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Almost two decades ago, Congress ordered the National Institutes of Health to move toward non-animal testing methods; little progress has been made. During World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week, which starts tomorrow, what can ethical humans do?[T.S. Eliot's famous 1922 poem "The Waste Land" begins with the phrase, "April is the cruellest month." But for so many non-human animals suffering at the hands of humans around the world, every month in the cruellest. 13.7 Billion Years takes Eliot's famous line as the theme for April, which is "Animal Cruelty Month." For many, it is not an easy topic to digest. But if Homo sapiens is to truly evolve, it must be dealt with now -- and vigorously.]
World Week for Animals In Laboratories (WWAIL) starts tomorrow and runs through April 24. Now is a perfect time to focus public pressure on the National Institutes of Health to end all animal testing -- an order that the agency received from Congress nearly twenty years ago.
"Every day, thousands of animals are experimented on and killed to create and test drugs, many of which will never help a sick human being," according to the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which has launched a public petition calling for the FDA "to mandate the use of validated non-animal testing methods, when those alternatives exist, to create safer drugs for American consumers."
"Although animals are often used when ethical or practical issues have precluded the study of humans, the evolving scientific understanding of the complexity of animals and of their social and psychological needs underscores longstanding ethical concerns about their use in laboratory science," according to PCRM.
Right now, more than 1,000 chimpanzees are forced to live in laboratory research settings in the United States. But there is hope for these close relatives of ours. There is a bill making its way through Congress -- the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act. If passed, it would phase out the use of chimpanzees in invasive research and would retire federally owned chimpanzees to permanent sanctuary.
More than $200 million of taxpayer money was wasted on unethical experiments using chimpanzees, experiments which are not fundamentally useful due to the genetic difference between chimpanzees and humans. PCRM argues that "research funding would be better spent on superior modern research and testing methods, such as ethical, human-centered studies, mathematical modeling, and in vitro testing. "
"In some areas, such as medical education, the shift to non-animal methods has been rapid," says PCRM. "Pharmaceutical manufacturers have incorporated non-animal methods in several early steps in the drug development process. In other areas, technical or regulatory barriers present continuing challenges."
Getting over the regulatory barriers requires political will. Political will requires public pressure. Public pressure requires public awareness. If you are reading this, consider your awareness raised and take action below on the eve World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week.
It's time to stop testing on animals.
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