Of the 15 London universities contacted by Animal Justice Project via the Freedom of Information Act, three failed to respond – Royal Veterinary College, Roehampton University and Imperial College London. Of the 12 that did respond, only the Institute of Cancer Research, King’s College London, Royal Holloway University of London, and St George’s University of London provided facts and figures for their animal experiments.

From mice, rats, and zebrafish, rabbits and guinea pigs, to macaque monkeys and marmosets, animals are routinely experimented on in London laboratories. In some studies, mice and rats are given cancerous tumours, while in others they are made to gain weight rapidly. Macaques have electrodes inserted into their limbs and brains, ferrets are gassed and drowned, rabbits endure painful metal leg bone implants and guinea pigs undergo barbaric cough experiments having been forced to inhale aerosols.

Students are paying thousands of pounds a year to study in London, but are sadly oblivious to the horrors that take place under their noses. Animal Justice Project has undertaken extensive research into these London universities – widely regarded as some of the top universities in the country – to reveal the secret horrors that take place inside these institutions. A few of the worst examples of these findings are summarised below.


Marmosets given debilitating disease

Some the most terrifying experiments have taken place at King’s College where marmosets were given Parkinson’s like symptoms. In one experiment, marmosets were given drugs that caused involuntary movements, erratic muscle contraction, shaking, abnormal posture, rigidity, loss of vocalisation, and tremors. The side effects, which included constant retching and vomiting, were so severe that they were left alone to recover for six to eight weeks, during which time they received some palliative care. After this time, further drugs were administered to the marmosets to ‘cure’ the Parkinson’s like symptoms. They were monitored for a further eight days before being killed and their brains cut up and studied.

Guinea pigs and cannabis

In one experiment, the lung function of guinea pigs was tested when they were forced to inhale aerosolised solution for 20 minutes, followed by the insertion of tubes into the jugular vein and carotid artery so drugs could be pumped in.

In another experiment, guinea pigs were exposed to aerosols (including cannabis extracts) for 20 minutes, left alone for 30 minutes, then again exposed to aerosols for another 20 minutes. Four hours later they were killed by injection and liquid extracted from their lungs and tested.

Another experiment describes how guinea pigs were placed individually in perspex cylindrical exposure chambers. They were allowed to acclimatise for 10 minutes before being exposed for 15 minutes to a mist of citric acid. Their coughs were recorded throughout. They were then returned to their homes. Four days later they were put back into the perspex tubes and exposed to either cannabis or saline for 20 minutes. Their coughs were recorded again, and they were then exposed to an aerosol of citric acid. This was all repeated four days later. They were eventually killed by having their necks were broken and left to bleed out.


The use of electrodes in rhesus monkeys

Two rhesus monkeys were hooked up to machines, with wires inserted into various parts of their bodies, including the muscles in their hands and arms. The animals were made to sit still in front of a carousel, with their hands in a specific location. They then performed tasks such as the picking up, and grasping of items and the machine took neuron readings from the inserted electrodes.

The findings revealed only little more than what was already known from non-invasive observational tests and similar tests undertaken by humans. The researchers admit that the human tests and the non-human animal experiments do not correlate.


Painkiller induced acute liver failure

Six pigs were anaesthetised with three different drugs, including ketamine, and then given a large dose of a painkiller called acetaminophen. 19 hours later, the pigs were all suffering multiple organ failure which included intracranial hypertension (abnormally high pressure inside the skull), hyperammonaemia (excess of ammonia in the blood), cardiovascular collapse (the failure of the heart vessels including the aorta), elevation in creatinine (a result of kidney failure), and metabolic acidosis (when the body produces too much acid when the kidneys fail).

They suffered horrifically for a further 13 hours before eventually dying from a heart attack.


Using ferrets to understand effects of flu on humans

To begin with, four female ferrets were inoculated with a virus. Over the course of six to seven days, the fulyl conscious ferrets were held down and forced to have liquid poured into their nasal cavities to flush the virus through their respiratory systems to see how well the virus can spread.

Following this traumatising experience for these four ferrets, the researchers were none the wiser than they were at the beginning of the experiment regarding the transmission of the virus.

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