PETA supporters swarmed the University of Bristol's Senate House yesterday (October 31) dressed as 'brain-dead zombie scientists', wearing bloody lab coats, spooky contact lenses and face paint. The group staged a Halloween protest there to "urge University of Bristol experimenters to use their brains, ban the cruel and useless forced swim test and other near-drowning experiments on small animals, and embrace modern, non-animal research".
The animal rights group went on to say in a statement: "In the widely criticised tests, experimenters induce panic in vulnerable small animals such as rats, who may or may not be dosed with a test substance before being dropped into inescapable cylinders of water and made to swim, terrified they will drown. They attempt to climb the steep sides of the container and even dive underwater to look for an escape.
"The test is done under the erroneous assumption it can reveal something about mental health conditions in humans." They claim animals used in such experiments are often killed afterwards so their brains can then be studied.
