PETA’s documentary, “Test Subjects” is winning hearts and minds on the film festival circuit. The film depicts three scientists who found the moral courage to leave vivisection behind and cross over to fight for the animals. After premiering at the famed Raindance Film Festival in England, it has been nominated for best documentary short at the Lancaster International Film Festival. In honor of that, we reprise an episode on one of the scientists featured in the documentary, Dr. Frances Cheng.
In conversation with Emil Guillermo, Cheng talks about how she came from Taiwan to the U.S. to become a scientist. As a graduate student, she did a test on saturated fats on rats and learned that the physiology of rats and humans are so different that too often it renders animal tests useless.
It’s the reason 95 percent of drugs tested on rats fail in human trials.
Cheng talks about how that fact began a new emotional journey for her as a scientist. She now regrets having experimented on animals but is haunted by her past actions and can’t talk about it without feeling the pain of her test subjects.
Cheng now works for PETA and is proud to say she has now saved more animals than she tortured and killed as a researcher.
Go to PETA.org for more information.
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(Originally released Dec. 18, 2019; Reprised July 15, 2020; April 13, 2022)
This post was originally published on THE PETA PODCAST.