This article by Abigail Geer was published in November, 2013 on http://www.care2.com

Animal testing is unethical, inhumane and completely unnecessary. With so many alternatives available to us, how can we justify the poisoning, burning, shocking and killing of more than 100 million animals each year causing them unimaginable pain, fear and loneliness?

Thousands of animals suffer and die every day in laboratories around the world, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If we truly want to improve our lives and the lives of others, we need to cut out the use of animals altogether.

Why Animal Testing Doesn’t Work

More and more scientists are taking a hard look at the relevance of animal experiments for human diseases and improving our lives. The evidence is showing that we can actually get much better answers about human health and develop much more effective therapies if we use human based tests instead. Some of the main reasons animal testing is ineffective are:

·       Animals are not little humans, and although we might share most of our genes with other mammals, our physiology and the way our genes actually function are critically different.

·       Animals don’t suffer from human diseases and the longer we waste trying to recreate these illnesses in animals, rather than studying their human form, the less chance we will have of understanding and curing them.

·       The distress that laboratory animals are forced to endure has been proven to cause unpredictable changes in neurochemistry, genetic expression and nerve regeneration, leading to unreliable and ineffective results.

·       9 out of 10 drugs that appear promising in animal studies go on to fail in human clinical trials because it is not possible to accurately predict how they will behave in people.

·       Relying on animal experimentation in some cases impedes and delays discovery of drugs and procedures that may be beneficial to humans because they fail in animal testing.

Cruelty Free Alternatives to Animal Testing

Nearly 100 alternatives to animal testing have been discovered, many of which have proven highly effective, highlighting the fact that there is absolutely no need to continue this barbaric and archaic practice. Here are just some of the viable alternatives :

In-Vitro – The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2007 that scientific progress was such that they would “transform toxicity testing from a system based on whole-animal testing to one based primarily on in-vitro methods.”

Organs-on-a-Chip – Instead of conducting toxicity tests, drug tests and disease research on live animals, Harvard’s Wyass Institute has devised an effective organ-on-a-chip process in which human cells are used to create mini organ simulations.

Human Brain Imaging – Advances in brain scanning and imaging techniques mean that it’s now possible to collect a wealth of usable data and statistics which is far more useful than the questionable data collected from cutting into the brains of monkeys, cats and rats.

Human Blood Testing – Instead of killing hundreds of thousands of rabbits each year in “pyrogen” tests, scientists can now test for fever-causing contaminants in medicines by using human blood samples.

Microdosing ­– When test patients are given a microdose of a drug which is well within safe limits, advanced imaging techniques can be used to detect the way the body breaks down the substances.

Many people believe that animals are here for humans to use, and even if we have to sacrifice 100,000 animals in the hope of benefiting one person, then it is worth it. But the truth is that ethical human-based tests will better help our loved ones and save millions of animals annually.

Vivisectors and pro-animal testing advocates are running out of excuses. There is a better, more kind way. Show your support by choosing to buy only cruelty-free products.

In our next electronic newsletter, we’ll bring you information on cruelty-free products.