Vivisection and Laboratory Testing
"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on
animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the
experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the
answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us."
--Professor Charles Magel
More commonly referred to as animal testing, vivisection is an act
that is practised by numerous corporations around the world. It is
also an act that is opposed by every animal rights group, and the vast
majority of compassionate human beings. Ostensibly used to protect
people from harmful products, animal testing ensures our safety at a
tremendous cost. The suffering laboratory animals endure at the hands
of scientists ranges from injections of possibly lethal drugs, to
burning of the skin and eyes, to the outright butchering of these
animals so as to experiment on their internal tissues. Psychological
experimentation, such as the separation of child from parent, and even
military testing are also disturbingly common.
Two of the most appalling forms of vivisection are classroom
dissections, which claim many thousands of animals each year purely so
high school students may experience the dubious honour of examining an
animal's interior, and the testing for LD-50.
LD (for Lethal Dose) 50 is the level of any substance that must be
consumed by a given population before half of that population will die.
Every substance has an LD-50, and for years scientists have
experimented on animal populations to determine the various levels.
The necessity in killing animals to find out the LD-50 of everything
from water to Lysol to LSD is lost on most, and ill-argued by many
scientists.
Estimates of the number of animals destroyed in American
laboratories alone range from a highly conservative 17 million up to a
more realistic 70 million. Official records record only the numbers of
hamsters, gerbils, primates, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, pigs, and sheep.
Laboratories in the United States are not required to record the numbers
of mice, rats, and birds they dispatch every year. These uncounted, and
nearly uncountable animals are used in 80 to 90 percent of laboratory
experiments.
The number of animals slaughtered annually in labs continues to
rise, despite the presence of viable alternatives. These alternatives
include in vitro testing, which uses human cells grown in test tubes,
and even testing on computerized 'virtual organs'. Not only are these
alternatives reassuringly humane, but they are also more cost effective,
and even more reliable. The elimination of animal testing would not
only be cheaper, it would reduce wait time for patients needing access
to experimental drugs. Most importantly, it would greatly reduce the
number of harmful drugs that are accidentally unleashed annually on an
unsuspecting public, thereby saving untold lives.
As an independent consumer, one can do the following things to
discourage animal testing:
Check the products you buy, many now clearly state that they
are not tested on animals.
Access the PETA website for a list of companies that test on
animals, and a list of those that do not.
Write companies that do test on animals. Let them know that
you will no longer buy their products until they adopt more humane
alternatives.
For more information on vivisection and humane alternatives, check
the following websites:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
The American Anti-Vivisection Society
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