The researchers attempted to simulate the chest and stomach damage that could be caused to little children in a traffic accident. The anatomy of a piglet is similar to that of a six-year-old child, according to the researchers. All of the test animals were no older than ten weeks and died in the tests.
The piglets were placed in children seats attached to crash test sleds. Some of the piglets were ripped out of the seats in the collision and half of the young pigs immediately died upon impact (between 30 and 50 km/h). The others died hours later. The autopsies later revealed that that the lungs, spleens, and livers were damaged in the collision.
The pigs were given tranquilisers ahead of the test.
The safety study was published in research journal International Journal of Crashworthiness at the beginning of 2019. The Chinese crash tests are far from the only ones to test on live pigs. Crash tests in Germany were enacted on live pigs through to the mid-1990s. Modern dummies cost €100,000 to purchase, but pigs only cost a few euros in China. Whether this is why all 15 piglets had to die is unclear.
Sabrina Engel from Peta blasted the study as animal abusive, saying “the medical and scientific field does not need tests like this. It is horrible and causeless to abuse animals like this.”
