix, the Oxford University monkey who lived and died in captivity, and touched the hearts of all at PETA.

Image: Release Chimps / CC

Let’s face it, testing on animals is inefficient, cruel and a waste of money and resources. So when the Home Office revealed this morning that the number of animals used in UK experiments has increased yet again, this time by nearly 6 percent from 2006 to 2007, you know there’s got to be something wrong.

A grand total of 3.125 million (yes, MILLION) animals tested on in just one year. The report, released just hours ago, also shows a worrying increase in the use of dogs and genetically-manipulated animals.

So what does all this mean for the animals? Confined to laboratories, they are electro-shocked, infected with diseases that are unnatural to them, burned, poisoned and surgically mutilated in experiments that scientists’ own reports show cannot reliably predict human responses.

Animal experiments in the UK were reduced by half between the 1970s and 1997, so what gives? Since 2000, these figures have been going up and up each year, despite the fact that there are valid, humane alternatives and a recent YouGov poll shows that 80 percent of the British public is in favour of some form of a ban on experiments which cause suffering to animals.

Not one to take it lying down, PETA popped along to the Home Office as soon as we heard the news this morning, and staged a protest with our very own ‘PETA ghouls’ dressed as civil servants. They’re actually quite scary-looking! More photos at Rex.

More than 5,000 petition slips have been sent to the UK branch of Mars in a bid to get the company in the US to stop funding painful and deadly tests on mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. What really rattles us and is that these experiments aren’t even required by law and violate Mars’ own written policy. Try that on for size! So steer clear of M&M’s, Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, Starburst, Skittles and other Mars products (like this school-kid did) until Mars commits to a permanent international ban on conducting and funding tests on animals. In the meantime, get your sugar fix from other goodies, like the delicious selection at the Vegan Store (think vegan ‘Mars’ bars and chocolate covered ‘marshmallows’. Drool…).

Anyway, back to the serious stuff, in a letter sent with the petitions, we urge Mars to forward the slips to the company’s US president and ask if similar tests are being conducted in the UK. And this is something we would all want to know about, as PETA US discovered that just a handful of tests which Mars has funded include:

• Rabbits forced to eat high-cholesterol diets with cocoa. Later, the animals were killed, and the primary blood vessels connected to their hearts were removed and examined.
• Rats force-fed through plastic tubes, which were shoved down their throats. Then the rats were cut open and killed.
• Plastic tubes were surgically attached to guinea pigs’ carotid arteries, and cocoa ingredients were injected into their jugular veins.
• Mice were forced to swim in a pool of water and paint. To avoid drowning, they had to find a hidden platform – only to be killed later.

Turning animals into cocoa junkies, eh? All for a chocolate bar. Think I’ll pass thanks, will you?

You may remember me telling you about the new t-shirt that Jodie Marsh designed, with all profits going to PETA (read more about it here). Well my lovely readers, I have some good news – you can nab one for free!

All you need to do, is leave a comment here on what you most like about Jodie – be it her compassion for animals, her stint in Celebrity Big Brother or her, erm, other assets. But people please, let’s keep it clean. The t-shirts are from Kill The Scene Clothing and normally cost £14, so a right bargain to be had here.

We have 3 to give away, and the closing date is 1 August 2008, when I’ll pick the winners, contacting them the next day for their address. Sound good? Great, then let’s go! Oh, and make sure you read our terms and conditions and privacy policy before entering.

Good luck!

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED, THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Sporting a gorgeous new haircut, Jodie Marsh looks amazing in these pics that landed in my inbox today. And oh my gosh, how cute is her dog, Paddy? But what I’m more excited about is the t-shirt that the model and TV personality is wearing (c’mon lads, at least try to agree). She’s posed for an ‘All Animals Have the Same Parts’ ad for PETA before, and now she’s raising cash for us by designing and modelling this striking t-shirt design, which boldly speaks out against animal testing. They’re £14 and can be picked up from Kill The Scene Clothing.

Jodie says, “I absolutely love their designs. Day glo colours are the way forward for summer and I’ll be wearing my ’stop animal testing’ t-shirt with pride all summer. It’s high fashion supporting a good cause! I’ve always loved making a statement with my clothes and with KTS I am sending out a really important message as well as looking good. What better way to promote and support my favourite thing than to wear it on my body?”

Ahh, bless her. Thanks Jodie!