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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.

6 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 Type44Q · · Score: 5, Funny

      They did. It wasn't until they were done with LA that they moved on to monkeys.

    2. Re:OK...and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      They did. I don't know why that's not the news here.

    3. Re:OK...and... by sheramil · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why do you need to test it at all? Obviously inhaling exhaust fumes is bad.

      Not necessarily. If the car is burning hydrogen, inhaling the exhaust is just going to make you damp.

      I guess if you inhaled enough of it, you might drown.

      Is no-one else entertained by the idea of tiny volkswagens with monkeys behind the wheel? How cute!

  2. They did test it on humans by klingens · · Score: 5, Informative

    They did test it on 25 humans in university clinic of Aachen https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

    Also the usual /. headline is as usual: crap. EUGT did all this, which is a lobby organisation by BMW, Mercedes and VW. They all are responsible, not just VW alone.

  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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