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# J&J Agrees to End ‘Forced Swim Tests’
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/j-j-agrees-to-end-forced-swim-tests/
- Published: 2019-03-20T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T01:14:06.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5143660

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says that following discussions with the advocacy group, Johnson & Johnson and its Janssen subsidiary have changed their policy and will no longer conduct or fund so-called forced swim tests in which mice, rats, and other small animals are placed in inescapable beakers filled with water and made to swim to keep from drowning. Drug companies have said the test serves as a model of depression in animals and could be used to test the effectiveness of new drugs for treating depression.

PETA scientists reviewed published studies,” the company [says](https://support.peta.org/page/7704/action/1?locale=en-US&ref=fdaweb.com), “and found that dropping animals into water this way was less predictive than a coin toss of a drug’s effectiveness in humans.”

J&J joins AbbVie in the ban, PETA says, as it calls on Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Lilly to follow suit.