Stray cats used in class lab tests
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Stray cats have been used for educational experiments in the medical school of Peking University for years, a Beijing newspaper reported Monday.
Cats used in classroom tests were not specially bred for medical use in a sterile environment but bought from dealers who round up feral cats and strays, the report revealed.
An animal rights activist in Beijing said there were hardly any feral cats in Beijing, so the dealers must be selling mostly domestic cats lost in the wild, Beijing News reported today.
Students have complained about the smell of the animals but teachers said they were lucky to have them because no company in Beijing sold lab cats.
The cats were mostly used to test antihypertensive drugs, said a teacher who declined to be named. No other animals could replace cats in the experiments. The teacher said he did the same experiment when he was in university.
None were sanitized before they were sent into classrooms. Most students performed medical tests on them with their bare hands.
The news sparked fury among animal protectionists, especially with its graphic record of how the experiments were done.
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