Experimentation
Animals in Laboratories
Cosmetic testing is still done in overseas countries, even though safe products can be made without animal testing. If you want a fairly short and simple document, start with this one.
Drug testing still involves large numbers of animals, and a lot of suffering. Diseases are produced in animals to see if a new chemical will cure them. Many diseases, like cancer and AIDS infection, can be studied with human tissue in test tubes. Animal tests don't prove the safety of drugs - drugs which have passed these tests can still cause major problems in humans.
Safety testing is done for cleaning, industrial and agricultural products as well as cosmetics and drugs. There are tests for skin and eye irritation, where products are placed in the eyes and on the skin of rabbits. There are tests for toxicity, where the products are fed to animals. Products are also fed to pregnant animals to see if the babies will be deformed. Very high doses are fed to animals for 2 years to see if the product causes cancer.
Here are some questions and answers you might be interested in. For example, how can we fight killer diseases like cancer without animal experiments?
It is possible to do research without animals , and such research is already going on. There are safe ways to study living humans. Autopsies on people after death provide valuable information. Cell culture methods allow drugs and diseases to be studied with human tissues. Micro-organisms can be useful for some tests.
Find out about the negative side of Cloning and other forms of genetic engineering - the animals that die late in pregnancy or soon after birth, and those that have major abnormalities. Media stories don't tell you how low the success rate of cloning is - find out for yourself.
What are the problems with using animals for Organ transplants ? What are the alternatives?
Some school students still do Dissections . In Tertiary education, students not only do dissections, but also experiments with animals. These exercises are unnecessary - students learn just as much without using animals. There is no shortage of alternatives - the NORINA database now lists 3,700 alternatives to animals in teaching, and the list is growing rapidly.
Why is it wrong to experiment on animals? Go to animal rights and find out.
You can find out about laboratories & the law , and you can find out the facts and figures of how many animals are experimented on, what species, and for what purposes.