Chinese researchers draw flak for slamming live pigs into walls for crash tests

Animals have been our unwitting guinea pigs for everything; from life-saving vaccines to makeup and cosmetics. But where do we draw the line between scientific inquiry and plain animal cruelty?

Researchers in China have recently drawn the ire of American animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) after publishing studies using live pigs in violent crash tests.

In one 2019 study published in the International Journal of Crashworthiness, researchers starved pigs for 24 hours, strapped them into car seats and slammed them into a wall at speeds of 50 km/h.

The pigs were then killed (if they had not already died on impact) and dissected to find out more about the types of injuries that resulted from the use of different types of seatbelts.

In another 2018 study, which claimed that "great efforts were made to minimise suffering of the experimental animals", sensors were inserted into live pigs which were then screwed onto a metal block and pounded into a wall.

Pictures of the collision show the pig's body contorted and compressed as it hit the wall.

The animals in the studies reportedly suffered fractures as well as injuries to the spine, pelvis and other internal organs.

Peta spoke out against the studies in an Oct 31 blogpost, calling them "junk science" and labelling the practice of using sentient animals in crash tests as "cruel, archaic, and unjustifiable".

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In a letter to Army Medical University and Daping Hospital, where the studies had been conducted, Peta also questioned the veracity of the studies' findings, quoting the 2018 study which admitted that there are "inherent discrepancies" between humans and animals which could result in "misunderstanding" of car crash injuries.

The seven scientists from Army Medical University who had conducted the 2019 study reportedly claimed that they had followed US guidelines on using laboratory animals and said their study had been approved by an ethics committee. 

However, according to United Nations safety regulations, one of the most widely adopted standards for children's car seats, using crash-test dummies is the industry standard to conduct studies of car crash injuries.

These dummies have been specially developed with humanly features such as rigid plastic skulls, soft skin and realistic joints to give researchers more accurate assessments of injuries. 

Most car manufacturers have also stopped using animals in crash tests since the '90s, relying instead on computer simulations and dummies. 

kimberlylim@asiaone.com