New Evidence Shows That School Attempted to Continue Painful Sheep Decompression Experiments by Disguising Them as Another Project
For Immediate Release:
March 31, 2011
Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 202-483-7382
Madison, Wis. — Using an open records request, PETA has obtained internal documents from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) showing that UW lawyers, administrators, and faculty apparently conspired to disguise excruciatingly painful, Navy–funded decompression experiments on sheep that risked killing the animals—a violation of a Wisconsin cruelty-to-animals law. According to the minutes from a UW committee meeting, in August 2010, the application for the decompression experiments was written—in the words of the lead faculty member on the project—to "avoid the legal problems that the previous study caused." Even though the experiment still risked killing sheep in violation of the law, UW considered reapproving the project and directed the experimenter to rewrite the description to eliminate the terms "decompression" and "death."
"UW officials were apparently so desperate to keep the grant money rolling in that they didn't seem to care that continuing to conduct these painful experiments on sheep risked violating the law," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "UW appears to care little about either the animals or complying with the law."
The maneuver occurred after Dane County Circuit Court Judge Amy Smith ruled in June 2010 that UW appeared to have repeatedly violated the law by killing sheep in the study and that additional animal deaths would also be illegal. Judge Smith explicitly stated that her decision should bring the experiments to a halt. She also appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the case.
Other documents reveal that for almost two decades, UW knew that the decompression experiments may have been a violation of state law. Newly released e-mails also show that the content of letters from the U.S. Navy and a state legislator that were written in support of the experiments was authored in whole or heavily edited by UW itself, including removal of the word "decompression." PETA has turned all the new documents over to the special prosecutor, attorney David A. Geier.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.