Medical Research Funding Bodies Reject Cruel Test on Animals
Following outreach from PETA, three independent medical research funding bodies – BMA Foundation, Medical Research Scotland, and The Dunhill Medical Trust – committed to not funding any future experiments that use the cruel and scientifically debunked forced swim test, paving the way for animal-free science.
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The Forced Swim Test
In the widely discredited test, experimenters force rats, mice, or other small animals into inescapable beakers of water and watch them desperately swim in search of an escape in the erroneous belief that this can reveal something about human mental health conditions. Once the test is complete, experimenters kill the animals.
The Test Wastes Time and Money
Forcing terrified animals to swim is not only cruel but also bad science, and sensible funding bodies rightly don’t want to waste critical time and money on tests that do nothing to advance human medicine.
The Home Office also announced an immediate end to the use of the scientifically flawed test as a model of human depression or for studies of anxiety and its treatment and its intention to eliminate it in the UK entirely in the near future.
Institutions That Have Dropped the Test
Leading institutions – including the universities of Brighton, Exeter, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and Southampton as well as King’s College London, Newcastle University, and many major pharmaceutical companies – have indicated they neither use the forced swim test nor intend to do so in the future, making those that continue to use it, including the University of Bristol, incongruous with their peers.
Urge the University of Bristol to Take Action
The institution is one of the few remaining outliers that continue to use the test. Please urge it to show compassion for mice and rats now:
