The U.S. Navy is paying for experiments that give animals “the bends,” a painful and sometimes deadly condition that divers can suffer when they rise to the surface too fast. More than 450 veterans have now signed a letter asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to end this funding and move the money to modern research built around the human body.

According to PETA, a Navy-funded study at Duke University used 40 pigs to test decompression sickness. PETA says the pigs suffered blocked blood vessels, paralysis and internal bleeding, and many of them died. At the University of South Florida, rats in an oxygen toxicity study had recording devices implanted in their bodies and went through seizures.

Congress has already decided the military no longer needs live animals for live-fire medical training. Troops now learn with simulators, mannequins, cadavers and actors instead. Dive research can follow the same path. Animal-free methods designed around human biology could give Navy divers more useful answers, and taxpayers would stop paying for studies that critics call outdated.

Hundreds of veterans are speaking up because service members deserve research that actually keeps them safe underwater. PETA Vice President Shalin Gala urged Hegseth to “embrace what works, because giving sheep the bends does not.”

Secretary Hegseth can stop Department of Defense dollars from flowing to these experiments and send that funding to human-relevant science instead.

Sign the petition to tell Secretary Hegseth to end animal decompression experiments now and invest in science that truly protects the people who serve.