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Animals are used in many different kinds of experiments. These are just a few examples and alternatives to using animals in experiments.

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J. David Jentsch remains an outspoken proponent of research with animals, emphasizing that the work is needed to save human lives.

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Is Animal Research Justified By Human Supremacy?

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Is Animal Research Justified By Human Supremacy?

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Is Animal Research Justified By Human Supremacy? | Syd Johnson | TEDxSUNYUpstate

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Why our grandchildren won’t know animal testing

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Why our grandchildren won’t know animal testing

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Why our grandchildren won’t know animal testing | Manfredi San Germano | TEDxGoodenoughCollege

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Opinion | Dr. Oz's experiments killing hundreds of dogs shed light on a terrible practice

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Opinion | Dr. Oz's experiments killing hundreds of dogs shed light on a terrible practice

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On Monday, Jezebel reported that from 1989 to 2010, research by Dr. Mehmet Oz - the television personality and Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania - inflicted suffering on and killed over 300 dogs, 31 pigs and 661 rabbits and rodents. It was during Oz's time as a principal investigator at a Columbia University lab.

Ironically, the discovery comes on the heels of the Senate's unanimously passing the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 last week. The measure would eliminate a federal mandate in the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requiring animal testing for new drugs. Drug developers would be permitted to use alternative methods to test for safety if this reform becomes law. That's good news, but there should be a bill that ends animal testing altogether. Perhaps the latest news about Oz, playing out on the national stage, will hammer that point home.

Defenders of animal testing often argue that while it may be imperfect, it is our only option for advancing human medicine. This view neglects how differences in the bodies of species can lead to misleading information.

For context, the Humane Society estimates that over 50 million animals are used in laboratory experiments every year in the U.S. The Animal Welfare Act minimally protects some species. Still, as is alleged with Oz, violations routinely occur, and most animals tested are not covered.

In these experiments, animals are exposed to toxic chemicals or diseases and imprisoned in barren cages. They are usually killed after experiments are completed.

Despite these grim realities, advocates of testing on animals argue that it is critical for medical developments and treatments in humans. To bolster their position, proponents of animal testing point to important discoveries throughout history in which animal research was involved. For example, in 1921, researchers Frederick G. Banting, Charles Best and John Macleod demonstrated that we could treat diabetes with insulin by performing experiments on laboratory dogs who had their pancreatic ducts tied; in 1939, a group of scientists discovered the antibiotic effect of Penicillium by infecting mice with a virulent strain of Streptococcus and then treating half of them with the Penicillium mold; in 1953, Jonas Salk produced the first inactivated polio vaccine using a virus grown on monkey kidney cells.

Moreover, those in favor of animal experimentation argue that substances that have not been first tested on animals at all or thoroughly enough pose threats to humans. One purported cautionary development occurred in the late 1950s and the early 1960s with thalidomide. Originally designed to be a sedative, it was found to have other healing effects. This " wonder drug" was found to help pregnant women with the symptoms of morning sickness. However, thalidomide had not been tested on pregnant animals.

Thousands of pregnant women took the drug internationally (it was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but as many as 20,000 people in the U.S. were given the drug as part of a clinical trial, according to a New York Times report).

A deeper dive into these claims reveals that animal testing is not all it is cracked up to be and that it may actually be hindering medical progress.

Sadly, it turned out that thalidomide can cause major birth defects, specifically in babies' limbs, bones, ears, eyes and hearts, and can also lead to pregnancy loss or infant death. The drug was taken off the market, but the damage was done. According to one report, an estimated 24,000 babies were born with thalidomide-induced malformations worldwide, and 123,000 stillbirths and miscarriages were caused by the drug. Reflecting on this tragedy, one scientist noted that "had there been more extensive testing on laboratory animals before the drug was launched, the disaster could have been avoided."

But a deeper dive into these claims reveals that animal testing is not all it is cracked up to be and that it may actually be hindering medical progress.

It is worth noting at the outset that a lot of experiments involving the use of animals are so poorly designed that their results are meaningless. One analysis found that among 2,671 papers from 1992 to 2011 that reported trials in animals, randomization was not reported in 75% of them, blinding was absent in 70%, and fewer than 1% and 12% had sample-size calculations and conflict of interest statements, respectively - all factors that can lead to inaccurate results.

And even when the studies are designed reasonably well, the results do not usually hold up in humans. A 2004 FDA report found that 92% of drugs that pass the animal testing stage are ultimately abandoned.

So why, then, does animal experimentation often accompany breakthroughs in medicine? According to Dr. John J. Pippin, a former animal experimenter who is now the director of academic affairs at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a research and advocacy organization that promotes alternatives to animal research, it is essentially chance: "It may reasonably be stated that most medical advances have included animal experimental use; for decades, this has been the default approach. But it has not been demonstrated that such animal use has been essential or even reliable for medical advancement."

Defenders of animal testing often argue that while it may be imperfect, it is our only option for advancing human medicine. This view neglects how differences in the bodies of species can lead to misleading information - which can be worse than no information. In addition, it ignores the reality of alternatives already available that are based on human biology and have the potential to increase research relevance and deliver more reliable risk assessments while maintaining existing safety levels.

One of these breakthrough technologies is advanced data computing. A 2018 Johns Hopkins study suggested that scientists could use large databases of known chemicals to predict a new chemical's toxic properties better than tests on animals.

Another viable alternative is organs-on-a-chip, or "organoids," miniature tissues and organs in-vitro that enable modeling of human physiology and disease. Lung, liver, kidney, gut, skin, brain, heart and other organ chips have all been developed. They present many game-changing possibilities, including simulating particular diseases, such as cancer or heart disease, and providing researchers with a cost-effective way to evaluate the impacts of drugs in real time.

Other viable in-vitro methods include the use of " biobanks," biological samples often left over from clinical procedures, such as surgery, or from dead bodies; technologies that use stem cells; and even 3D printing. While some of these promising technologies are in their infancy, imagine what could be accomplished if the billions of dollars wasted on animal testing were allocated toward further advancing them.

Perhaps for all of these reasons, a 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that a growing majority of Americans oppose using animals in experiments. But for this projected boom in non-animal testing methods to catch up with public opinion, funding and regulatory bodies will need to explore a shift in focus, going well beyond the FDA Modernization Act 2.0. The fate of both animal and human life depends on it.

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Opinion | Dr. Oz's experiments killing hundreds of dogs shed light on a terrible practice

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After the Senate passed a bill that would eliminate a federal mandate to do animal testing, details about Oz's experiments came out and showed how the bill wouldn't go far enough.

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According to a report in Jezebel earlier this week, Dr. Mehmet Oz was the lead scientist in a years-long animal study that experimented on over 1,000 live animals. That number included the death or euthanizing of 31 pigs, 661 rabbits and more than 329 dogs. A veterinarian involved with the study was appalled by the treatment of the animals and turned whistleblower alleging widespread mistreatment of the animals that included needless pain and suffering. Oz was the "principal investigator" on the Columbia University study. The USDA eventually reached a 2004 settlement with the university for violations of the Animal Welfare Act that included a slap-on-the-wrist fine of $2,000.

In the aftermath, Columbia went on to defend Oz as a respected doctor and researcher but over the past few years has managed to scrub its online presence of any association with Oz. Regardless of how this plays out in the Pennsylvania senate race can we all at least admit that animal testing is stupid?

The case for animal testing is that it's the only option. How else can we test potentially dangerous treatment if not on animals? That argument ignores the fact that the information derived from these studies is often so unreliable as to be unusable. Humans are not dogs, mice or pigs and our bodies don't react to treatment the same. According to a 2004 FDA study, 92% of drugs that passed the animal testing phase were abandoned because the results didn't translate to humans.

There may have been a time when animal testing was the only alternative but that's no longer the case, there are options for testing. Predictive chemical databases, biobanks housing surplus biological samples, stem cell technologies and 3D bioprinting to name a few. Animal testing is a relic of the past, leave it there.
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Dr. Oz under fire for animal testing | Sheneman

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According to a report in Jezebel earlier this week, Dr. Mehmet Oz was the lead scientist in a years-long animal study that experimented on over 1,000 live animals. That number included the death or euthanizing of 31 pigs, 661 rabbits and more than 329 dogs.

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What is animal testing?

The term "animal testing" refers to procedures performed on living animals for purposes of research into basic biology and diseases, assessing the effectiveness of new medicinal products, and testing the human health and/or environmental safety of consumer and industry products such as cosmetics, household cleaners, food additives, pharmaceuticals and industrial/agro-chemicals. All procedures, even those classified as "mild," have the potential to cause the animals physical as well as psychological distress and suffering. Often the procedures can cause a great deal of suffering. Most animals are killed at the end of an experiment, but some may be re-used in subsequent experiments. Here is a selection of common animal procedures:

Forced chemical exposure in toxicity testing, which can include oral force-feeding, forced inhalation, skin or injection into the abdomen, muscle, etc.

Exposure to drugs, chemicals or infectious disease at levels that cause illness, pain and distress, or death

Genetic manipulation, e.g., addition or "knocking out" of one or more genes

Ear-notching and tail-clipping for identification

Short periods of physical restraint for observation or examination

Prolonged periods of physical restraint

Food and water deprivation

Surgical procedures followed by recovery

Infliction of wounds, burns and other injuries to study healing

Infliction of pain to study its physiology and treatment

Behavioural experiments designed to cause distress, e.g., electric shock or forced swimming

Other manipulations to create "animal models" of human diseases ranging from cancer to stroke to depression

Killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means

What types of animals are used?

Many different species are used around the world, but the most common include mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates (monkeys, and in some countries, chimpanzees). Video: Watch what scientists have to say about alternatives to animal testing.

It is estimated that more than 115 million animals worldwide are used in laboratory experiments every year. But because only a small proportion of countries collect and publish data concerning animal use for testing and research, the precise number is unknown. For example, in the United States, up to 90 percent of the animals used in laboratories (purpose-bred rats, mice and birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates) are excluded from the official statistics, meaning that figures published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are no doubt a substantial underestimate.

Within the European Union, more than 12 million animals are used each year, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom being the top three animal using countries. British statistics reflect the use of more than 3 million animals each year, but this number does not include animals bred for research but killed as "surplus" without being used for specific experimental procedures. Although these animals still endure the stresses and deprivation of life in the sterile laboratory environment, their lives are not recorded in official statistics. HSI believes that complete transparency about animal use is vital and that all animals bred, used or killed for the research industry should be included in official figures. See some animal use statistics.

What's wrong with animal testing?

For nearly a century, drug and chemical safety assessments have been based on laboratory testing involving rodents, rabbits, dogs, and other animals. Aside from the ethical issues they pose-inflicting both physical pain as well as psychological distress and suffering on large numbers of sentient creatures-animal tests are time- and resource-intensive, restrictive in the number of substances that can be tested, provide little understanding of how chemicals behave in the body, and in many cases do not correctly predict real-world human reactions. Similarly, health scientists are increasingly questioning the relevance of research aimed at "modelling" human diseases in the laboratory by artificially creating symptoms in other animal species.

Trying to mirror human diseases or toxicity by artificially creating symptoms in mice, dogs or monkeys has major scientific limitations that cannot be overcome. Very often the symptoms and responses to potential treatments seen in other species are dissimilar to those of human patients. As a consequence, nine out of every 10 candidate medicines that appear safe and effective in animal studies fail when given to humans. Drug failures and research that never delivers because of irrelevant animal models not only delay medical progress, but also waste resources and risk the health and safety of volunteers in clinical trials.

What's the alternative?

If lack of human relevance is the fatal flaw of "animal models," then a switch to human-relevant research tools is the logical solution. The National Research Council in the United States has expressed its vision of "a not-so-distant future in which virtually all routine toxicity testing would be conducted in human cells or cell lines", and science leaders around the world have echoed this view.

The sequencing of the human genome and birth of functional genomics, the explosive growth of computer power and computational biology, and high-speed robot automation of cell-based (in vitro) screening systems, to name a few, has sparked a quiet revolution in biology. Together, these innovations have produced new tools and ways of thinking that can help uncover exactly how chemicals and drugs disrupt normal processes in the human body at the level of cells and molecules. From there, scientists can use computers to interpret and integrate this information with data from human and population-level studies. The resulting predictions regarding human safety and risk are potentially more relevant to people in the real world than animal tests.

But that's just the beginning. The wider field of human health research could benefit from a similar shift in paradigm. Many disease areas have seen little or no progress despite decades of animal research. Some 300 million people currently suffer from asthma, yet only two types of treatment have become available in the last 50 years. More than a thousand potential drugs for stroke have been tested in animals, but only one of these has proved effective in patients. And it's the same story with many other major human illnesses. A large-scale re-investment in human-based (not mouse or dog or monkey) research aimed at understanding how disruptions of normal human biological functions at the levels of genes, proteins and cell and tissue interactions lead to illness in our species could advance the effective treatment or prevention of many key health-related societal challenges of our time.

Modern non-animal techniques are already reducing and superseding experiments on animals, and in European Union, the "3Rs" principle of replacement, reduction and refinement of animal experiments is a legal requirement. In most other parts of the world there is currently no such legal imperative, leaving scientists free to use animals even where non-animal approaches are available.

If animal testing is so unreliable, why does it continue?

Despite this growing evidence that it is time for a change, effecting that change within a scientific community that has relied for decades on animal models as the "default method" for testing and research takes time and perseverance. Old habits die hard, and globally there is still a lack of knowledge of and expertise in cutting-edge non-animal techniques.

But with HSI's help, change is happening. We are leading efforts globally to encourage scientists, companies and policy-makers to transition away from animal use in favour of 21st century methods. Our work brings together experts from around the globe to share knowledge and best practice, improving the quality of research by replacing animals in the laboratory.

Are animal experiments needed for medical progress?

It is often argued that because animal experiments have been used for centuries, and medical progress has been made in that time, animal experiments must be necessary. But this is missing the point. History is full of examples of flawed or basic practices and ideas that were once considered state-of-the-art, only to be superseded years later by something far more sophisticated and successful. In the early 1900's, the Wright brothers' invention of the airplane was truly innovative for its time, but more than a century later, technology has advanced so much that when compared to the modern jumbo jet those early flying machines seem quaint and even absurd. Those early ideas are part of aviation history, but no-one would seriously argue that they represent the cutting-edge of design or human achievement. So it is with laboratory research. Animal experiments are part of medical history, but history is where they belong. Compared to today's potential to understand the basis of human disease at cellular and molecular levels, experimenting on live animals seems positively primitive. So if we want better quality medical research, safer more effective pharmaceuticals and cures to human diseases, we need to turn the page in the history books and embrace the new chapter-21st century science.

Independent scientific reviews demonstrate that research using animals correlates very poorly to real human patients. In fact, the data show that animal studies fail to predict real human outcomes in 50 to 99.7 percent of cases. This is mainly because other species seldom naturally suffer from the same diseases as found in humans. Animal experiments rely on often uniquely human conditions being artificially induced in non-human species. While on a superficial level they may share similar symptoms, fundamental differences in genetics, physiology and biochemistry can result in wildly different reactions to both the illness and potential treatments. For some areas of disease research, overreliance on animal models may well have delayed medical progress rather than advanced it. By contrast, many non-animal replacement methods such as cell-based studies, silicon chip biosensors, and computational systems biology models, can provide faster and more human-relevant answers to medical and chemical safety questions that animal experiments cannot match.

"The claim that animal experimentation is essential to medical development is not supported by proper, scientific evidence but by opinion and anecdote. Systematic reviews of its effectiveness don't support the claims made on its behalf" (Pandora Pound et al. British Medical Journal 328, 514-7, 2004).

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A list of and links to question and answer pages about animal testing.

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Is it time to end the era of animal testing in science?

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Is it time to end the era of animal testing in science?

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Is it time to end the era of animal testing in science?

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Experiments using animals have contributed some of the most important medical breakthroughs in history, but critics say the practice isn’t just immoral — it may also be counterproductive.

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Stanford University Conducts Animal Search. Here's why.

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Stanford University Conducts Animal Search. Here's why.

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Many people have questions about animal testing ethics and the animal testing debate. We take our responsibility for the ethical treatment of animals in medical research very seriously. At Stanford, we emphasize that the humane care of laboratory animals is essential, both ethically and scientifically. Poor animal care is not good science. If animals are not well-treated, the science and knowledge they produce is not trustworthy and cannot be replicated, an important hallmark of the scientific method.

There are several reasons why the use of animals is critical for biomedical research:

** Animals are biologically very similar to humans. In fact, mice share more than 98% DNA with us!

** Animals are susceptible to many of the same health problems as humans - cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.

** With a shorter life cycle than humans, animal models can be studied throughout their whole life span and across several generations, a critical element in understanding how a disease processes and how it interacts with a whole, living biological system.

The ethics of animal experimentation

Nothing so far has been discovered that can be a substitute for the complex functions of a living, breathing, whole-organ system with pulmonary and circulatory structures like those in humans. Until such a discovery, animals must continue to play a critical role in helping researchers test potential new drugs and medical treatments for effectiveness and safety, and in identifying any undesired or dangerous side effects, such as infertility, birth defects, liver damage, toxicity, or cancer-causing potential.

U.S. federal laws require that non-human animal research occur to show the safety and efficacy of new treatments before any human research will be allowed to be conducted. Not only do we humans benefit from this research and testing, but hundreds of drugs and treatments developed for human use are now routinely used in veterinary clinics as well, helping animals live longer, healthier lives.

It is important to stress that 95% of all animals necessary for biomedical research in the United States are rodents - rats and mice especially bred for laboratory use - and that animals are only one part of the larger process of biomedical research.

Stanford researchers are obligated to ensure the well-being of animals in their care, in strict adherence to the highest standards, and in accordance with federal and state laws, regulatory guidelines, and humane principles. They are also obligated to continuously update their animal-care practices based on the newest information and findings in the fields of laboratory animal care and husbandry.

Researchers requesting use of animal models at Stanford must have their research proposals reviewed by a federally mandated committee that includes two independent community members. It is only with this committee's approval that research can begin. We at Stanford are dedicated to refining, reducing, and replacing animals in research whenever possible, and to using alternative methods (cell and tissue cultures, computer simulations, etc.) instead of or before animal studies are ever conducted.

Organizations and Resources

There are many outreach and advocacy organizations in the field of biomedical research.

Stanford Discoveries

What are the benefits of using animals in research? Stanford researchers have made many important human and animal life-saving discoveries through their work.

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Many people have questions about animal testing ethics and the animal testing debate. At Stanford, we emphasize that the humane care of laboratory animals is essential, both ethically and scientifically. Poor animal care is not good science.

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Are There Any Benefits to Animal Testing? Get the Facts

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Are There Any Benefits to Animal Testing? Get the Facts

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Millions of rats, cats, primates, dogs, and other animals are languishing in laboratories across the country. But just picture one animal-one monkey or one rabbit-writhing in pain after being purposely infected with a disease or dosed with chemicals, covered with gaping wounds or burns, starving and thirsty, aching with loneliness and longing to be free from invasive experiments, and overcome with terror any time a human walks past the cage that they're locked inside.

The conditions in laboratories are so bleak that some animals develop neurotic types of behavior, such as incessant spinning, tearing out their own fur, and even self-mutilation-and all this suffering is for nothing, as animal experiments help no one.

PETA is setting the record straight and addressing common misconceptions and questions about animal testing.

Why Do Experimenters Use Animals?

This is what they were taught to do, what they know how to do, and what they're paid to do. Despite the purported purpose of their work, some may not care to explore new kinds of technology, even though doing so could actually help humans. Experimenting on animals is an easy way to get millions of tax dollars in funding and publish in journals-even if the findings are useless. PETA has delved into the backgrounds of some animal experimenters who've been convicted of violent crimes, which has made us wonder: Could some animal experimenters be psychopaths who use their laboratories as a cover to carry out their violent impulses legally?

Why Are Beagles Used for Animal Testing?

Dogs are abused in laboratories because of their trusting nature. Beagles, in particular, are naturally docile and of a manageable size. Even when they're being abused, most don't bite-they cower, hoping for a kind touch, and their gentleness is exploited by animal experimenters. At Liberty Research, Inc., a PETA eyewitness investigation found that workers used a drill to bore holes into the skulls of 30 young beagles so that distemper virus could be injected directly into their brains. Some dogs whimpered during the painful procedure, indicating that they weren't adequately anesthetized. They woke up moaning. Likely in pain, some hit their heads on their cage walls, causing blood to spurt from their wounds.

Almost 65,000 dogs are tormented in U.S. laboratories every year. They are often forced to ingest or inhale pesticides or are bred to have degenerative diseases. Video footage obtained by PETA reveals that experimenters at Texas A&M University deliberately bred dogs to develop crippling canine muscular dystrophy, a disease that ravages their bodies and causes progressive muscle wasting and weakness.
Urge Texas A&M to Free the Dogs From Its MD Laboratories
Are Vaccines Tested on Animals?

Animal experimenters have used mice, ferrets, monkeys, hamsters, camels, rabbits, alpacas, horses, and other animals in the hope of developing vaccines for all kinds of viruses, including SARS-19, MERS-CoV, and HIV. Some resulting experimental vaccines initially showed promise-however, none were approved for use in humans. All those wasted lives, hours, and dollars amounted to nothing. In order to speed up the development of COVID-19 vaccines, scientists were allowed to go directly to human clinical trials without first conducting the years-long extensive trials on animals that are usually required. Here's the bottom line: Vaccine tests on animals aren't necessary and don't work.

What Percentage of Victims Survive Animal Testing?

Of the tens of millions of mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys, cats, dogs, fish, and other animals used in tests every year, virtually none make it out alive. The only federal law in the U.S. that governs the use of some animals in laboratories, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), allows animals to be burned, shocked, poisoned, infected with potentially deadly diseases and viruses, irradiated, isolated, starved, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged. No experiment-no matter how painful or trivial-is prohibited. If an animal survives this violence and trauma, they're killed and dissected or discarded when the experiment is over.

Between 2015 and 2019, more than 300,000 animals-excluding mice, rats, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians-were subjected to painful experiments without any pain relief. Bear in mind that the animals excluded from the AWA's "protection" make up more than 99% of those used in experiments.

Are There Benefits to Animal Testing?

Nope. A decade of studies shows that most animal experimentation never leads to benefits for humans. Many of the most important medical advances are attributable to human studies. Sir Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin nearly 100 years ago, remarked, "How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably have never been granted a license, and probably the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized."

Former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni stated, "We all drank the Kool-Aid on [animal experiments], me included. ... The problem is that it hasn't worked .... We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans."

Disadvantages of Animal Testing

It doesn't work. Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in an unnatural setting are never going to be the same as those that occur naturally in human beings. More than 95% of new drugs that test safely and effectively in animals go on to fail in human clinical trials. For some diseases, the failure rate is even worse-studies of cancer drugs have a 96.6% failure rate, and studies of Alzheimer's disease have a 99.6% failure rate.

And they waste lots of money. One of the largest sources of funding for animal tests is government granting agencies. NIH wasted nearly half of its almost $42 billion research and development budget on torturing animals in 2020. This means that people like us paid for it with our tax dollars.

How Long Has Animal Testing Been Around?

Humans have been using animals for experimentation for thousands of years, beginning long before humans understood that other animals feel pain, joy, and fear, among other emotions. The cruelty persists today not because it's useful but because of deeply ingrained archaic habits, resistance to change, and a lack of outreach and education.

Where Is Animal Testing Banned?

A number of countries have implemented bans on testing certain types of consumer goods on animals, such as the cosmetics-testing bans in the EU, India, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, and elsewhere. Although they're imperfect, they represent progress. In the U.K., it's against the law for medical (and veterinary) students to practice surgery on animals.

What Can We Use Instead of Animals?

Technologically advanced, animal-free test methods! There are microchips that use real human cells and tissues to construct fully functioning organs so that researchers can test drugs and treatments. Human brain cells that have been developed into a model "microbrain" have been used to study tumors, while human tissue constructs can be used to test skin irritation (e.g., MatTek's EpiDerm) and to produce and test vaccines.

Human clinical and epidemiological studies, human tissue-based and human cell-based research methods, cadavers, computational models, and sophisticated, high-fidelity human-patient simulators- not animals -all have the potential to facilitate faster, more reliable, more precise, and less expensive studies that aren't hindered by the biological differences that make applying animal test results to humans virtually impossible.

How You Can Help End Animal Testing

Always buy cruelty-free products, donate only to charities that don't experiment on animals, request alternatives to animal dissection in class, urge government agencies and corporations to use non-animal methods, and call on your alma mater to stop experimenting on animals.

Most importantly, urge your representatives in Congress to implement PETA's strategy for phasing out animal experimentation:
Ask Your Legislators to Support PETA's Research Modernization Deal

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Are There Any Benefits to Animal Testing? Get the Facts | PETA

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Millions of rats, cats, primates, dogs, and other animals are languishing in laboratories across the country. But just picture one animal-one monkey or one rabbit-writhing in pain after being purposely infected with a disease or dosed with chemicals, covered with gaping wounds or burns, starving and thirsty, aching with loneliness and longing to be free from invasive experiments, and overcome with terror any time a human walks past the cage that they're locked inside.

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Animals are our companions, our workers, our eyes and ears, and our food. They appear in ancient cave paintings, and on modern commercial farms. We have domesticated some of them, while others remain wild and are sometimes endangered by our activities. They keep us company, and while they can provide comic relief, they also serve us as valuable assistants.

Researchers at the University of Chicago estimate that the domestication of dogs took place from 11,000 to 16,000 years ago. Genetic evidence indicates that wolves suffered a significant reduction in population after dogs diverged from them, so the wolf gene pool that gave rise to dogs was much more diverse then than it is now. Genetic research on generations of foxes in Russia over more than 50 years suggests that selection for tame behavior also brings about traits like color variation and breeding outside of the natural yearly cycle, which raises the value of the animals to humans.

The huge diversity of work performed by animals ranges from transportation to hunting to assisting the blind. Even in the automotive era, "horsepower" survives as a unit of measurement. Egyptian illustrations from 5,000 years ago show oxen pulling plows, and cattle have historically been used more than horses as draft animals. Service dogs offer their senses of sight, hearing and smell to aid people with disabilities and perform law-enforcement duties. They are allowed to enter public spaces like stores and restaurants where pets are not normally permitted.

Unlike the performance of specific tasks, an animal's value as a companion might be more difficult to measure. With human association and their domestication, animals also became objects of affection and sometimes worship. Florence Nightingale observed small pets helping to reduce anxiety in psychiatric patients, and Sigmund Freud used his dog Jofi to help diagnose the level of tension in patients. Animal Assisted Intervention International lists specific therapeutic approaches and goals that can be obtained through the assistance of trained dogs and handlers. These include improvements in cognitive and social functioning. Horses, too, can serve in counseling. The Certified Therapy Horse Association advocates stringent certification criteria for horses and their handlers.

Cattle, pigs, poultry and fish feed us, but the consumers buying their meat as food are far removed from the animals themselves. The USDA puts 2013 meat consumption levels of 25.5 billion pounds of beef alone. Beef exports added $5.7 billion to the economy. Economic pressures lead to large livestock operations, which bring their own problems like disease control and manure disposal, leading to algal blooms in streams and lakes. This consequence is also important to human-animal relationships, even though humans don't interact directly with the animals. The US Environmental Protection Agency regulates these operations. At the same time, smaller-scale operations seek to preserve heritage breeds of livestock, who retain traits of self-sufficiency and resilience.

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Animals are our companions, our workers, our eyes and ears, and our food. They appear in ancient cave paintings, and on modern commercial farms. We have domesticated some of them, while others remain wild and are sometimes endangered by our activities. They keep us company, and while they can provide comic relief, they also serve us as valuable assistants.

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Each year, more than 110 million animals-including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds-are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. Before their deaths, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed. In addition to the torment of the actual experiments, animals in laboratories are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them-they are confined to barren cages, socially isolated, and psychologically traumatized. The thinking, feeling animals who are used in experiments are treated like nothing more than disposable laboratory equipment.

Animal Experiments Are Wasteful and Unreliable

A Pew Research Center poll found that 52 percent of U.S. adults oppose the use of animals in scientific research, and other surveys suggest that the shrinking group that does accept animal experimentation does so only because it believes it to be necessary for medical progress. 5,6 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 National Institutes of Health has stated, "Therapeutic development is a costly, complex and time-consuming process. The average length of time from target discovery to approval of a new drug is about 14 years. The failure rate during this process exceeds 95 percent, and the cost per successful drug can be $1 billion or more." 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 animals, and in 2020, NIH budgeted nearly $42 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

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.

Alternatives to Animal Testing

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.

History of Animal Testing

PETA created " Without Consent"-an interactive timeline featuring almost 200 stories of animal experiments from the past century-to open people's eyes to the long history of suffering that's been inflicted on nonconsenting animals in laboratories and to challenge people to rethink this exploitation. Visit " Without Consent " to learn more about harrowing animal experiments throughout history and how you can help create a better future for living, feeling beings.
Without Consent
You Can Help Stop Animal Testing

Virtually all federally funded research is paid for with your tax dollars. Your lawmakers needs to know that you don't want your money used to pay for animal experiments.

Urge your members of Congress to endorse PETA's Research Modernization Deal, which provides a roadmap for modernizing U.S. investment in research by ending funding for useless experiments on animals and investing in effective research that's relevant to humans.
Take Action Not a U.S. Resident? Take Action Here
Animal Testing Facts and Figures

Almost 1 million animals are held captive in laboratories or used in experiments (excluding rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and agricultural animals used in agricultural experiments), plus an estimated 110 million mice and rats

69 million animals used in experiments as reported by CCAC-certified institutions*

115,818 animals subjected to "severe pain near, at, or above the pain tolerance threshold of unanesthetized conscious animals"

*The Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) is a "national peer-review organization" that is funded by the Canadian government but has no regulatory capacity. Only institutions that receive public funds are required to be certified by the CCAC, and the figures reported by the organization reflect only this subset of facilities. Most private research facilities are not certified by the CCAC, and their animal use is not accounted for in the CCAC's figures.

76 million procedures on animals

Of those procedures, 110,400 were assessed to be "severe," including "long-term disease processes where assistance with normal activities such as feeding and drinking are required or where significant deficits in behaviours/activities persist."

References

¹Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, " Annual Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Year: Total Number of Animals Research Facilities Used in Regulated Activities (Column B)" and " Annual Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Year: Total Number of Animals Research Facilities used in Regulated Activities (Column F)," 27 Apr. 2021.
²Larry Carbone, " Estimating Mouse and Rat Use in American Laboratories by Extrapolation From Animal Welfare Act-Regulated Species," Scientific Reports 11, 493 (2021).
³Canadian Council on Animal Care, " CCAC 2021 Animal Data Report," 2022
⁴U.K. Government, " Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2022," Home Office, 13 July 2023.
⁵Cary Funk and Meg Hefferon, " Most Americans Accept Genetic Engineering of Animals That Benefits Human Health, but Many Oppose Other Uses," Pew Research Center, 16 Aug. 2018
⁶Peter Aldhous and Andy Coghlan, " Let the People Speak," New Scientist 22 May 1999.
⁷Daniel G. Hackam, M.D., and Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., " Translation of Research Evidence From Animals to Human," The Journal of the American Medical Association 296 (2006): 1731-2.
⁸Marlene Simmons et al., " Cancer-Cure Story Raises New Questions," Los Angeles Times 6 May 1998.
⁹Rich McManus, "Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research," NIH Record 21 June 2013.
¹⁰Jarrod Bailey, " An Assessment of the Role of Chimpanzees in AIDS Vaccine Research," Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36 (2008): 381-428.
¹¹Steve Connor and Chris Green, " Is It Time to Give Up the Search for an AIDS Vaccine?" The Independent 24 Apr. 2008.
¹²National Institutes of Health, " About New Therapeutic Uses," National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences 9 Oct. 2019.
¹³Steve Woloshin, M.D., M.S., et al., " Press Releases by Academic Medical Centers: Not So Academic?" Annals of Internal Medicine 150 (2009): 613-8.
¹⁴Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, " Media Reporting on Research Presented at Scientific Meetings: More Caution Needed," The Medical Journal of Australia 184 (2006): 576-80.
¹⁵Diana E. Pankevich et al., " International Animal Research Regulations: Impact on Neuroscience Research," The National Academies (2012).
¹⁶National Institutes of Health, " Budget," (last accessed on 3 May 2021).
¹⁷Pankevich et al.
¹⁸Deborah Ziff, " On Campus: PETA Sues UW Over Access to Research Records," Wisconsin State Journal 5 Apr. 2010.
¹⁹U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "Animal Welfare, Definition of Animal," Federal Register, 69 (2004): 31513-4.
²⁰Justin Goodman et al., " Trends in Animal Use at US Research Facilities," Journal of Medical Ethics 0(2015): 1-3.
²¹The Associated Press, "Animal Welfare Act May Not Protect All Critters," 7 May 2002.
²²U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "Animal Care: Search."
²³U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, " APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities," audit report, 30 Sept. 2005.
²⁴U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, " USDA Employee Survey on the Effectiveness of IACUC Regulations," Apr. 2000.
²⁵U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, "APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities," audit report, 30 Sept. 2005.
²⁶U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, " Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Oversight of Research Facilities," audit report, Dec. 2014.
²⁷Lawrence A. Hansen et al., " Analysis of Animal Research Ethics Committee Membership at American Institutions," Animals 2 (2012): 68-75.
²⁸Pandora Pound and Michael Bracken, " Is Animal Research Sufficiently Evidence Based To Be A Cornerstone of Biomedical Research?," BMJ (2014): 348.
²⁹Junhee Seok et al., " Genomic Responses in Mouse Models Poorly Mimic Human Inflammatory Diseases," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (2013): 3507-12.

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Animal Testing Facts and Statistics | PETA

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The facts on animal testing are clear: Researchers in U.S. laboratories kill more than 110 million animals in wasteful and unreliable experiments each year.

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Animal experiments: pain, production and playing God

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Animal experiments: pain, production and playing God

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Animal experiments: pain, production and playing God | Human Animal

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The use of animals in scientific experiments in the UK can be traced back at least as far as the 17th Century with Harvey's experiments on numerous animal species aiming to demonstrate blood circulation. Across Europe, the use of animals in scientific research began to expand over the 19th Century, in part supported by the development of anaesthetics which had previously made animal research impossible. In 1876, parliament passed the Cruelty to Animals Act, the first legislation aimed at regulating animal experiments.

Over the late 19th and the 20th centuries, the expansion of medical science meant that the numbers of animals used in research expanded steadily, accelerated by the Medicines Act, 1968, which provided a clearer guide to the use of animals in safety testing in the wake of the Thalidomide tragedy. The number of animals used rose to over 5.5 million in 1970 after which point the numbers began to decline rapidly. This large expansion reflected a growing medical field; animals had played a part in most medical advances of the 20th century including insulin, the polio vaccine, penicillin and the elimination of smallpox. In 1986 the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act was passed, which ensured higher animal welfare standards in laboratories across the UK.

In 2010, EU Directive 2010/63 was passed. This regulation harmonises European animal laboratory standards, improving animal welfare across the EU, and is currently being transposed into the laws of the member countries. It passed into UK law on 1st January 2013.

Books

Animal Research in Medicine: 100 Years of Politics, Protests and Progress (John Illman) provides a history of animal research legislation and the context in which they were developed.
- Illman, J., 2008. Aninmal Research in Medicine: 100 years of Politics, Protests and Progress. The Story of the Research Defence Society. London: Research Defence Society.

A Guinea Pig's History of Biology (Jim Endersby) tells the story of modern biology through the stories of the animals and plants that made it possible.
- Endersby, J., 2007. A Guinea Pig's History of Biology. Heinemann.

Online resources

Medical Advances and Animal Research (RDS & CMP) is an excellent booklet outlining the role of animals in many of the medical developments we see around us. It provides full references to the scientific literature it mentions throughout.
- Research Defence Society & Coalition for Medical Progress, 2007. Medical Advances and Animal Research: The Contribution of Animal Science to the Medical Revolution: Some Case Histories. London: RDS. Available from our document library here.

The Animal Research Timeline (AR.info) provides an outline of many of the major medical discoveries since 1881, as well as explaining the role of animals in each of these developments.
- AnimalResearch.Info. Timeline. Available at: http://www.animalresearch.info/en/medical-advances/timeline/

Animal Research Info: Nobel Prizes (AR.info) provides a breakdown of all the Nobel Prizes in Physiology and Medicine since 1901 and includes how animals were involved in the discoveries.
- AnimalResearch.Info. Nobel Prizes. Available at: http://www.animalresearch.info/en/medical-advances/nobel-prizes/

Pro-Test: Tackling Animal Rights (SR) is an essay following the battle over the building of the Oxford University Biomedical Facility from 2005-2008. It covers the rise of the animal rights group SPEAK, and the student counter-movement, Pro-Test. It also covers some of the issues which helped change public opinion from 2006.
- Speaking of Research, 2008. Pro-Test Tackling Animal Rights in the UK. Available at: http://speakingofresearch.com/about/the-uk-experience/

Click on one of the links below to see other topics on animal research

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The use of animals in scientific experiments in the UK can be traced back at least as far as the 17th Century with Harvey's experiments on numerous animal species aiming to demonstrate blood circulation. Across Europe, the use of animals in scientific research began to expand over the 19th Century, in part supported by the development of anaesthetics which had previously made animal research impossible.

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Why Are We Still Using Animals for Research?

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Why Are We Still Using Animals for Research?

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Why Are We Still Using Animals for Research?

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Experimenting on animals is a dark side of science and research. And most of us try not to think about the animals that experienced the horrors of testing when we buy medicine or cleaning supplies.

I don't know about you, but it would make me feel a lot better if we could stop testing products on animals. What would our alternatives be?

Would we experiment on humans? And why would this delay your COVID-19 vaccine?

More than 115 million animals are used for experiments every year. They are subjected to tests for medical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and even cleaning products.

But animal testing doesn't always show us the whole picture. For exmaple, some toxicity tests on rodents are only 43% accurate at predicting problems in humans.

At least 85 HIV vaccines and some stroke drugs worked in animal test subjects but failed in humans. So what do you say? How about we cancel these unreliable, animal-torturing procedures altogether?

Animals make good test subjects because they are biologically similar to us. They suffer from many of the same health problems. And they have short life cycles. This allows scientists to study the effects of chemicals over several generations.

The medical and pharmaceutical industries use animal test subjects to study diseases and disorders. Animals are also used to make sure a drug, vaccine or procedure is safe and effective for human testing.

But experimenting on animals raises some ethical concerns. So industries that are required to test the safety of their products are only supposed to use animal testing as a last resort.

The pharmaceutical sector has stopped testing on animals as much. But not out of any love for our furry friends. Newer drugs target precise molecular mechanisms, and the best way to study them is in petri dishes. This is also cheaper than using live animals. So what would happen if we completely stopped animal testing?

Well, first we'd need alternatives. Luckily, we already have some.

Computers may seem like an unlikely replacement for live animals. But they could be helpful. There are thousands of chemical compound tests in online chemical databases.

Scientists can use algorithms to get this information and compare the tested chemical compounds with new chemical compounds. By looking at their structural similarities, researchers can predict the toxicity of untested chemicals.

And studies have shown that advanced algorithms are 87% accurate in predicting toxicity. That would be a great start. But it wouldn't be good enough to release a new product.

After using algorithms, scientists and researchers would use other testing methods. They could move on to testing chemicals on cultured human cells that mimic the functions of specific organs. These are called organs-on-a-chip. And they allow researchers to test new drugs on human cells without testing directly on humans.

But I didn't say we would never do tests on humans. Oh, we would. Now, before you panic, I'm not talking about full-blown human experimentation. That is definitely not ethical.

Instead, you would volunteer to take microdoses of a new drug. The tiny amounts wouldn't have any huge impact on you. But there'd be enough in your body that researchers could study how the drug impacts your cells.

But none of these great alternatives would replace animal testing. Especially if we got ourselves into another pandemic. All the successful COVID-19 vaccines relied on animal testing during the early research. These tests helped scientists understand the way the immune system would respond to the vaccine.

And that is extremely important. The animal tests made sure that the vaccines wouldn't make the infection worse. So if we stopped animal testing, we'd need to advance in vitro technology.

Scientists would take some skin cells from people with a specific illness. They would make the skin cells act more like stem cells. Then the researchers could convert those cells into any specialized cell in the human body.

So they'd have a patient-specific model of a disease in a lab dish. Eventually, we'd start growing actual organs to study diseases and test experimental medicines.

This would be a much more humane way for the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, medical and household cleaning industries to test products. And millions of animals would no longer have to suffer experimentation for human gain. Of course, the other alternative to testing on animals would be to stop doing science at all.

Sources

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What If We Stopped Animal Testing? | What If Show

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Experimenting on animals is a dark side of science and research. And most of us try not to think about the animals that experienced the horrors of testing when we buy medicine or cleaning supplies. I don't know about you, but it would make me feel a lot better if we could stop testing products on animals.