By Susan Bird From Care2

On May 6, 2019, shareholders of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. will have a chance to end the use of cruel “forced swim testing” on small mammals.

As a beneficial holder of 56 shares of company stock, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has submitted a proposed shareholder resolution. It requests that Eli Lilly stop funding, conducting or commissioning forced swim testing.

The forced swim test, also known as the “behavioral despair test,” is simple but terrifying. A mouse, hamster, rat, gerbil or guinea pig is dosed with an antidepressant medication that needs to be tested. Then the animal is dropped into a glass beaker half filled with water. Researchers sit back and observe. The poor frightened animal struggles and swims, unable to get out and believing it will drown.

What scientists look for is the point at which despair sets in. That’s the moment when the animal just stops swimming and floats, supposedly accepting its fate. The theory is that animals which spend more time floating are more depressed. Researchers want to see if new medications keep the animal struggling for a longer period of time because it’s not as “depressed” as unmedicated ones.

Ridiculous theory, isn’t it? Especially when you discover that other scientists believe the decision to float in this scenario just means the animal is conserving energy, learning and adapting to the situation.

In fact, this type of test is useless for researching medication effectiveness because “depression reflects a chronic subjective emotional state rather than a reaction to an individual stimulus,” as one researcher noted in 2015. Anyone who understands depressionknows this to be true.

Drug testers have been performing the forced swim test on animals since 1977. Over the course of time, approximately 5,461 mice, 1,066 rats, 748 gerbils and 305 guinea pigshave been dumped into beakers of water to flail, claw and fight for their lives. Guess how many drugs that were tested this way have made it to drugstore shelves? None.

So why do we continue to torture animals in this way? What are we gaining from this “research”? It’s inhumane, and we can’t even say “but it’s helping so many people.” After 40 years of tormenting animals, this test hasn’t helped even one human.

Photo credit: Getty Images

In its proposal to Eli Lilly shareholders, PETA argues:

Given the animal suffering inherent in the ‘Forced Swim Test’ (FST), its questionable scientific validity, and the fact that the majority of Americans object to the use of animals in experiments, our Board should implement a policy that it will not fund, conduct, or commission use of this test.

Eli Lilly’s Board recommends that shareholders vote against the PETA proposal. Here, let me show you my “shocked” expression. They argue that Eli Lilly has implemented “detailed processes and procedures to ensure the humane treatment of animals,” and that the proposed policy “could impede our ability to conduct the pre-clinical testing required to ensure that our pharmaceutical products are safe and effective for human use.”

I call B.S. The very nature of this test is inhumane.  No “processes and procedures” can change this fact.  It’s time to stop frightening and abusing animals in the name of science. Shame on you, Eli Lilly and Co.

PETA presented similar proposals to four pharmaceutical companies — Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer Inc. and AbbVie Inc. In December 2018, AbbVie Inc. agreed to be the first to officially stop using the forced swim test.

“Forcing frantic animals to swim for fear of drowning is both physically and psychologically abusive and is irrelevant to human depression,” PETA neuroscientist Dr. Emily Trunnell said in a news release. “It’s time that Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Eli Lilly followed AbbVie’s lead and ditched the forced swim test.”

The Eli Lilly shareholder vote is almost upon us.  Would you like to tell this pharmaceutical giant that it’s time it stopped forced swim testing on innocent animals? If so, please sign this petition. Care2 will see that it gets to Eli Lilly’s CEO so the company knows that its customers care deeply about this issue and want to see an immediate change.

For more on this story and video go to: https://www.care2.com/causes/why-is-eli-lilly-still-forcing-animals-to-endure-cruel-swim-tests.html