Victory: Johnson and Johnson Ends Near-Drowning Tests on Animals

For Immediate Release:

20 March 2019

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected] 

VICTORY: JOHNSON & JOHNSON ENDS NEAR-DROWNING TESTS ON ANIMALS

Company Abandons Cruel, Controversial Forced Swim Test After Talks With PETA US

London – After discussions with PETA US, Johnson & Johnson announced that it will no longer use the widely discredited forced swim test, in which mice, rats, and sometimes other small animals are placed in inescapable beakers filled with water and made to swim to keep from drowning. The company pledged not to use the test in the future in its own laboratories or in outside ones.

Johnson & Johnson joins AbbVie in ending its use of this test, and PETA US is now calling on Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer to follow suit.

Johnson & Johnson and other experimenters have claimed that the forced swim test serves as a model of depression in animals and can be used to test the effectiveness of new medications for the condition, but other scientists refute this. PETA US scientists reviewed published studies and found that dropping animals into water this way was less predictive than a coin toss of a drug’s effectiveness in humans. Animals used in these tests frantically try to escape by attempting to climb up the sides of the beakers or even diving underwater in search of an exit. They paddle furiously, desperately trying to keep their heads above water. Eventually, most start to float.

“Johnson & Johnson has done the right thing in pulling the plug on the forced swim test, which is not just bad science but also hideously cruel,” says PETA US neuroscientist Dr Emily Trunnell. “PETA urges Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Bristol-Myers Squibb to follow this company’s enlightened, business-savvy lead and stop terrifying animals this way.”

Last year, Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen published an article describing how it conducted the forced swim test on mice who’d been injected with a toxin. Previous papers were published by authors affiliated with the companies in 2016, 2015, 2013, 2008, 2007, and 2006.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information on ways to help animals, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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