PETA has uncovered yet another cruel and deadly experiment on animals funded by Ajinomoto Co. Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of the food seasoning monosodium glutamate (MSG): forcing small mice into cages with larger, more aggressive ones and allowing the larger animals to attack the smaller ones.

Experimenters then deprived the smaller mice of food and water, forcing them to drink experimental liquids that contained MSG. After this torment, experimenters took blood from the animals, killed them, and dissected them.

Sour Science

Known as the “social defeat stress model,” this harrowing horror is intended to induce psychological distress and depression in the smaller mice and was supposedly used to investigate stress-related causes of eating disorders. But because of the drastic biological and physiological differences between species, the test results don’t translate to humans.

This ridiculous MSG experiment was conducted at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and bankrolled by Ajinomoto. Yet the Japan-based conglomerate continues to lie about its cruel activities, stating, “For products including seasonings, processed foods, frozen foods and drinks, the Ajinomoto Group does not test on animals.”

A Bitter Business Practice

Ajinomoto has tormented thousands of dogs, fish, gerbils, guinea pigs, mice, pigs, rabbits, and rats in horrific and deadly experiments since the 1950s. These tests aren’t required by law, and most of them are simply conducted to make dubious human health claims about food products and ingredients in order to market them to consumers.

The company—which owns frozen-food brands Tai Pei, Ling Ling, and José Olé—has supported experiments in which rats’ heads were cut off in a guillotine, cows were force-fed and their livers sliced up, and meat glue was injected into mice before their necks were snapped, all for food-related substances it claims not to test on animals. Ajinomoto experimenters have also starved, killed, and dissected rabbits and cut open dogs’ stomachs, starved them, and injected them with drugs. In even more tests funded or conducted by the company, experimenters injected toxic cancer drugs into mice and rats, electroshocked them, cut them up, and killed them.

What You Can Do

Please take action by urging Ajinomoto to join other major food and beverage companies in banning all tests on animals: