Posted on the 25th January 2010
On Sunday, details emerged concerning shocking experiments being conducted on live pigs at Porton Down, a secretive military research centre in Wiltshire. In a series of tests, 18 live pigs were placed just a few feet away from explosives, which were then detonated. The pigs were left to bleed until almost a third of their blood had drained from their bodies, to see how long they could then be kept alive.
Before the tests, scientists inserted tubes into the blood vessels and bladders of the pigs, and removed their spleens. A wire was placed in a major blood vessel in the abdomen to ensure that the vessel was lacerated during the explosion.
These experiments were supposed to recreate the effects of an explosion in an enclosed space, in order to simulate the effects of terrorist attacks on civilian targets. However, MPs and animal protection groups have questioned the validity of the tests, as well as the ethics of using live animals. People are not the same as pigs, so using them does not tell us how people would suffer in similar blasts, and, sadly, there are many human victims around the world who could be studied to give scientifically useful information.
Contact the Home Office to demand an end to warfare experiments on animals
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