Boob Jobs on Baby Rats, Brain Damage in Pigs—This Is Ivy League Science?

Ivy League universities have long touted themselves as elite institutions with high research standards, but there’s one big problem: They all subject animals to gruesome, deadly, and pointless experiments.

Still, for decades, these universities have loudly claimed their commitment to “replacing, reducing, and refining” the use of animals in experiments, something known as the 3Rs principle, while quietly brain-damaging pigs, punching holes in rabbits’ jaws, and more.

PETA challenges all eight of the U.S.’s Ivy Leagues: Prove your commitment, because there seems to be no evidence that it is real.

We’re demanding they share their plan.

The Ivy Leagues collectively gobbled up more than $1 BILLION in funding from the National Institutes of Health for experiments on animals in 2024 alone. Taxpayers have the right to know if these schools have been truthful about their 3Rs pledge or if that promise is false. Transparency matters at private institutions, just as it does at public universities.

The 3Rs refer to reducing animal use, replacing animals with animal-free methods, and refining experiments on animals so they are less cruel. The framework was first published in 1959 and was enthusiastically embraced by animal experimenters worldwide, at least in theory.

But it looks like universities are using their supposed commitment to the 3Rs as a smokescreen to placate the public while they continue to harm and kill monkeys, pigs, rabbits, rats, mice, and others in their laboratories. Here are just a few examples:

• Cornell University experimenters gave week-old female rats boob jobs by cutting open their backs. The rats suffered miniature human breast implants that moved, rotated, or flipped for 12 weeks before experimenters killed and dissected them. Others forced mice to binge on alcohol for months, while limiting their access to water, and subjected them to the cruel tail suspension and forced swim tests.
• Yale University experimenters irradiated pregnant monkeys and their developing babies, separated the two after birth, and subjected the babies to years of tests before killing them and cutting out their brains. Others caused sepsis in mice by cutting open their stomachs, pulling out their intestines, and poking holes to release bacteria—causing severe infection and inflammation—before killing and cutting them open.
• Columbia University experimenters cut open pigs, removed their organs, and transplanted them into other pigs and baboons. The pigs were killed immediately after the Frankensteinian surgery, while the baboons suffered blood clots and organ rejection before being killed. Others cut rabbits’ cheekbones and punched holes into their jaws before killing and dissecting them.

• Brown University experimenters cut into pigs’ chests and implanted devices around their arteries to restrict blood flow before killing them. Others cut open monkeys’ heads, implanted immobilizing posts onto their skulls, and forced them to complete tasks by offering droplets of fruit juice. Still others pumped chemicals into baby rats for weeks before cutting off their testicles and killing them.
• Dartmouth College experimenters gave months-old pigs drugs, cut open their heads, and injected tumor cells to cause brain cancer before killing them. Others injected chemicals into newborn rats’ brains to mimic schizophrenia and forced them to binge on alcohol and nicotine before killing them.
• Harvard experimenters injured mice by injecting chemicals into their legs or cutting their skin open, exposing their muscle, and freezing it with a cold metal rod. Experimenters then forced the mice to complete physical tests, including hanging upside down on a wire to see how long they could cling with injured legs, or running on a treadmill at increasing speeds until exhaustion, shocking their feet to keep them from stopping. Until her grant was cut in May, Harvard experimenter Margaret Livingstone ripped newborn monkeys from their mothers and forced them to wear goggles that simulated disorienting strobe lights for the first 18 months of their lives, and sewed other monkeys’ eyes shut.
• Princeton University experimenters drilled holes and screwed implants into monkeys’ skulls, causing brain damage. Others injected mice with human stem cells and infected them with hepatitis B virus and HIV before killing and dissecting them.
• University of Pennsylvania experimenters cut open pigs’ skulls, damaged their brains by jamming a rod into it, injected them with drugs, inserted needles into their spines, and killed them. Others sickened young monkeys and baby pigs before killing them.

Experiments on animals are bad science and have no place at institutions of higher learning. Studies show that 90% of basic research, most of which involves animals, fails to lead to treatments for humans, while 95% of new drugs that test safe and effective in animals later fail in humans.

Urge Universities to PROVE IT!

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