Horrific experiments in which live pigs were blown up with explosives have been uncovered by the BUAV and reported in today’s UK Sunday Times newspaper. The experiments were reportedly to simulate the effect of a terrorist attack and took place at the government’s secret military research laboratory at Porton Down.

Prior to the explosion, the pigs were surgically mutilated by having several tubes inserted through incisions into various blood vessels and their bladders and they had their spleens removed. They also had a wire placed into a major blood vessel in their abdomen in order to later cause laceration of that vessel. The pigs were then exposed to a bomb exploding a short distance from their bodies after which they were caused to bleed until almost a third of their blood was gone.

The BUAV believes that not only are such experiments scientifically questionable - the reactions of an anesthetised pig to an explosion would be expected to differ substantially to those of a conscious human being - subjecting pigs to such massive mutilation and injury also raises profound ethical questions. The article can be seen at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6999916.ece.