Animal rights group PETA is criticizing the US Navy for not changing its use of animals in decompression sickness and oxygen toxicity experiments.
In April, more than 100 US Navy veterans joined PETA to urge Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro to end “cruel and irrelevant” decompression sickness and oxygen toxicity experiments on pigs and other animals.
In a May 23 letter to PETA, Del Toro wrote:
“The Navy research and development programs that include both medical and operational aspects, adopt the highest standards of animal care ensuring intramural and extramural institutions are held accountable through expert intrinsic veterinary oversight, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee as well as accreditation through the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International. Additionally, the Navy research and development Animal Care and Use Committees along with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery’s Veterinary Research Protection Program examine and assess proposals where animals are used to ensure that we refine, reduce, and replace the use of animals in research when all research objectives can be achieved with appropriate and validated methods.”
Del Toro added:
“The United States Navy will continue to prioritize the ethical treatment of animals in al our studies and continue to refine, reduce, and replace animal use wherever practical.”
PETA Vice President Shalin Gala criticized the Navy’s response:
“It’s shameful that the Navy refuses to commit to sound science by ending deadly experiments that involve inducing seizures in animals without pain relief and implanting recording devices in their abdomens with wires placed on their backs and necks and electrodes fixed to their skulls. Del Toro should deep-six these useless tests and stop wasting millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund violence against animals.”
