We Did It! Sanofi Ditches Near-Drowning Test on Animals
We did it! After a global campaign by PETA entities, French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi will no longer torment tiny animals in a near-drowning experiment known as the forced swim test.
The move follows a campaign that included outreach from PETA scientists and more than 440,000 e-mails from supporters around the world.
Sanofi
Sanofi announced the compassionate change with a new public policy confirming that the company “does not use the Porsolt swim test”. It stated, “We have no research projects that involve the use of this test and have no plans for this test to be used in the future, either in-house or at a contract research partner.”
Between 1993 and 2019, Sanofi tormented more than 1,500 mice and rats in the test – and failed to produce a single usable antidepressant.
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 Home Office 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 stated 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, such as the University of Bristol, incongruous with their peers.
How You Can Help
We couldn’t have done it without your help. Please use your considerable sway to protect more animals by urging the University of Bristol to drop the forced swim test:
