To Eli Lilly and Company CEO David A. Ricks:
Mr. Ricks --
We the undersigned were disturbed and distressed to learn that for decades now, Eli Lilly and Co. researchers have used the cruel and inhumane "forced swim test" on laboratory animals in an unsuccessful attempt to develop new antidepressant drugs.
In the "forced swim test" -- also known as the "behavioral despair test" -- 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 then observe as the poor frightened animal struggles and swims, unable to get out and believing it will drown.
Researchers have been doing this test for over 40 years, and yet none of the drugs so tested have ever come to market. You're forcing animals to suffer for no reason at all.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has introduced a proposal to your shareholders, urging that this kind of testing be permanently stopped. In fact, PETA introduced similar proposals to shareholders at Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and AbbVie, Inc. AbbVie responded and in December 2018 agreed to end this testing.
Eli Lilly, when will you do the same? To the consumers and potential customers who've signed this petition, this issue matters.
End "forced swim testing" quickly and permanently. Thank you for giving this issue the attention it deserves.
