How does drowning mice offer insight into depression? It’s just cruel

Peta protest the swimming rodents experiments We think of universities as institutions of higher learning. We consider laboratories to be centres of the pertinent invention and exciting discovery. So most people would be shocked to find out that they are places where mice, rats, and other small animals are forced into inescapable cylinders of water and forced to swim for fear of drowning. After this ordeal, they may be killed anyway – in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. This nightmare is the reality for countless animals, which is why, yesterday, I stood outside the Home Office dressed as a lifeguard – complete with a swimsuit, whistle, and ‘flotation device’ – to urge Suella Braverman to end this cruel and widely discredited experiment. The Home Office, the Government department responsible for licensing experiments on animals, is currently reviewing its policy regarding a sadistic experiment called the forced swim test. But when considering both science and suffering, the conclusion of any evaluation is simple: the test must end. Experimenters claim the test offers information about human depression and other mental health conditions and that animals who spend more time floating purportedly demonstrate more depression-like symptoms. But this logic makes zero sense. Increasingly, evidence suggests that floating is actually an adaptive behaviour necessary for survival – that an animal is simply trying to conserve energy. Some experimenters are even using the test to intentionally stress animals. Some experimenters are even using the test to intentionally stress animals. Sometimes rodents are dosed with drugs prior to the experiment in an attempt to find new treatments for humans. However, analysis of publicly available data of more than 100 compounds from 15 major pharmaceutical companies revealed that the test can’t reliably predict whether the compounds will have any effect in humans. GSK, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and other big pharmaceutical companies have declared they do not intend to use the forced swim test in the future, alongside more than a dozen top UK universities who have also shunned the archaic experiment. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Newcastle University has described the test as ‘outdated and ethically unacceptable’ and that the institution ‘cannot foresee any research where this test would be proposed or could be scientifically or ethically justified’. The forced swim test is not a valid measurement of human depression or other mental health conditions. There are considerable neurobiological differences between humans and rodents. Using this worthless test in an attempt to study human illness does a disservice to those suffering from debilitating mental health conditions. Just last week, the Animals in Science Committee recommended to the Home Office that many forced swim test licences – some of which were granted without proper scrutiny – should not be issued and that those still using the experiment to intentionally stress animals, such as the University of Bristol, should be forced to prove its relevance to humans. Trending