From PETA and executive producer Bill Maher, The Failed Experiment is a must-watch docuseries that uncovers the egregious failures of animal experimentation. In each compelling episode, notable experts and animal rights advocates take center stage to expose outrageous revelations about the industry that uses and kills millions of animals each year in cruel, useless experiments. While scrutinizing the history of medical research, the six-part series shows how innovative, animal-free research methods are challenging the status quo and accelerating the development of treatments and cures.
Who You’ll See in The Failed Experiment
John Gluck, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of New Mexico, and Research Professor, Kennedy Institute of Ethics
As a former animal experimenter trained by the infamous Harry Harlow, who performed cruel psychological experiments on monkeys, Dr. John Gluck witnessed animal suffering in laboratories firsthand. Today, he challenges his colleagues to reexamine their use of animals, and his work helped end a series of tests on baby monkeys at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
I had a very close relationship with animals growing up. … When I got to the university, I discovered that my sensitivity to animal well-being was interfering with my ability to get involved in the research world.”
—John Gluck
Mitchell Klausner, Former President, MatTek Corporation
Mitchell Klausner is the former president of MatTek, a global leader in supplying advanced testing models that use real human tissue. With its revolutionary, non-animal testing models, MatTek helps companies and researchers pursue human-relevant results. Just one of its innovative developments, a 3-D model formed from human skin cells, spares tens of thousands of rabbits from being used in skin irritation tests, in which experimenters rub potentially painful chemicals onto their sensitive skin.
Rolf Kleiner, Former President, InVitro International and Rich Ulmer, President and CEO, InVitro International
Rolf Kleiner and Rich Ulmer have contributed to monumental developments in animal-free research while leading InVitro International, which invented the first non-animal test accepted by the U.S. government. The company’s cutting-edge work provides researchers with superior methods for assessing chemicals, which don’t involve applying them to animals’ skin or dripping substances into their eyes.
As the former head of a pharmaceutical company, Ulmer learned firsthand about the failure of animal testing when his company released an eye product that, despite being deemed safe and effective in rabbits, caused serious adverse reactions in humans. Both Kleiner and Ulmer aim to push drug testing in a kinder direction, encouraging consumers to effect change by refusing to buy products that were tested on animals.
The public is probably not even aware of what actually goes on, because if they do find out, usually they’re appalled.”
—Rolf Kleiner
John Pawlowski, M.D., Ph.D., Codirector, Shapiro Simulation and Skills Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Dr. John Pawlowski, codirector of the Shapiro Simulation and Skills Center at the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, pioneered the development and use of human simulators to replace the use of animals in medical training. His groundbreaking research pushes back against the systemic use of animals in biomedical education, which he argues is a result of indoctrination in the field.
Indoctrination is part of medical training. We’re always looking up to people who are better trained and better experienced than ourselves. And when those people had used animals … there was always an inertia to follow in that direction.”
—John Pawlowski
Ingrid Newkirk, Founder and President, PETA
Soon after founding PETA in 1980, President Ingrid Newkirk launched PETA’s first undercover investigation, which was into the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland—a laboratory just down the street from PETA’s headquarters. The ghastly horrors that our eyewitness uncovered snowballed into an unprecedented case that launched PETA into national prominence. Monkeys were trapped in rusty wired cages amid their own feces, and the lead experimenter severed monkeys’ spinal cords, repeatedly electroshocked them, and deprived them of food. The watershed Silver Spring monkeys case ultimately led to the first-ever conviction of an animal experimenter on cruelty-to-animals charges.
Since then, Ingrid has established herself as a key figure in the animal liberation movement, leading the organization while it became the world’s largest animal rights group. She’s penned numerous books that promote empathy for our fellow animals, including Free the Animals in 1992, which remains a vital, transformative piece on the history of the animal rights movement.
We all share the ability to love. We all value our friendships. We all value our families. We are protective of our children. We feel fear.”
—Ingrid Newkirk
Kathy Guillermo, Senior Vice President, Laboratory Investigations, PETA
The Failed Experiment’s opening narrator, Kathy Guillermo, is a trailblazing senior vice president of PETA and the head of our Laboratory Investigations Department. For more than three decades, she has raised hell for laboratories that use and kill animals in cruel, painful, and pointless experiments. She’s achieved colossal victories, including ending the U.S. military’s use of monkeys in chemical-casualty training, stopping NASA’s plan to irradiate monkeys, and persuading many major corporations to end product testing on animals. Her 1993 book, Monkey Business: The Disturbing Case That Launched the Animal Rights Movement, with a foreword by Oliver Stone, details PETA’s historic exposé of the infamous Silver Spring laboratory.
This is a multibillion-dollar industry … so all of these people have an interest in seeing the same system continue.”
—Kathy Guillermo
Alka Chandna, Ph.D., Vice President, Laboratory Investigations Cases, PETA
Having been raised by conscientious parents, Dr. Alka Chandna has spent most of her life championing progressive movements. In 1989, her visit to a slaughterhouse served as a harrowing, eye-opening experience that catapulted her into animal rights advocacy. Her fervent approach to changing the way humans view and treat animals brought her to PETA, where she now works to transform biomedical research as our vice president of laboratory investigations cases.
Her work has contributed to dozens of landmark victories, including the closure of a notorious contract animal-testing facility—which resulted in the release of nearly 200 dogs and more than 50 cats—and the termination of a series of maternal deprivation experiments on monkeys at NIH.
Experimenters will always say, ‘We use animals because it would be ethically problematic to use human beings.’ … The reason those experiments are unethical in human beings is the same reason it’s unethical to do them in animals.”
—Alka Chandna
Jessica Sandler, Former Vice President, Regulatory Testing, PETA
Just a week after PETA released the findings of our undercover investigation into a contract testing laboratory called Professional Laboratory and Research Services Inc.—where workers were seen screaming at visibly terrified cats and dogs, flinging animals around, slamming cats into cages, and spraying bleach into kennels—the facility closed. One of the many animals PETA rescued from the decrepit laboratory was Libby, who quickly captured the heart of Jessica Sandler, PETA’s former vice president of regulatory testing.
When I think about how Libby was treated inside that laboratory, it breaks my heart …. There are hundreds of animals suffering in laboratories as we speak.”
—Jessica Sandler
Double Trouble
The University of Wisconsin–Madison attempted to keep a tight lid on its vile “sound localization” experiments on cats, but when PETA obtained photos of Double Trouble—an orange tabby cat who was tormented for months at the university—a tidal wave of public backlash erupted. Disturbing images of the languishing animal—who had a metal device implanted in his skull and a framework that held his head in place—exposed the horrific experiments for what they really were: wasteful, useless, and utterly barbaric. Following the cataclysmic exposé, the laboratory closed, several cats were released, and the lead experimenter retired.
Here’s How YOU Can Watch The Failed Experiment
The Failed Experiment is available to stream on Prime Video, and it’s now available on YouTube for free. Watch it now:
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