Rock Music Legend Pushes Japanese MSG Giant Ajinomoto to End Animal Tests 

Tokyo — Legendary band Siouxsie and the Banshees’ historic final concert took place in Tokyo, and now Siouxsie Sioux, one of the founders of modern rock and credited as the inspiration for the style of viral dance clip from Netflix Wednesday, is picking up a pen instead of a microphone to send a message on behalf of PETA. She’s calling on Tokyo-based conglomerate Ajinomoto Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of the controversial chemical seasoning monosodium glutamate (MSG), known for its brands such as Hondashi, Consommé, and Knorr, to end its shameful and ineffective tests on animals. 

 “I know that Siouxsie and the Banshees fans around the world—including the thousands who attended our final concert in Japan 20 years ago—will be just as appalled as I was to learn that thousands of dogs, gerbils, guinea pigs, fish, mice, pigs, and rabbits have been tormented and killed in cruel experiments since the 1950s,” Sioux wrote to Ajinomoto President and CEO Taro Fujie. 

Recently, Ajinomoto funded a test in which experimenters repeatedly deprived mice of water overnight, fed them common food substances such as miso and MSG, cut open their faces to expose a nerve, inserted electrodes, killed them, and cut off their tongues, purportedly to establish health claims for marketing the company’s food products and ingredients. Some of the company’s other tests have involved dissecting monkeys, bleeding mice to death, and cutting out dogs’ stomachs and intestines. These tests are neither relevant to human health nor required by law. 

 “Japan is a beautiful country, which I have visited many times, but these shameful experiments are a stain on its reputation,” Sioux concluded. “As a major manufacturer, [Ajinomoto] should be leading the way with compassion, not falling behind. Please, stop being spellbound by bad science and end these cruel tests immediately.” 

 Sioux’s letter is available upon request. 

 PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” —opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA Asia or follow the group on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. PETA’s protest clip about Ajinomoto on TikTok has gone viral, with over 2.1 million views and counting. 

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