Mars' Heartless Animal Experiments

Not one of Mars' experiments on animals is required by law. Even so, Mars has paid experimenters to kill untold numbers of animals in tests:

* Mars is currently funding an experiment on rats at the University of California, San Francisco, to determine the effect of chocolate ingredients on the animals' blood vessels, even though the experimenter admits that studies have already been done using humans. Experimenters force-feed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down their throats and then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery, which is clamped shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the animals are killed.
* Mars funded a deadly experiment on mice that was published in a 2007 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience in which mice were fed flavanols (phytochemicals that are found in chocolate) and forced to swim in a pool of water mixed with white paint to hide a submerged platform, which the mice had to find in order to avoid drowning, only to be killed and dissected later on.
* In one experiment supported by Mars and conducted by the current Mars, Inc., endowed chair in developmental nutrition at the University of California, Davis, rats were fed cocoa and anesthesized with carbon dioxide so that blood could be collected by a needle injected directly into the heart—a procedure criticized by U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Dr. William T. Golde, who notes: “This is not a simple method. … Missing the heart or passing the needle completely through the heart could lead to undetected internal bleeding or other complications.”
* Mars supported a cruel experiment to learn how a chocolate ingredient called PQQ affects metabolism by cramming baby mice into 200-milliliter Plexiglas metabolic chambers—around half the size of a 12-ounce soda can—and then submerging the chamber for nearly five hours in a chilled water bath, inducing labored breathing in the distressed mice. Experimenters then shoved tubes down the mice’s throats every day for 10 days to force-feed them the PQQ, after which they were killed and cut up for analysis.
* Mars funded a test in which experimenters forced rabbits to eat a high-cholesterol diet with varying amounts of cocoa, then cut out and examined tissue from the rabbits' primary blood vessel to the heart to determine the effect of cocoa on rabbits’ muscle tissue.
* Mars supported a test in which experimenters attached plastic tubes to arteries in guinea pigs' necks and injected cocoa ingredients into their jugular veins to examine the effect of cocoa ingredients on their blood pressure.

Tell Mars to Drop Deadly Animal Tests!