April 28, 2015
Emmanuel Faber
CEO, Group Danone
17 Boulevard Haussmann
75009 Paris
France
Via e-mail: emmanuel.faber@danone.com
Dear Mr. Faber,
Thank you in advance for your time. On behalf of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 3 million members and
supporters worldwide, I'm writing to ask Danone to join other industry
leaders in implementing a policy that prohibits conducting, funding, and
commissioning experiments on animals.
PETA was troubled to discover articles reporting that Danone conducted
and/or funded experiments in which pigs were forced to ingest oxygenated
water and then had tubes inserted into their stomachs and all of the contents
expelled, prior to being killed1; experiments in which mice were fed a highcholesterol diet in order to give them atherosclerosis, after which their aortas
were removed2; and experiments in which monkeys were forced to eat a highcarbohydrate, high-sugar diet in order to induce obesity and insulin resistance
and were then fed omega-3 fatty acids to test for any effects.3
Given the size of your company, we can imagine that you were probably not
aware of these cruel and archaic experiments. PETA is concerned that such
experiments have continued despite the availability and superiority of nonanimal research methods. We are confident that your customers—including
many PETA supporters—would be surprised and troubled to learn about this
as well. We have worked with major companies in your sector and others to
end experiments on animals in favor of humane, human-relevant, and costeffective animal-free methods, including in vitro, computational, clinical, and
other modern technologies.
We hope that Danone will begin discussions with PETA and join The CocaCola Company, Lipton, POM Wonderful LLC, Welch's, Ocean Spray, and
other progressive companies that have established policies against funding,
conducting, or commissioning experiments on animals.
1

Charton A. et al. 2014. Effect of administration of water enriched in O2 by injection or
electrolysis on transcutaneous oxygen pressure in anesthetized pigs. Drug Design, Development
and Therapy 2014(8): 1161-1167.
2
Borell-Pages M. et al. 2014. Cholesterol modulates LRP5 expression in the vessel wall.
Atherosclerosis 235(2): 363-370.
3
Calder P.C. 2014. Metabolic benefits of marine n-3 fatty acids demonstrated in nonhuman
primates. J. Nutrition, 144:1.

 May I please hear from you on this important matter? I can be contacted at 646344-0205 or MichaelN@peta.org.
Sincerely,
Michael Niebo
Research Associate
Laboratory Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
501 Front St.
Norfolk, VA 23510
cc: Bernard Hours, Deputy General Manager and Co-COO