Animals
An animal test is any scientific experiment or test in which a live animal is forced to undergo something that is likely to cause them pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm.
Animals used in laboratories are deliberately harmed, not for their own good, and are usually killed at the end of the experiment.
The commonly used LD50 (lethal dose 50) test involves finding out which dose of a chemical will kill 50% of the animals being used in the experiment. [65] [102] The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in 2010 that 97,123 animals suffered pain during experiments while being given no anesthesia for relief, including 1,395 primates, 5,996 rabbits, 33,652 guinea pigs, and 48,015 hamsters.
- Ingrid Newkirk. president PETA
- Animal experiments include:
- injecting or force feeding animals with potentially harmful substances
- exposing animals to radiation
- surgically removing animals’ organs or tissues to deliberately cause damage
- forcing animals to inhale toxic gases
- subjecting animals to frightening situations to create anxiety and depression.
95% of animals used in experiments are not protected by the Animal Welfare Act. The AWA does not cover rats, mice, fish and birds, which comprise around 95% of the animals used in research.
Animals can suffer like humans do, so it is speciesism to experiment on them while we refrain from experimenting on humans. All suffering is undesirable, whether it be in humans or animals. Discriminating against animals because they do not have the cognitive ability, language, or moral judgment that humans do is no more justifiable than discriminating against human beings with severe mental impairments. [66] [67] As English philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote in the 1700s, "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
Animals are very different from human beings and therefore make poor test subjects. The anatomic, metabolic, and cellular differences between animals and people make animals poor models for human beings.
Thomas Hartung, Professor of evidence-based toxicology at Johns Hopkins University, argues for alternatives to animal testing because "we are not 70 kg rats."
The reasons why animal testing persists are often not scientific. Instead it can be due to conservatism within the scientific establishment – it is easier and more comfortable to simply do what has always been done. Test results on animals can be easily compared to earlier tests on animals to give confidence to scientists.
Thankfully, the development of alternative methods is growing. Due to innovations in science, animal tests are being replaced in areas such as toxicity testing, neuroscience and drug development. But much more needs to be done.
Replacing animal tests does not mean putting human patients at risk. It also does not mean halting medical progress. Instead, replacing animal testing will improve the quality as well as the humaneness of our science.
Alternative testing methods now exist that can replace the need for animals. In vitro (in glass) testing, such as studying cell cultures in a petri dish, can produce more relevant results than animal testing because human cells can be used. [15] Microdosing, the administering of doses too small to cause adverse reactions, can be used in human volunteers, whose blood is then analyzed. Artificial human skin, such as the commercially available products EpiDerm and ThinCert, is made from sheets of human skin cells grown in test tubes or plastic wells and can produce more useful results than testing chemicals on animal skin. [15] [50] [51] Microfluidic chips ("organs on a chip"), which are lined with human cells and recreate the functions of human organs, are in advanced stages of development. Computer models, such as virtual reconstructions of human molecular structures, can predict the toxicity of substances without invasive experiments on animals. [50]
Medical breakthroughs involving animal research may still have been made without the use of animals. There is no evidence that animal experiments were essential in making major medical advances, and if enough money and resources were devoted to animal-free alternatives, other solutions would be found
Alternatives are better
Crude skin allergy tests in guinea pigs only predict human reactions 72% of the time. But a combination of chemistry and cell-based alternative methods has been shown to accurately predict human reactions90% of the time.
The notorious Draize skin irritation test in rabbits can only predict human skin reactions 60% of the time. But using reconstituted human skin is up to 86% accurate.
The standard test on pregnant rats to find out if chemicals or drugs may harm the developing baby can only detect 60% of dangerous substances. But a cell-based alternative (EST) has 100% accuracy at detecting very toxic chemicals.
The cruel and unreliable shellfish toxin testing on live mice has now been fully replaced with a far superior analytical chemistry method that is better at protecting humans.
What You Can Do
Each of us can help prevent animal suffering and deaths by buying cruelty-free products, donating only to charities that don’t experiment on animals, requesting alternatives to animal dissection, demanding the immediate implementation of humane, effective non-animal tests by government agencies and corporations, and calling on our alma maters to stop experimenting on animals.
With the help of our members and supporters, PETA campaigns globally to expose and end the use of animals in experiments. Some of our efforts include the following:
Groundbreaking undercover work and colorful advocacy campaigns to educate the public
Pushing government agencies to stop funding and conducting experiments on animals
Encouraging pharmaceutical, chemical, and consumer product companies to replace tests on animals with more effective non-animal methods
Helping students and teachers end dissection in the classroom
Funding humane non-animal research
Publishing scientific papers on the superiority of non-animal test methods
Urging health charities not to invest in dead-end tests on animals
This multifaceted approach yields scores of victories for animals imprisoned in laboratories every year.
Browse cruelty-free companies and products.