When news broke about the fact that the U.S. government is funding a research lab in Nebraska devoted to running cruel experiments on “meat animals,” people everywhere were shocked and disgusted. The animals who live at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center are farm animals who are being bred and genetically manipulated to be more “productive.” While the improvements these experiments could make to the meat industry is given as justification for why $22 million of American tax dollars go to this facility, very few of the tests conducted on animals are even remotely beneficial to the animal agriculture industry.

At the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, pigs are being bred to be larger and to produce twice the amount of piglets then they would naturally, the down side is the mother sows are so large and constricted in the meat industry that they end up crushing piglets to death. They are also making cows bear triplets; in nature cows only carry one calf and twins are very rare. By forcing cows to have triplets the calves cannot form properly and are born sickly. One of the most horrific experiments run at this lab involved a female cow who was locked into a head brace and mounted by as many as six bulls for hours until her back legs broke and she eventually died.

The fact that a facility like this exists is extremely unsettling and the fact that it is largely exempt from oversight by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is even more disturbing. Labeling these sick and inhumane experiments as “science” should not make them above the law or ethics.

Congress has the power to shut this heinous facility down, but it is up to us to urge them to do so. Farm Sanctuary has launched a petition to end the cruel experimentation on farm animals and shut down the U.S. Meat Animal Research Facility. To take action, click here.

Image source: Lovecatz/Flickr