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Volkswagen Admits To Testing Diesel Fumes On Monkeys (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the poor-business-decisions dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: In what seems like a John Henry versus the steam shovel-style competition to dig diesel's grave, Volkswagen has admitted to funding (and subsequently cheating on) animal testing to prove the relative safety of diesel exhaust fumes, according to findings by the New York Times. The tests, which were undertaken at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in Albuquerque in 2014, involved as many as 10 monkeys and had them sitting in airtight containers as they breathed exhaust fumes from a diesel-powered Volkswagen Beetle while they watched cartoons for entertainment. The tests went on for 4 hours. "We apologize for the misconduct and the lack of judgment of individuals," said a Volkswagen representative in a statement. "We're convinced the scientific methods chosen then were wrong. It would have been better to do without such a study in the first place." The Volkswagen Beetle used in the test was equipped with the same compromised emissions software that could detect when the car was being tested in a lab environment so it was running as cleanly as it could, which I guess proves that Volkswagen will waste no opportunity to be hoisted by its own oil-burning petard.

9 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. OK...and... by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I fail to see what the problem is. Would it have been better to test it on humans in some third-world shithole?

    1. Re:OK...and... by mspohr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The have undertaken a large scale test of diesel fumes on humans. Their "clean diesel" cars were designed to emit large amounts of NOx. Major cities around the world have been subject to these tests and are showing a predictable rise in deaths.

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    2. Re:OK...and... by quantaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I fail to see what the problem is. Would it have been better to test it on humans in some third-world shithole?

      I have no issue with animal testing.

      But the question here is what scientific value was gained from the experiments.

      Now, if you've already tested on lower forms, like rats, and established that there is no harm, I'm personally fine with testing on primates to be doubly sure (though I'm not sure if that's the official standard). But I find it hard to believe that breathing emissions for 4 hours qualifies as no harm.

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    3. Re:OK...and... by Powercntrl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I fail to see what the problem is. Would it have been better to test it on humans...

      The problem is this gives the PETA crowd more ammunition for their "animal testing = BAD!" agenda. There is little scientific knowledge to be gained by slightly poisoning a few monkeys, and it sounds disturbingly close to what Germany was doing to Jews during the Holocaust.

      Thing is, there are legitimate reasons to test things on animals. You want to be pretty damn sure your experimental drug isn't going to kill anyone when you start human trials. But good luck trying to convince a bunch of emotion-driven PETA morons why it's necessary, when they start chanting about saving monkeys from the gas chamber.

      Seaworld is going through exactly the same crap. They actually do a lot of good educating the public about marine life conservation, and they even rescue injured/stranded animals in the wild. But ask any "drain the tanks" activist and all they see is "Blackfish".

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    4. Re:OK...and... by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Disturbingly close my ass. Jews are people and monkeys aren't. That, and only that, is why gassing Jews, Gypsies, and gays was Wrong with a capital W.

      Gassing people because you want to and testing on monkeys because you need to don't live on the same planet.

    5. Re:OK...and... by Cederic · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Their "clean diesel" cars were designed to emit large amounts of NOx.

      Don't be fucking stupid. No, VW did not design their cars to emit NOx.

      Failing to mitigate a side effect does not mean you've designed it in.

    6. Re:OK...and... by thegarbz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Would it have been better to test it on humans in some third-world shithole?

      No that's racist. Instead they tested on humans in New Mexico. Interesting that the CNET article left out this minor detail.

  2. Hopefully the cars were in VW "smog test" mode by JoeyRox · · Score: 1, Insightful

    That way the monkeys got a much smaller does of carbon monoxide, as in much less than us human's got from the thousands of VW cars on the road.

  3. An unanswered question by techno-vampire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing in TFS or TFA tells us who authorized the experiment, or how high up that person was. It also doesn't tell us what happened to whoever it was, or what upper management's reaction was when the fact of the experiment was discovered. Let's not start blaming everybody in the company before we find out just who's responsible for this.

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