Animal testing is cruel and almost useless. It really irks me when people say we need animal testing. There's a more humane way of testing then what they do now. Here are a few facts! Animals used in testing are most usually purchased from specialized breeding facilities. However, they may also be taken from the wild or acquired from animal shelters (through a practice known as “pound seizure”). Because mice and rats are excluded from the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the actual number of animals used in product testing is unreported and unknown. It has been estimated that as many as 100 million mice are used in U.S. laboratories every year There can be an end to it but it requires us to stand up and stop listening to those who are standing up FOR medical testing on animals. Read up! The Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) is not doing its job. In its 10 years of existence, ICCVAM has approved only one non-animal test method that originated in the U.S. This is not because there are no non-animal test methods—ICCVAM's European counterpart has approved more than 20 non-animal test methods. A recent landmark report by the National Academy of Sciences, our government's chief advisory body on science issues, entitled "Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century" called for the use of more efficient non-animal test methods for testing dangerous substances: "Recent advances in systems biology, testing in cells and tissues, and related scientific fields offer the potential to fundamentally change the way chemicals are tested for risks they may pose to humans. The new approach would generate more-relevant data to evaluate risks people face, expand the number of chemicals that could be scrutinized, and reduce the time, money, and animals involved in testing." Only WE can bring about this change guys, only WE can MAKE A DIFFERENCE but we have to join together
Main article: History of animal testing
An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump, from 1768, by Joseph Wright.
The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the second and fourth centuries BCE. Aristotle (Αριστοτέλης) (384-322 BCE) and Erasistratus (304-258 BCE) were among the first to perform experiments on living animals.[13] Galen, a physician in second-century Rome, dissected pigs and goats, and is known as the "father of vivisection."[14]
Animals have been used throughout the history of scientific research. In the 1880s, Louis Pasteur convincingly demonstrated the germ theory of medicine by inducing anthrax in sheep.[15] In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov famously used dogs to describe classical conditioning.[16] Insulin was first isolated from dogs in 1922, and revolutionized the treatment of diabetes.[17] On November 3, 1957, a Russian dog, Laika, became the first of many animals to orbit the earth. In the 1970s, antibiotic treatments and vaccines for leprosy were developed using armadillos,[18] then given to humans.[19] The ability of humans to change the genetics of animals took a large step forwards in 1974 when Rudolf Jaenisch was able to produce the first transgenic mammal, by integrating DNA from the SV40 virus into the genome of mice.[20] This genetic research progressed rapidly and, in 1996, Dolly the sheep was born, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.[21]
Claude Bernard, regarded as the "prince of vivisectors"[22] and one of the greatest men of science, argued that experiments on animals are "entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man,".[23]
Toxicology testing became important in the 20th century. In the 19th century, laws regulating drugs were more relaxed. For example, in the U.S., the government could only ban a drug after a company had been prosecuted for selling products that harmed customers. However, in response to a tragedy in 1937 where a drug labeled “Elixir of Sulfanilamide” killed more than 100 people, the U.S. congress passed laws that required safety testing of drugs on animals before they could be marketed. Other countries enacted similar legislation.[24] In the 1960s, in reaction to the Thalidomide tragedy, further laws were passed requiring safety testing on pregnant animals before a drug can be sold.[25]
The controversy surrounding animal testing dates back to the 17th century. In 1655, the advocate of Galenic physiology Edmund O'Meara said that "the miserable torture of vivisection places the body in an unnatural state."[26][27] O'Meara and others argued that animal physiology could be affected by pain during vivisection, rendering results unreliable. There were also objections on an ethical basis, contending that the benefit to humans did not justify the harm to animals.[27] Early objections to animal testing also came from another angle — many people believed that animals were inferior to humans and so different that results from animals could not be applied to humans.[27]
On the other side of the debate, those in favor of animal testing held that experiments on animals were necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge. Claude Bernard, known as the "prince of vivisectors"[22] and the father of physiology — whose wife, Marie Françoise Martin, founded the first anti-vivisection society in France in 1883[28] — famously wrote in 1865 that "the science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen".[29] Arguing that "experiments on animals ... are entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man...the effects of these substances are the same on man as on animals, save for differences in degree,"[23] Bernard established animal experimentation as part of the standard scientific method.[30] In 1896, the physiologist and physician Dr. Walter B. Cannon said “The antivivisectionists are the second of the two types Theodore Roosevelt described when he said, ‘Common sense without conscience may lead to crime, but conscience without common sense may lead to folly, which is the handmaiden of crime.’ ”[31] These divisions between pro- and anti- animal testing groups first came to public attention during the brown dog affair in the early 1900s, when hundreds of medical students clashed with anti-vivisectionists and police over a memorial to a vivisected dog.[32]
One of Pavlov’s dogs with a saliva-catch container and tube surgically implanted in his muzzle. Pavlov Museum, 2005
· In 1822, the first animal protection law was enacted in the British parliament, followed by the Cruelty to Animals Act (1876), the first law specifically aimed at regulating animal testing. The legislation was promoted by Charles Darwin, who wrote to Ray Lankester in March 1871: "You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall not sleep to-night."[33][34] Opposition to the use of animals in medical research first arose in the United States during the 1860s, when Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), with America's first specifically anti-vivisection organization being the American AntiVivisection Society (AAVS), founded in 1883. Antivivisectionists of the era generally believed the spread of mercy was the great cause of civilization, and vivisection was cruel. However, in the USA the antivivisectionists' efforts were defeated in every legislature, overwhelmed by the superior organization and influence of the medical community. Overall, this movement had little legislative success until the passing of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act, in 1966.[35]
[edit] Care and use of animals
See also: Animal testing regulations, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986
[edit] Regulations
The regulations that apply to animals in laboratories vary across species. In the U.S., under the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act and the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide), any procedure can be performed on an animal if it can be successfully argued that it is scientifically justified. In general, researchers are required to consult with the institution's veterinarian and its Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which every research facility is obliged to maintain.[36] The IACUC must ensure that alternatives, including non-animal alternatives, have been considered, that the experiments are not unnecessarily duplicative, and that pain relief is given unless it would interfere with the study. Larry Carbone, a laboratory animal veterinarian, writes that, in his experience, IACUCs take their work very seriously regardless of the species involved, though the use of non-human primates always raises what he calls a "red flag of special concern."[37]
1. Mice, rats, and birds are not included in the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act (though they are included in the Guide) and over the years, the definition of "animal" used by Congress and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has changed several times to ensure that certain animals are included in protective legislation and that others, particularly farm animals, are excluded.[38]
[edit] Numbers
Types of vertebrates used in animal testing in Europe in 2005: a total of 12.1 million animals were used.[39]
Accurate global figures for animal testing are difficult to obtain. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) estimates that 100 million vertebrates are experimented on around the world every year, 10–11 million of them in the European Union.[40] The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports that global annual estimates range from 50 to 100 million animals.
None of the figures, including those given in this article, include invertebrates, such as shrimp and fruit flies.[41] Animals bred for research then killed as surplus, animals used for breeding purposes, and animals not yet weaned (which most laboratories do not count)[42] are also not included in the figures.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the total number of animals used in that country in 2005 was almost 1.2 million,[43] but this does not include rats and mice, which make up about 90% of research animals.[44][45] In 1995, researchers at Tufts University Center for Animals and Public Policy estimated that 14-21 million animals were used in American laboratories in 1992, a reduction from a high of 50 million used in 1970.[46] In 1986, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment reported that estimates of the animals used in the U.S. range from 10 million to upwards of 100 million each year, and that their own best estimate was at least 17 million to 22 million.[47]
2. In the UK, Home Office figures show that nearly three million procedures were carried out in 2004 on just under the same number of animals.[48] It is the third consecutive annual rise and the highest figure since 1992.[49] Most animals are used in only one procedure: animals either die because of the experiment or are euthanized afterwards.[48][41] A "procedure" refers to an experiment that might last minutes, several months, or years
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