"Types of vertebrates v2en" by TimVickers at the English language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.

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"Types of vertebrates v2en" by TimVickers at the English language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons
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[Link]

Definitions[edit]
The terms animal testing, animal experimentation, animal research, in vivo testing, and vivisection have
similar denotations but different connotations. Literally, "vivisection" means the "cutting up" of a living animal, and
historically referred only to experiments that involved the dissection of live animals. The term is occasionally used to
refer pejoratively to any experiment using living animals; for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica defines
"vivisection" as: "Operation on a living animal for experimental rather than healing purposes; more broadly, all
experimentation on live animals", [11][17][18] although dictionaries point out that the broader definition is "used only by
people who are opposed to such work".[19] The word has a negative connotation, implying torture, suffering, and
death.[5] The word "vivisection" is preferred by those opposed to this research, whereas scientists typically use the
term "animal experimentation".[20][21]

Cats[edit]
Cats are most commonly used in neurological research. 24,221 cats were used in the U.S. in 2013, [92] around half of
whom were used in experiments which have the potential to cause "pain and/or distress" [93] though only 0.3% of cat
experiments involved potential pain which was not relieved by anesthetics/analgesics.
[Link]
Numbers[edit]

Types of vertebrates used in animal testing in Europe in 2005: a total of 12.1 million animals were used. [68]

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. [18][69] The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports that global annual estimates
range from 50 to 100 million animals. None of the figures include invertebrates such as shrimp and fruit flies. [70] Also
not included in the figures are animals bred for research and then killed as surplus, animals used for breeding
purposes, and animals not yet weaned. [3]
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the total number of animals used in that country in 2012
was almost 950,000,[71] down from almost 1.2 million in 2005,[72] but this figure does not include rats and mice, which
make up about 90% of research animals.[73][74] According to a 2015 article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics,
the use of animals in the United States has dramatically increased in recent years. Researchers found that this
increase is largely the result of an increased reliance on genetically modified mice in animal studies. [52]
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. [75] 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. [76]
In the UK, Home Office figures show that 4.11 million procedures were carried out in 2012. [77] 3,020 procedures used
non-human primates, down over 50% since 1988.[78] A "procedure" refers here to an experiment that might last
minutes, several months, or years. Most animals are used in only one procedure: animals are frequently euthanized
after the experiment; however death is the endpoint of some procedures. [70]

Ethics[edit]
Viewpoints[edit]
Further information: Animal welfare, Animal rights and History of animal testing
Monument for animals used in testing at Keio University

The ethical questions raised by performing experiments on animals are subject to much debate, and viewpoints
have shifted significantly over the 20th century.[215] There remain disagreements about which procedures are useful
for which purposes, as well as disagreements over which ethical principles apply to which species.
A 2015 Gallup poll found that 67% of Americans were “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about animals
used in research.[216]A Pew poll taken the same year found 50% of American adults opposed the use of animals in
research.[217]
Still, a wide range of viewpoints exist. The view that animals have moral rights (animal rights) is a philosophical
position proposed byTom Regan, among others, who argues that animals are beings with beliefs and desires, and
as such are the "subjects of a life" with moral value and therefore moral rights. [218] Regan still sees ethical differences
between killing human and non-human animals, and argues that to save the former it is permissible to kill the latter.
Likewise, a "moral dilemma" view suggests that avoiding potential benefit to humans is unacceptable on similar
grounds, and holds the issue to be a dilemma in balancing such harm to humans to the harm done to animals in
research.[219] In contrast, an abolitionist view in animal rights holds that there is no moral justification for any harmful
research on animals that is not to the benefit of the individual animal. [219] Bernard Rollin argues that benefits to
human beings cannot outweigh animal suffering, and that human beings have no moral right to use an animal in
ways that do not benefit that individual. Another prominent position is that of philosopher Peter Singer, who argues
that there are no grounds to include a being's species in considerations of whether their suffering is important
in utilitarian moral considerations.[220] Malcolm Macleod and collaborators argue that most controlled animal studies
do not employ randomization, allocation concealment, and blinding outcome assessment, and that failure to employ
these features exaggerates the apparent benefit of drugs tested in animals, leading to a failure to translate much
animal research for human benefit.[221][222][223][224][225]
Governments such as the Netherlands and New Zealand have responded to the public's concerns by outlawing
invasive experiments on certain classes of non-human primates, particularly the great apes.[226][227] In 2015, captive
chimpanzees in the U.S. were added to the Endangered Species Act adding new road blocks to those wishing to
experiment on them.[228] Similarly, citing ethical considerations and the availability of alternative research methods,
the U.S. NIH announced in 2013 that it would dramatically reduce and eventually phase out experiments on
chimpanzees.[229]
The British government has required that the cost to animals in an experiment be weighed against the gain in
knowledge.[230] Some medical schools and agencies in China, Japan, and South Korea have built cenotaphs for killed
animals.[231] In Japan there are also annual memorial services (Ireisai 慰霊祭) for animals sacrificed at medical
school.
Dolly the sheep: the first cloneproduced from an adult animal

Various specific cases of animal testing have drawn attention, including both instances of beneficial scientific
research, and instances of alleged ethical violations by those performing the tests. The fundamental properties
of muscle physiology were determined with work done using frog muscles (including the force generating
mechanism of all muscle,[232] the length-tension relationship, [233] and the force-velocity curve[234]), and frogs are still the
preferred model organism due to the long survival of muscles in vitro and the possibility of isolating intact single-
fiber preparations (not possible in other organisms).[235] Modernphysical therapy and the understanding and
treatment of muscular disorders is based on this work and subsequent work in mice (often engineered to express
disease states such as muscular dystrophy).[236] In February 1997 a team at the Roslin Institute in Scotland
announced the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.[33]

Footage filmed by PETA insideHuntingdon Life Sciences showed staff mistreating beagles.

Concerns have been raised over the mistreatment of primates undergoing testing. In 1985 the case of Britches, a
macaque monkey at the University of California, Riverside, gained public attention. He had his eyelids sewn shut
and a sonar sensor on his head as part of an experiment to test sensory substitution devices for blind people. The
laboratory was raided by Animal Liberation Front in 1985, removing Britches and 466 other animals.[237] The National
Institutes of Health conducted an eight-month investigation and concluded, however, that no corrective action was
necessary.[238] During the 2000s other cases have made headlines, including experiments at the University of
Cambridge[239] and Columbia University in 2002.[240] In 2004 and 2005, undercover footage of staff of Covance's,
a contract research organization that provides animal testing services, Virginialab was shot by People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA). Following release of the footage, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Covance
$8,720 for 16 citations, three of which involved lab monkeys; the other citations involved administrative issues and
equipment.[241][242] In 1997 PETA filmed staff from Huntingdon Life Sciences, showing dogs being mistreated.[243][244] The
employees responsible were dismissed,[245] with two given community service orders and ordered to pay £250 costs,
the first lab technicians to have been prosecuted for animal cruelty in the UK. [246]

Threats to researchers[edit]
In 2006, a primate researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) shut down the experiments in his
lab after threats from animal rights activists. The researcher had received a grant to use 30 macaque monkeys for
vision experiments; each monkey was anesthetized for a single physiological experiment lasting up to 120 hours,
and then euthanized.[247] The researcher's name, phone number, and address were posted on the website of
the Primate Freedom Project. Demonstrations were held in front of his home. A Molotov cocktail was placed on the
porch of what was believed to be the home of another UCLA primate researcher; instead, it was accidentally left on
the porch of an elderly woman unrelated to the university. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the
attack.[248] As a result of the campaign, the researcher sent an email to the Primate Freedom Project stating "you
win," and "please don't bother my family anymore."[249] In another incident at UCLA in June 2007, the Animal
Liberation Brigade placed a bomb under the car of a UCLA children's ophthalmologist who experiments on cats and
rhesus monkeys; the bomb had a faulty fuse and did not detonate. [250] UCLA is now refusing Freedom of Information
Act requests for animal medical records.
These attacks—as well as similar incidents that caused the Southern Poverty Law Center to declare in 2002 that the
animal rights movement had "clearly taken a turn toward the more extreme"—prompted the US government to pass
the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and the UK government to add the offense of "Intimidation of persons
connected with animal research organisation" to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.[251] Such
legislation and the arrest and imprisonment of extremists may have decreased the incidence of attacks. [252]

Pain and suffering[edit]

Further information: Animal cognition, Pain in animals and Pain in invertebrates

Prior to dissection for educational purposes, chloroform was administered to this common sand frogto induce anesthesia and
death.

The extent to which animal testing causes pain and suffering, and the capacity of animals to experience and
comprehend them, is the subject of much debate.[124][125]
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2006 about 670,000 animals (57%) (not including rats, mice,
birds, or invertebrates) were used in procedures that did not include more than momentary pain or distress. About
420,000 (36%) were used in procedures in which pain or distress was relieved by anesthesia, while 84,000 (7%)
were used in studies that would cause pain or distress that would not be relieved. [72]
In the UK, research projects are classified as mild, moderate, and substantial in terms of the suffering the
researchers conducting the study say they may cause; a fourth category of "unclassified" means the animal
was anesthetized and killed without recovering consciousness, according to the researchers. In December 2001,
1,296 (39%) of project licenses in force were classified as mild, 1,811 (55%) as moderate, 63 (2%) as substantial,
and 139 (4%) as unclassified.[126] There have, however, been suggestions of systemic underestimation of procedure
severity.[127]
The idea that animals might not feel pain as human beings feel it traces back to the 17th-century French
philosopher, René Descartes, who argued that animals do not experience pain and suffering because they
lack consciousness.[70][128] Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University, the principal author of two U.S. federal laws
regulating pain relief for animals,[129] writes that researchers remained unsure into the 1980s as to whether animals
experience pain, and that veterinarians trained in the U.S. before 1989 were simply taught to ignore animal pain.
[130]
 In his interactions with scientists and other veterinarians, he was regularly asked to "prove" that animals are
conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" grounds for claiming that they feel pain. [130] Carbone writes that
the view that animals feel pain differently is now a minority view. Academic reviews of the topic are more equivocal,
noting that although the argument that animals have at least simple conscious thoughts and feelings has strong
support,[131] some critics continue to question how reliably animal mental states can be determined. [70][132] The ability of
invertebrate species of animals, such as insects, to feel pain and suffering is also unclear. [133][134]
The defining text on animal welfare regulation—the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals—defines the
parameters that govern animal testing in the USA. It states "The ability to experience and respond to pain is
widespread in the animal kingdom...Pain is a stressor and, if not relieved, can lead to unacceptable levels of stress
and distress in animals."[135] The Guide states that the ability to recognize the symptoms of pain in different species is
vital in efficiently applying pain relief and that it is essential for the people caring for and using animals to be entirely
familiar with these symptoms. On the subject of analgesics used to relieve pain, the Guide states "The selection of
the most appropriate analgesic or anesthetic should reflect professional judgment as to which best meets clinical
and humane requirements without compromising the scientific aspects of the research protocol". Accordingly, all
issues of animal pain and distress, and their potential treatment with analgesia and anesthesia, are required
regulatory issues in receiving animal protocol approval.

Alternatives to animal testing[edit]

Main article: Alternatives to animal testing

Many scientists and governments state that animal testing should cause as little suffering to animals as possible,
and that animal tests should only be performed where necessary. The "Three Rs"[50][136] are guiding principles for the
use of animals in research in most countries. Whilst replacement of animals, i.e. alternatives to animal testing, is
one of the principles, their scope is much broader. [253] Although such principles have been welcomed as a step
forwards by some animal welfare groups,[254]they have also been criticized as both outdated by current research,
[255]
 and of little practical effect in improving animal welfare. [256]
The scientists and engineers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have created "organs-on-a-chip", including the "lung-on-a-
chip" and "gut-on-a-chip". These tiny devices contain human cells in a 3-dimensional system that mimics human
organs. The chips can be used—instead of animals in in vitro disease research, drug testing, and toxicity testing.
[257]
 Researchers have also begun using 3-D bioprinters to create human cells for in vitro testing.[258]
A synthetic combination of chemicals that mimics a liver has also been developed by scientists. This stand-in liver
may be used to test drugs for metabolic toxicity.[259]
Another non-animal research method is in silico or computer simulation and mathematical modeling which seeks to
investigate and ultimately predict toxicity and drug affects in humans without using animals. This is done by
investigating test compounds on a molecular level using recent advances in technological capabilities with the
ultimate goal of creating treatments unique to each patient. [260][261]
Microdosing is another alternative to the use of animals in experimentation. Microdosing is a process whereby
volunteers are administered a small dose of a test compound allowing researchers to investigate its
pharmacological affects without harming the volunteers. Microdosing can replace the use of animals in pre-clinical
drug screening and can reduce the number of animals used in safety and toxicity testing. [262]
Additional alternative methods include positron emission tomography (PET), which allows scanning of the human
brain in vivo,[263] and comparative epidemiologicalstudies of disease risk factors among human populations.[264]
Simulators and computer programs have also replaced the use of animals in dissection, teaching and training
exercises.[265][266]
Official bodies such as the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Test Methods of the European
Commission, the Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Validation of Alternative Methods in the US, [267] ZEBET
in Germany,[268] and the Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods [269] (among others) also promote
and disseminate the 3Rs. These bodies are mainly driven by responding to regulatory requirements, such as
supporting the cosmetics testing ban in the EU by validating alternative methods.
The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing serves as a liaison between the European
Commission and industries.[270] The European Consensus Platform for Alternatives coordinates efforts amongst EU
member states.[271]
Academic centers also investigate alternatives, including the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the Johns
Hopkins University[272] and the NC3Rs in the UK.[273]

Source: Wikipedia

Facts and FiguresUnited

States (2013)(1,2)
 1.04 million animals
used in experiments
Source: [Link] (excluding rats, mice,
birds, reptiles,
Animal Experiments: Overview amphibians, and
agricultural animals used
Each year, more than 100 million animals—including mice, rats, frogs,
in agricultural
dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are experiments), plus an
killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity- estimated 100 million
driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. mice and rats
Before their deaths, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are Canada (2011)(3)
immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into
their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords  3.33 million animals
crushed. In addition to the torment of the actual experiments, animals in used in experiments
laboratories are deprived of everything that is natural and important to  128,873 animals
them—they are confined to barren cages, socially isolated, and subjected to “severe pain
near, at, or above the
psychologically traumatized. The thinking, feeling animals who are used
pain tolerance threshold
in experiments are treated like nothing more than disposable laboratory of unanesthetized
equipment. conscious animals”
United Kingdom (2013)(4)
Wasteful and Unreliable
Pew Research Center poll have found that 50 percent of U.S. adults  4.12 million
oppose the use of animals in scientific research, and other surveys experiments on animals
suggest that the shrinking group that does accept animal  2.94 million without
experimentation does so only because it believes it to be necessary for anesthesia
medical progress.(5,6) The reality is that the majority of animal
experiments do not contribute to improving human health, and the value
of the role that animal experimentation plays in most medical advances
is questionable.

In an article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that
medical treatments developed in animals rarely translated to humans and warned that “patients and
physicians should remain cautious about extrapolating the finding of prominent animal research to the
care of human disease … poor replication of even high-quality animal studies should be expected by
those who conduct clinical research.”(7)

Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in a laboratory, whether they be mice or monkeys, are
never identical to those that occur naturally in human beings. And because animal species differ from
one another biologically in many significant ways, it becomes even more unlikely that animal
experiments will yield results that will be correctly interpreted and applied to the human condition in a
meaningful way.

For example, according to former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner, “We have
cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans.”(8) This conclusion was
echoed by former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who acknowledged
that experimenting on animals has been a boondoggle. “We have moved away from studying human
disease in humans,” he said. “We all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. … The problem is
that it hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem. … We need to refocus
and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.”(9)

The data is sobering: Although at least 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been successful in nonhuman
primate studies, as of 2015, every one has failed to protect humans.(10) In one case, an AIDS
vaccine that was shown to be effective in monkeys failed in human clinical trials because it did not
prevent people from developing AIDS, and some believe that it made them more susceptible to the
disease. According to a report in the British newspaper The Independent, one conclusion from the
failed study was that “testing HIV vaccines on monkeys before they are used on humans, does not in
fact work.”(11)

These are not anomalies. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stated, “Currently, nine out of
ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will
behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.”(12)

Research published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that universities commonly

exaggerate findings from animal experiments conducted in their laboratories and “often promote
research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide key facts or acknowledge
important limitations.”(13) One study of media coverage of scientific meetings concluded that news
stories often omit crucial information and that “the public may be misled about the validity and
relevance of the science presented.”(14) Because experimenters rarely publish results of failed
animal studies, other scientists and the public do not have ready access to information on the
ineffectiveness of animal experimentation.

Funding and Accountability

Through their taxes, charitable donations, and purchases of lottery tickets and consumer products,
members of the public are ultimately the ones who—knowingly or unknowingly—fund animal
experimentation. One of the largest sources of funding comes from publicly funded government
granting agencies such as NIH. Approximately 47 percent of NIH-funded research involves
experimentation on nonhuman animals, and in 2012, NIH budgeted nearly $30 billion for research
and development.(15,16) In addition, many charities––including the March of Dimes, the American
Cancer Society, and countless others—use donations to fund experiments on animals. One-third of
the projects funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society involve animal experimentation.(17)
Visit [Link] to find out which charities do and which do not fund research on animals.

Despite the vast amount of public funds being used to underwrite animal experimentation, it is nearly
impossible for the public to obtain current and complete information regarding the animal experiments
that are being carried out in their communities or funded with their tax dollars. State open-records
laws and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act can be used to obtain documents and information from
state institutions, government agencies, and other federally funded facilities, but private companies,
contract labs, and animal breeders are exempt. In many cases, institutions that are subject to open-
records laws fight vigorously to withhold information about animal experimentation from the public.
(18)
Oversight and Regulation
Despite the countless animals killed each year in laboratories worldwide, most countries have grossly
inadequate regulatory measures in place to protect animals from suffering and distress or to prevent
them from being used when a non-animal approach is readily available. In the U.S., the species most
commonly used in experiments (mice, rats, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians) comprise 99% of all
animals in laboratories but are specifically exempted from even the minimal protections of the federal
Animal Welfare Act (AWA).(19,20) Many laboratories that use only these species are not required by
law to provide animals with pain relief or veterinary care, to search for and consider alternatives to
animal use, to have an institutional committee review proposed experiments, or to be inspected by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) or any other entity. Some estimates indicate that as many
as 800 U.S. laboratories are not subject to federal laws and inspections because they experiment
exclusively on mice, rats, and other animals whose use is largely unregulated.(21)

As for the more than 11,000 facilities that the USDA does regulate (of which more than 1,200 are
designated for “research”), only 120 USDA inspectors are employed to oversee their operations.(22)
Reports have repeatedly concluded that even the minimal standards set forth by the AWA are not
being met by these facilities, and institutionally based oversight bodies, called Institutional Animal
Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), have failed to carry out their mandate. A 1995 report by the
USDA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) “found that the activities of the IACUCs did not always
meet the standards of the AWA. Some IACUCs did not ensure that unnecessary or repetitive
experiments would not be performed on laboratory animals.”(23) In 2000, a USDA survey of the
agency’s laboratory inspectors revealed serious problems in numerous areas, including “the search
for alternatives [and] review of painful procedures.”(24) A September 2005 audit report issued by the
OIG found ongoing “problems with the search for alternative research, veterinary care, review of
painful procedures, and the researchers’ use of animals.”(25) In December 2014, an OIG report
documented continuing problems with laboratories failing to comply with the minimal AWA standards
and the USDA’s weak enforcement actions failing to deter future violations. The audit highlighted that
from 2009 to 2011, USDA inspectors cited 531 experimentation facilities for 1,379 violations
stemming from the IACUCs’ failure to adequately review and monitor the use of animals. The audit
also determined that in 2012, the USDA reduced its penalties to AWA violators by an average of 86
percent, even in cases involving animal deaths and egregious violations.(26)

Research co-authored by PETA documented that, on average, animal experimenters and laboratory
veterinarians comprise a combined 82 percent of the membership of IACUCs at leading U.S.
institutions. A whopping 98.6 percent of the leadership of these IACUCs was also made up of animal
experimenters. The authors observed that the dominant role played by animal experimenters on
these committees “may dilute input from the few IACUC members representing animal welfare and
the general public, contribute to previously-documented committee bias in favor of approving animal
experiments and reduce the overall objectivity and effectiveness of the oversight system.”(27) Even
when facilities are fully compliant with the law, animals who are covered can be burned, shocked,
poisoned, isolated, starved, forcibly restrained, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged. No procedures
or experiments, regardless of how trivial or painful they may be, are prohibited by federal law. When
valid non-animal research methods are available, no federal law requires experimenters to use such
methods instead of animals.

The Way Forward

A high-profile study published in the prestigious BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) documenting
the ineffectiveness and waste of experimentation on animals concluded that “if research conducted
on animals continues to be unable to reasonably predict what can be expected in humans, the
public’s continuing endorsement and funding of preclinical animal research seems misplaced.”(28)
 Research with human volunteers, sophisticated computational methods, and in vitro studies based on
human cells and tissues are critical to the advancement of medicine. Cutting-edge non-animal
research methods are available and have been shown time and again to be more accurate than
crude animal experiments.(29) However, this modern research requires a different outlook, one that is
creative and compassionate and embraces the underlying philosophy of ethical science. Human
health and well-being can also be promoted by adopting nonviolent methods of scientific investigation
and concentrating on the prevention of disease before it occurs, through lifestyle modification and the
prevention of further environmental pollution and degradation. The public is becoming more aware
and more vocal about the cruelty and inadequacy of the current research system and is demanding
that tax dollars and charitable donations not be used to fund experiments on animals.

Source: [Link]
action-network/forty-reasons-why-we-need-animals-in-research/

Forty reasons why we need animals in research

These points have been drawn up to provide an accessible resource for anybody discussing animals in research.
We are happy to take your suggestions to add to our list.

General points
 Animal research has played a vital part in nearly every medical breakthrough over the last decade.
 Nearly every Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine since 1901 has relied on animal data for their research.
 We share 95% of our genes with a mouse, making them an effective model for the human body.
 Animals and humans are very similar; we have the same organ systems performing the same tasks in more or less
the same way.
 Animals suffer from similar diseases to humans including cancers, TB, flu and asthma.
 All veterinary research has relied on the use of animal research.
 While non-animal methods play an important part of biomedical research, they cannot replace all use of animals.
 In vitro methods and computer modelling play an important part complementing data from animal models.
 Many veterinary medicines are the same as those used for human patients: examples include antibiotics, pain
killers and tranquillisers.
 Modern anaesthetics, the tetanus vaccine, penicillin and insulin all relied on animal research in their development.
 Modern surgical techniques including hip replacement surgery, kidney transplants, heart transplants and blood
transfusions were all perfected in animals.
 Scanning techniques including CT and MRI were developed using non-human animals.
Medical Examples
 Thanks to animal research, primarily in mice, cancer survival rates have continued to rise.
 Herceptin – a humanised mouse protein – has helped to increase the survival rate of those with breast cancer; it
could not have been attained without animal research in mice.
 Thanks to research on animals leading to the development of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapies (HAART),
AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was 30 years ago.
 While Fleming discovered penicillin without using animals, he shared the Nobel Prize with Florey and Chain
who, by testing it on mice, discovered how penicillin could be used to fight infections inside the body.
 Animal research is responsible for the development of asthma inhalers; asthma still kills around 2,000 people in
the UK every year.
 Animal research has helped develop modern vaccines including those against Polio, TB, Meningitis and, recently,
the human papillomavirus (HPV) which has been linked to cervical cancer.
 The development of Tamoxifen in animals led to a 30% fall in death rates from breast cancer in the 1990s.
 The 450,000 people in the UK suffering from Type I diabetes rely on Insulin – which was developed through
experiments in rabbits and dogs.
 Smallpox has been eradicated from Earth thanks to research in animals.
Statistics
 Dogs, cats and primates altogether account for less than 0.2% of research animals.
 97% of research in the UK is done on mice, rats, fish and birds.
 The UK consumes over 300 times more fish each year than the total number of all animals used in medical
research each year.
 Household cats kill approximately 5 million animals every week – more than the total number of animals used in
medical research every year.
 The UK will consume more chickens this year than the total number of all animals used in medical research over
the past two centuries in Britain.
Regulation
 The UK has some of the highest standards of laboratory animal welfare in the world.
 All research in the UK must be approved by the Home Office, furthermore, the researchers and the institutions
doing the research must be licensed by the Home Office.
 Ethics committees exist to ensure that the potential benefits of research outweigh any suffering to the animals.
Animal welfare is underpinned by the 3Rs – there is a legal requirement to replace animals with alternatives, refine
experimental techniques and reduce the numbers of animals used in research.
 Animal research can only be carried out in the UK where there is no suitable non-animal alternative.
Quotes
 “Americans are living longer, healthier lives and we owe much of that success to biomedical research,”Dr Robert
Palazzo, President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
 “Animal research and testing has played a part in almost every medical breakthrough of the last century. It has
saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide...” – Former UK Home Office minister Joan Ryan.
 According to the House of Lords Select Committee “experiments on animals have contributed greatly to scientific
advances”.
 The Nuffield Council on Bioethics noted that “producing a new medicine is a lengthy and complex process …
Tests on animals play a vital role”.
 The former CEO of the Medical Research Council, Prof Colin Blakemore, stated that "[primates] are used only
when no other species and no alternative approach can provide the answers to questions about such conditions as
Alzheimer’s, stroke, Parkinson's, spinal injury, hormone disorders, and vaccines for HIV"
 Albert Sabin, who developed the Polio vaccine said, "Without animal research, polio would still be claiming
thousands of lives each year.”
Reponses
 Cosmetic testing is illegal in the UK.
 In 2012, no testing of household products was carried out using animals in the UK.
 Great apes (orang-utans, bonobos, gorillas and chimpanzees) cannot be used for research in the UK
Last edited: 11 September 2014 09:30

Source: [Link]
it/arguments-against-animal-testing

Arguments against animal testing

Animal experiments are cruel, unreliable, and even

dangerous
The harmful use of animals in experiments is not only cruel but also often
ineffective. Animals do not get many of the human diseases that people do, such as
major types of heart disease, many types of cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s disease, or
schizophrenia.  Instead, signs of these diseases are artificially induced  in animals
in laboratories in an attempt to mimic the  human disease. Yet, such experiments
belittle the complexity of human conditions which are affected by wide-ranging
variables such as genetics, socio-economic factors, deeply-rooted psychological
issues and different personal experiences.

It is not surprising to find that treatments showing ‘promise’ in animals rarely work in
humans. Not only are time, money and animals’ lives being wasted (with a huge
amount of suffering), but effective treatments are being mistakenly discarded and
harmful treatments are getting through. The support for animal testing is based
largely on anecdote and is not backed up, we believe, by the scientific evidence that
is out there.

Despite many decades of studying conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease,

Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, stroke and AIDS in animals, we do not yet have
reliable and fully effective cures.

 The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse.
We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human
beings. Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the US National Cancer Institute
Unreliable animal testing

 95% of drugs fail in human trials despite promising results in animal tests –
whether on safety grounds or because they do not work
 Using dogs, rats, mice and rabbits to test whether or not a drug will be safe for
humans provides little statistically useful insight, our recent analysis found
 Out of 93 dangerous drug side effects, only 19% could have been predicted by
animal tests, a recent study found
 Using mice and rats to test the safety of drugs in humans is only accurate 43%
of the time, a recent study found

Wasteful animal testing

 Despite the use of over 115 million animals in experiments globally each year,
on average only 25 new medicines are approved annually by the leading drug
regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Many of these are for rare
diseases.
 The US drug industry invests $50 billion per year in research, but the approval
rate of new drugs is the same as it was 50 years ago.
 Only 6% of 4,300 international companies involved in drug development have
registered a new drug with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1950.
 Even those drugs that are approved are not universally effective due to
individual reactions - the top ten highest-grossing drugs in the USA only help
between 1 in 4 and 1 in 25 people who take them
  Of over 1,000 potential stroke treatments that had been ‘successful’ in animal
tests, only approximately 10% progressed to human trials.  None worked
sufficiently well in humans.
 A review of 101 high impact basic science discoveries based on animal
experiments found that only 5% resulted in approved treatments within 20
years.

Dangerous animal testing

 Vioxx, a drug used to treat arthritis, was found to be safe when tested in
monkeys (and five other animal species) but has been estimated to have
caused around 320,000 heart attacks and strokes and 140,000 deaths
worldwide.  
 Human volunteers testing a new monoclonal antibody treatment (TGN1412) at
Northwick Park Hospital, UK in 2006 suffered a severe allergic reaction and
nearly died. Testing on monkeys at 500 times the dose given to the volunteers
totally failed to predict the dangerous side effects.
 A clinical trial of Hepatitis B drug fialuridine had to be stopped because it
caused severe liver damage in seven patients, five of whom died.  It had been
tested on animals first.
 Only one third of substances known to cause cancer in humans have been
shown to cause cancer in animals.

Animals are different

 Animals do not get many of the diseases we do, such as Parkinson’s disease,
major types of heart disease, many types of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV
or schizophrenia.
 An analysis of over 100 mouse cell types found that only 50% of the DNA
responsible for regulating genes in mice could be matched with human DNA.
 The most commonly used species of monkey to test drug safety
(Cynomolgous macaque monkeys), are resistant to doses of paracetamol
(acetaminophen) that would be deadly in humans.
 Chocolate, grapes, raisins, avocados and macadamia nuts are harmless in
people but toxic to dogs.
 Aspirin is toxic to many animals, including cats, mice and rats and would not
be on our pharmacy shelves if it had been tested according to current animal
testing standards. 
Source: [Link]
why-animal-testing-is-pointless/

33 Reasons Why Animal Testing Is Pointless

Dagmar

Over a year ago

1) Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals. Over 98% never affect animals.

2) According to the former scientific executive of Huntingdon Life Sciences, animal tests and human results agree “5%-25% of the
time.”

3) Among the hundreds of techniques available instead of animal experiments, cell culture toxicology methods give accuracy rates of
80-85%

4) 92% of drugs passed by animal tests immediately fail when first tried on humans because they’re useless, dangerous or both.

5) The two most common illnesses in the Western world are lung cancer from smoking and heart disease. Neither can be reproduced in
lab animals.

6) A 2004 survey of doctors in the UK showed that 83% wanted a independent scientific evaluation of whether animal experiments had
relevance to human patients. Less than 1 in 4 (21%) had more confidence in animal tests than in non-animal methods.

7) Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer to humans – less use than guessing. The experimenters said: “we would
have been better off to have tossed a coin.”

8) Rodents are the animals almost always used in cancer research. They never get carcinomas, the human form of cancer, which
affects membranes (eg lung cancer). Their sarcomas affect bone and connective tissue: the two are completely different.
9) The results from animal tests are routinely altered radically by diet, light, noise, temperature, lab staff and bedding. Bedding
differences caused cancer rates of over 90% and almost zero in the same strain of mice at different labs.

10)Sex differences among lab animals can cause contradictory results. This does not correspond with humans.

11) 75% of side effects identified in animals never occur.

12) Over half of side effects cannot be detected in lab animals.

13) Vioxx was shown to protect the heart of mice, dogs, monkeys and other lab animals. It was linked to heart attacks and strokes in up
to 139,000 humans.

14) Genetically modified animals are not like humans. The mdx mouse is supposed to have muscular dystrophy, but the muscles
regenerate with no treatment.

15) GM animal the CF- mouse never gets fluid infections in the lungs – the cause of death for 95% of human cystic fibrosis patients.

16) In America, 106,000 deaths a year are attributed to reactions to medical drugs.

17) Each year 2.1 million Americans are hospitalised by medical treatment.

18) In the UK an estimated 70,000 people are killed or severely disabled every year by unexpected reactions to drugs. All these drugs
have passed animal tests.

19) In the UKs House Of Lords questions have been asked regarding why unexpected reactions to drugs (which passed animal tests)
kill more people than cancer.

20) A German doctors’ congress concluded that 6% of fatal illnesses and 25% of organic illness are caused by medicines. All have
been animal tested.

21) According to a thorough study, 88% of stillbirths are caused by drugs which passed animal tests.

22) 61% of birth defects were found to have the same cause.

23) 70% of drugs which cause human birth defects are safe in pregnant monkeys.

24) 78% of foetus-damaging chemicals can be detected by one non-animal test.

25) Thousands of safe products cause birth defects in lab animals – including water, several vitamins, vegetable oils, oxygen and
drinking waters. Of more than 1000 substances dangerous in lab animals, over 97% are safe in humans.

26) One of the most common lifesaving operation (for ectopic pregnancies) was delayed 40 years by vivisection.

27) The great Dr Hadwen noted “had animal experiments been relied upon…humanity would have been robbed of this great blessing of
anaesthesia.”

28) Aspirin fails animal tests, as do digitalis (heart drug), cancer drugs, insulin (which causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other
safe medicines. They would be banned if vivisection were believed.

29) Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies.

30) The polio vaccine was delayed 40 years by monkey tests.

31) 30 HIV vaccines, 33 spinal cord damage drugs, and over 700 treatments for stroke have been developed in animals. None work in
humans.

32) Despite many Nobel prizes going to vivisectors, only 45% agree that animal experiments are crucial.

33) The Director of Research Defence Society, (which serves only to defend vivisection) was asked if medical progress could have
been achieved without animal use. His written reply was “I am sure it could be.”

See 50 disasters of animal testing here.

References

1) Page, Dr T, “Vivisection Unveiled”, John Carpenter, 1997, p6

2) ‘Animal Toxicity Studies:Their relevance to man Lumley & Walker (ed) pp57-67, Quay, 1989
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311, [Link]
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19) Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Lords Hansard report 2/12/98
20) Professor Hoff, Congress of clinical medicine, Wiesbaden, 1976
21) Munchner Medizinische Wochenschrift, no 34 1969 quoted in Hans Reusch “Slaughter of the Innocent”, p365
22) Munchner Medizinische Wochenschrift, no 34 1969 quoted in Hans Reusch “Slaughter of the Innocent”, p365
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26) Birmingham Daily Post, 4/10/1892
27) Dr Hadwen ‘The difficulties of Deguerre, p357, & General Anaesthesia, Gray/Utting/Nunn, p152
28) Aspirin & Insulin Hans Reush, “Slaughter..”, p364:Cancer, NAVS Campaigner 1988 Jab/Feb):Digitalis, Page “Viv. Unv.” p9 Penicillin
, Mark Matfield, r2, Brian Hayes Show,19/4/94
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Gastiglioni, A History of Medicine, (1947 edition translated by E.B. Krumbhaer) Ryerson Press, 1941
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