McCarthy, M. et al
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) declared their support this week for Stanford University School of Medicine’s recent decision to replace the mice in their research laboratory with graduate students, according to enthusiastic sources.
“We are very excited to see this change. These beautiful creatures have gone unheard for too long. It’s time to release them from their prisons,” said PETA representative Chloe Williams, who further claimed that grad students don’t possess the mental capacity to experience pain or suffering. “Animals can’t consent to this experimentation. But these students not only signed up for it willingly, they paid thousands for the opportunity to participate.”
Students’ support of the decision was nearly universal, though more subdued.
“I guess they technically gave us a choice in the matter,” said Aiden Nelson, a graduate student in the school’s psychology department. “But if I didn’t volunteer, I’d have to write a 2000-word paper to make up that portion of my grade, and who has the time for that? So it’s either another all-nighter to research a paper that I know the professors won’t even read, or I just take these pills? What fool would choose the research paper?”
“Plus, the side effects have been pretty minimal. The appetite loss I get from the constant nausea has freed up an hour each day that used to be wasted eating meals. That’s more time to work on my thesis!”
Researchers in the lab explained that the motivation for the change was mostly based on cost, not ethics.
“This decision was made by a budget committee,” said Keith Haverford, head of Stanford’s drug research lab. “It used to cost us $600 per year to feed and house a single mouse, whereas our student volunteers are usually capable of feeding themselves at no additional cost to the department. To be honest, this whole PETA thing was a surprise. We really don’t care about these mice or their quality of life. If we gave a shit what PETA thought, we wouldn’t have been poisoning animals in the first place.”
As of press time, Haverford had been granted approval by the university’s ethics board to conduct a large-scale LD50 trial on student volunteers.
