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About Animal Testing

Humane Society International / Global

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).

You can help: Sign the global pledge to Be Cruelty-Free

Donate to help animals suffering in labs and other cruel situations, discover more.

Imagine a syringe being forced down your throat to inject a chemical into your stomach, or being restrained and forced to breathe sickening vapours for hours. That’s the cruel reality of animal testing for millions of mice, rabbits, dogs and other animals worldwide.

We’re giving the beauty industry a cruelty-free makeover with a wave of animal testing bans supported by hundreds of companies and millions of caring consumers worldwide.

We all dream of the day when cancer is cured and AIDS is eradicated, but is the continued use of mice, monkeys and other animals as experimental “models” of human disease actually holding us back from realizing the promise of 21st century science?

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Ethical care for research animals

WHY ANIMAL RESEARCH?

The use of animals in some forms of biomedical research remains essential to the discovery of the causes, diagnoses, and treatment of disease and suffering in humans and in animals., stanford shares the public's concern for laboratory research animals..

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.

Our researchers are strong supporters of animal welfare and view their work with animals in biomedical research as a privilege.

Stanford researchers are obligated to ensure the well-being of all animals in their care..

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.

Learn more about outreach and advocacy organizations

Two researchers in lab looking through microscopes

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.

Learn more about research discoveries at Stanford

Small brown mouse - Stanford research animal

Newsletters

Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms

Antonio Regalado archive page

Braving a funding ban put in place by America’s top health agency, some U.S. research centers are moving ahead with attempts to grow human tissue inside pigs and sheep with the goal of creating hearts, livers, or other organs needed for transplants.

The effort to incubate organs in farm animals is ethically charged because it involves adding human cells to animal embryos in ways that could blur the line between species.

Last September, in a reversal of earlier policy, the National Institutes of Health announced it would not support studies involving such “human-animal chimeras” until it had reviewed the scientific and social implications more closely.

The agency, in a statement, said it was worried about the chance that animals’ “cognitive state” could be altered if they ended up with human brain cells.

The NIH action was triggered after it learned that scientists had begun such experiments with support from other funding sources, including from California’s state stem-cell agency. The human-animal mixtures are being created by injecting human stem cells into days-old animal embryos, then gestating these in female livestock.

Based on interviews with three teams, two in California and one in Minnesota, MIT Technology Review estimates that about 20 pregnancies of pig-human or sheep-human chimeras have been established during the last 12 months in the U.S., though so far no scientific paper describing the work has been published, and none of the animals were brought to term.

The extent of the research was disclosed in part during presentations made at the NIH’s Maryland campus in November at the agency’s request. One researcher, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute, showed unpublished data on more than a dozen pig embryo containing human cells. Another, from the University of Minnesota, provided photographs of a 62-day-old pig fetus in which the addition of human cells appeared to have reversed a congenital eye defect.

The experiments rely on a cutting-edge fusion of technologies, including recent breakthroughs in stem-cell biology and gene-editing techniques. By modifying genes, scientists can now easily change the DNA in pig or sheep embryos so that they are genetically incapable of forming a specific tissue. Then, by adding stem cells from a person, they hope the human cells will take over the job of forming the missing organ, which could then be harvested from the animal for use in a transplant operation.

“We can make an animal without a heart. We have engineered pigs that lack skeletal muscles and blood vessels,” says Daniel Garry, a cardiologist who leads a chimera project at the University of Minnesota. While such pigs aren’t viable, they can develop properly if a few cells are added from a normal pig embryo. Garry says he’s already melded two pigs in this way and recently won a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Army, which funds some biomedical research, to try to grow human hearts in swine.

“The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.”

Because chimeras could provide a new supply of organs for needy patients and also lead to basic discoveries, researchers including Garry say they intend to press forward despite the NIH position. In November, he was one of 11 authors who published a letter criticizing the agency for creating “a threat to progress” that “casts a shadow of negativity” on their work.

The worry is that the animals might turn out to be a little too human for comfort, say ending up with human reproductive cells, patches of people hair, or just higher intelligence. “We are not near the island of Dr. Moreau, but science moves fast,” NIH ethicist David Resnik said during the agency’s November meeting. “The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.”

The chance of an animal gaining human consciousness is probably slim; their brains are just too different, and much smaller. Even so, as a precaution, researchers working with farm-animal chimeras haven’t yet permitted any to be born, but instead are collecting fetuses in order to gather preliminary information about how great the contribution of human cells is to the animals’ bodies.

Hiromitsu Nakauchi, a stem-cell biologist at Stanford University, began trying to make human-sheep chimeras this year. He says that so far the contribution by human cells to the animals’ bodies appears to be relatively small. “If the extent of human cells is 0.5 percent, it’s very unlikely to get thinking pigs or standing sheep,” he says. “But if it’s large, like 40 percent, then we’d have to do something about that.”

Other kinds of human-animal chimeras are already widely used in scientific research, including “humanized” mice endowed with a human immune system. Such animals are created by adding bits of liver and thymus from a human fetus (collected after an abortion) to a mouse after it is born.

The new line of research goes further because it involves placing human cells into an animal embryo at the very earliest stage, when it is a sphere of just a dozen cells in a laboratory dish. This process, called “embryo complementation,” is significant because the human cells can multiply, specialize, and potentially contribute to any part of the animal’s body as it develops.

In 2010, while working in Japan, Nakauchi used the embryo complementation method to show he could generate mice with a pancreas made entirely of rat cells. “If it works as it does in rodents,” he says, “we should be able have a pig with a human organ.”

“What if the embryo that develops is mostly human? It’s something that we don’t expect, but no one has done this experiment, so we can’t rule it out.”

Although Nakauchi was a star scientist, Japanese regulators were slow to approve his idea for chimeras—a “pig man” as critics put it—and by 2013 Nakauchi decided to move to the U.S., where no federal law restricts the creation of chimeras. Stanford was able to recruit him with the help of a $6 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a state agency set up a decade ago to bypass political interference from Washington.

While the NIH funding ban doesn’t affect Nakauchi, it has put researchers under pressure to explain the purpose of their work. “I want to show you some chimeras,” Nakauchi said when I visited his laboratory at Stanford last month. He opened the door to a small room containing incubators where the chimeric embryos are stored. Because an early embryo is almost invisible to the human eye, the room houses special microscopes equipped with micro-needles used to inject the human cells into them.

The type of human cells being added are called iPS cells, made from skin or blood chemically reprogrammed into more versatile stem cells using a Nobel Prize-winning formula developed by one of Nakauchi’s Japanese colleagues. Nakauchi says that as a matter of convenience, most of the iPS cells his team has been placing into animal embryos are made from his own blood, since recruiting volunteers involves too much paperwork.

“We need a special consent if we’re injecting into animals,” he says sheepishly. “So I try to use my own.”

The word chimera comes from the creature of Greek myth, part lion, part goat, and part snake. Nakauchi says most people at first imagine his chimeras are monsters, too. But he says attitudes change if he can explain his proposal. One reason is that if his iPS cells develop inside an animal, the resulting tissue will actually be his, a kind of perfectly matched replacement part. Desperately ill people on organ waiting lists might someday order a chimera and wait less than a year for their own custom organ to be ready. “I really don’t see much risk to society,” he says.

Before that can happen, scientists will have to prove that human cells can really multiply and contribute effectively to the bodies of farm animals. That could be challenging since, unlike rats and mice, which are fairly close genetically, humans and pigs last shared an ancestor nearly 90 million years ago.

To find out, researchers in 2014 decided to begin impregnating farm animals with human-animal embryos, says Pablo Ross, a veterinarian and developmental biologist at the University of California, Davis, where some of the animals are being housed. Ross says at Davis he has transferred about six sets of pig-human embryos into sows in collaboration with the Salk Institute and established another eight or 10 pregnancies of sheep-human embryos with Nakauchi. Another three dozen pig transfers have taken place outside the U.S., he says.

These early efforts aren’t yet to make organs, says Ross, but more “to determine the ideal conditions for generating human-animal chimeras.” The studies at Davis began only after a review by three different ethics committees, and even then, he says, the university decided to be cautious and limit the time the animals would be allowed to develop to just 28 days (a pig is born in 114 days).

By then, the embryonic pig is only half an inch long, though that’s developed enough to check if human cells are contributing to its rudimentary organs.

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Why Do Scientists Experiment on Animals?

Animal studies in science are experiments that control an animal's behaviour or physiology for study, often to serve as a model for human biology where testing on humans is impractical or unethical.

The species or classification of animals used in testing largely depends on the goal of the experiment.

For example, zebrafish are quick to breed, easy to house, and transparent as embryos - but they also carry 70 percent of the genes found in humans. All this makes them suitable for studies on human disease and embryological development.

Rodents have a long history of being used for science experiments, and today make up around three quarters of all animal subjects in testing. Easy to raise and breed, their mammalian physiology and genomes overlap even more considerably with those of humans, making them suitable models for studying behaviours, toxicology, and the effects of medical treatments.

Non-human primates , especially chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys, have also been used extensively in scientific testing. While harder to reproduce in large numbers and challenging to house comfortably, experiments on our closest evolutionary relatives can yield valuable information on a wide range of issues, from drug toxicity to neurology.

However, the close likeness of non-human primates to ourselves also means their use in experiments is the most controversial of all types of animal testing . Generally, data across different countries, including the European Union , show that non-human primate research constitutes less than 1 percent of all animal studies.

However, studies on monkeys aren't yet phased out: In 2017, the US had a record-high number of studies involving monkeys.

How useful are animal models in experiments?

If conducted under strict methods with appropriate protocols, animal experimentation can provide reliable evidence on how that animal's physiology or behaviour responds under the experiment's conditions; genetic studies are particularly effective, while behavioural studies can yield less firm conclusions.

Unfortunately, the nature of experiments that make use of animal models can often lend themselves to being poorly designed, conducted, or analysed. There can also be a sex imbalance, with much of rodent research done only on male mice , for example.

Experiments that apply the findings to human biology require significant assumptions on whether any differences between them are significant. Even where animals are genetically altered to better reflect human biochemistry, there is always the risk that an unidentified behaviour or function might mean the experimental results can't be applied to humans.

This doesn't make animal models useless. As with all experiments, the weight of replicated experiments performed critically under peer review determines how confident we should be in a set of results.

It does mean we ought to be cautious about how results from an experiment based on an animal model might apply to our own bodies.

What are the ethics of testing on animals?

Concerns surrounding experiments using animal models are often based on the morality of depriving animals of their liberty or subjecting them to pain or discomfort, to meet a human need or value.

At an extreme end of the ethics spectrum is the claim that all animals have rights equal to humans, and therefore any experiment that wouldn't ethically be conducted on humans shouldn't be conducted on any animal.

Ethics boards today tend to weigh up the potential benefits of an experiment with the risks of harm and suffering to the animal. However, what constitutes a benefit , as well as objective ways to define acceptable limits of harm, pain, and discomfort in different animals can make this more challenging than first appears.

What is the future of animal testing?

More than half a century ago, zoologists William Russell and Rex Burch suggested experimentation should become more humane by following the three Rs; restrict when to use animals; refine the kinds of experiments conducted on them; and replace as the technology becomes available.

Advances in computer modelling and in-vitro tissue culture design are continuing to provide alternatives to animal models that don't suffer from the same ethical and practical limitations.

Human tissue models, such as those making up 3D tissue conglomerates called organoids , are increasingly serving as appropriate models for studying growth and development.

These solutions might not make the way we conduct the experiments themselves more trustworthy. But with robust debate and reliable review procedures, they will steadily make animal testing - and the ethical and practical problems they bring - a thing of the past.

All Explainers are determined by fact checkers to be correct and relevant at the time of publishing. Text and images may be altered, removed, or added to as an editorial decision to keep information current.

Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?

History of Animal Testing

Animals are used to develop medical treatments, determine the toxicity of medications, check the safety of products destined for human use, and other biomedical , commercial, and health care uses. Research on living animals has been practiced since at least 500 BC.

Descriptions of the dissection of live animals have been found in ancient Greek writings from as early as circa 500 BC. Physician-scientists such as Aristotle , Herophilus , and Erasistratus performed the experiments to discover the functions of living organisms. Vivisection (dissection of a living organism) was practiced on human criminals in ancient Rome and Alexandria, but prohibitions against mutilation of the human body in ancient Greece led to a reliance on animal subjects. Aristotle believed that animals lacked intelligence, and so the notions of justice and injustice did not apply to them. Theophrastus , a successor to Aristotle, disagreed, objecting to the vivisection of animals on the grounds that, like humans, they can feel pain, and causing pain to animals was an affront to the gods. Read more background…

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1 Animal testing contributes to life-saving cures and treatments for humans and animals alike. Nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals, according to the California Biomedical Research Association. To name just a few examples, animal research has contributed to major advances in treating conditions including breast cancer, brain injury, childhood leukemia, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, and tuberculosis. Testing on animals was also instrumental in the development of pacemakers, cardiac valve substitutes, and anesthetics. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ] Scientists racing to develop a vaccine for coronavirus during the 2020 global pandemic needed to test on genetically modified mice to ensure that the vaccine did not make the virus worse. Nikolai Petrovsky, professor in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Australia, said testing a coronavirus vaccine on animals is “absolutely essential” and skipping that step would be “fraught with difficulty and danger.” [ 119 ] [ 133 ] Researchers have to test extensively to prevent “vaccine enhancement,” a situation in which a vaccine actually makes the disease worse in some people. “The way you reduce that risk is first you show it does not occur in laboratory animals,” explains Peter Hotez, Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College. [ 119 ] [ 141 ] Further, animals themselves benefit from the results of animal testing. Vaccines tested on animals have saved millions of animals that would otherwise have died from rabies, distemper, feline leukemia, infectious hepatitis virus, tetanus, anthrax, and canine parvo virus. Treatments for animals developed using animal testing also include pacemakers for heart disease and remedies for glaucoma and hip dysplasia. [ 9 ] [ 21 ] Animal testing has also been instrumental in saving endangered species from extinction, including the black-footed ferret, the California condor and the tamarins of Brazil. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) endorses animal testing to develop safe drugs, vaccines, and medical devices. [ 9 ] [ 13 ] [ 23 ] Read More

Pro 2 Animals are appropriate research subjects because they are similar to human beings in many ways. Chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans. All mammals, including humans, are descended from common ancestors, and all have the same set of organs (heart, kidneys, lungs, etc.) that function in essentially the same way with the help of a bloodstream and central nervous system. Because animals and humans are so biologically similar, they are susceptible to many of the same conditions and illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. [ 9 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] Animals often make better research subjects than humans because of their shorter life cycles. Laboratory mice, for example, live for only two to three years, so researchers can study the effects of treatments or genetic manipulation over a whole lifespan, or across several generations, which would be infeasible using human subjects. Mice and rats are particularly well-suited to long-term cancer research, partly because of their short lifespans. [ 9 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] Further, animals must be used in cases when ethical considerations prevent the use of human subjects. When testing medicines for potential toxicity, the lives of human volunteers should not be put in danger unnecessarily. It would be unethical to perform invasive experimental procedures on human beings before the methods have been tested on animals, and some experiments involve genetic manipulation that would be unacceptable to impose on human subjects before animal testing. The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki states that human trials should be preceded by tests on animals. [ 19 ] [ 20 ] A poll of 3,748 scientists by the Pew Research Center found that 89% favored the use of animals in scientific research. The American Cancer Society, American Physiological Society, National Association for Biomedical Research, American Heart Association, and the Society of Toxicology all advocate the use of animals in scientific research. [ 36 ] [ 37 ] [ 38 ] [ 39 ] [ 40 ] [ 120 ] Read More

Pro 3 Animal research is highly regulated, with laws in place to protect animals from mistreatment. In addition to local and state laws and guidelines, animal research has been regulated by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) since 1966. As well as stipulating minimum housing standards for research animals (enclosure size, temperature, access to clean food and water, and others), the AWA also requires regular inspections by veterinarians. [ 3 ] All proposals to use animals for research must be approved by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) set up by each research facility. Most major research institutions’ programs are voluntarily reviewed for humane practices by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC). [ 24 ] [ 25 ] Animal researchers treat animals humanely, both for the animals’ sake and to ensure reliable test results. Research animals are cared for by veterinarians, husbandry specialists, and animal health technicians to ensure their well-being and more accurate findings. Rachel Rubino, attending veterinarian and director of the animal facility at Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, says, “Most people who work with research animals love those animals…. We want to give them the best lives possible, treat them humanely.” At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s animal research facility, dogs are given exercise breaks twice daily to socialize with their caretakers and other dogs, and a “toy rotation program” provides opportunities for play. [ 28 ] [ 32 ] Read More

Con 1 Animal testing is cruel and inhumane. Animals used in experiments are commonly subjected to force feeding, food and water deprivation, the infliction of burns and other wounds to study the healing process, the infliction of pain to study its effects and remedies, and “killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means,” according to Humane Society International. The US Department of Agriculture reported in Jan. 2020 that research facilities used over 300,000 animals in activities involving pain in just one year. [ 47 ] [ 102 ] Plus, most experiments involving animals are flawed, wasting the lives of the animal subjects. A peer-reviewed study found serious flaws in the majority of publicly funded US and UK animal studies using rodents and primates: “only 59% of the studies stated the hypothesis or objective of the study and the number and characteristics of the animals used.” A 2017 study found further flaws in animal studies, including “incorrect data interpretation, unforeseen technical issues, incorrectly constituted (or absent) control groups, selective data reporting, inadequate or varying software systems, and blatant fraud.” [ 64 ] [ 128 ] Only 5% of animals used in experiments are protected by US law. The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) does not apply to rats, mice, fish, and birds, which account for 95% of the animals used in research. The types of animals covered by the AWA account for fewer than one million animals used in research facilities each year, which leaves around 25 million other animals without protection from mistreatment. The US Department of Agriculture, which inspects facilities for AWA compliance, compiles annual statistics on animal testing but they only include data on the small percentage of animals subject to the Act. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 26 ] [ 28 ] [ 135 ] Even the animals protected by the AWA are mistreated. Violations of the Animal Welfare Act at the federally funded New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana included maltreatment of primates who were suffering such severe psychological stress that they engaged in self-mutilation, infant primates awake and alert during painful experiments, and chimpanzees being intimidated and shot with a dart gun. [ 68 ] Read More

Con 2 Animal tests do not reliably predict results in human beings. 94% of drugs that pass animal tests fail in human clinical trials. Over 100 stroke drugs and over 85 HIV vaccines failed in humans after succeeding in animal trials. Nearly 150 clinical trials (human tests) of treatments to reduce inflammation in critically ill patients have been undertaken, and all of them failed, despite being successful in animal tests. [ 57 ] [ 58 ] [ 59 ] Drugs that pass animal tests are not necessarily safe. The 1950s sleeping pill thalidomide, which caused 10,000 babies to be born with severe deformities, was tested on animals prior to its commercial release. Later tests on pregnant mice, rats, guinea pigs, cats, and hamsters did not result in birth defects unless the drug was administered at extremely high doses. Animal tests on the arthritis drug Vioxx showed that it had a protective effect on the hearts of mice, yet the drug went on to cause more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths before being pulled from the market. [ 5 ] [ 55 ] [ 56 ] [ 109 ] [ 110 ] Plus, animal tests may mislead researchers into ignoring potential cures and treatments. Some chemicals that are ineffective on (or harmful to) animals prove valuable when used by humans. Aspirin, for example, is dangerous for some animal species. Intravenous vitamin C has shown to be effective in treating sepsis in humans, but makes no difference to mice. Fk-506 (tacrolimus), used to lower the risk of organ transplant rejection, was “almost shelved” because of animal test results, according to neurologist Aysha Akhtar. A report on Slate.com stated that a “source of human suffering may be the dozens of promising drugs that get shelved when they cause problems in animals that may not be relevant for humans.” [ 105 ] [ 106 ] [ 127 ] Read More

Con 3 Alternative testing methods now exist that can replace the need for animals. Other research methods such as in vitro testing (tests done on human cells or tissue in a petri dish) offer opportunities to reduce or replace animal testing. Technological advancements in 3D printing allow the possibility for tissue bioprinting: a French company is working to bioprint a liver that can test the toxicity of a drug. Artificial human skin, such as the commercially available products EpiDerm and ThinCert, can be made from sheets of human skin cells grown in test tubes or plastic wells and may produce more useful results than testing chemicals on animal skin. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 50 ] [ 51 ] Michael Bachelor, Senior Scientist and Product Manager at biotech company MatTek, stated, “We can now create a model from human skin cells — keratinocytes — and produce normal skin or even a model that mimics a skin disease like psoriasis. Or we can use human pigment-producing cells — melanocytes — to create a pigmented skin model that is similar to human skin from different ethnicities. You can’t do that on a mouse or a rabbit.” The Environmental Protection Agency is so confident in alternatives that the agency intends to reduce chemical testing on mammals 30% by 2025 and end it altogether by 2035. [ 61 ] [ 134 ] [ 140 ] Scientists are also able to test vaccines on humans volunteers. Unlike animals used for research, humans are able to give consent to be used in testing and are a viable option when the need arises. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) global pandemic demonstrated that researchers can skip animal testing and go straight to observing how vaccines work in humans. One company working on a COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna Therapeutics, worked on developing a vaccine using new technology: instead of being based on a weakened form of the virus, it was developed using a synthetic copy of the COVID-19 genetic code. [ 142 ] [ 143 ] Read More

Did You Know?
1. 95% of animals used in experiments are not protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which excludes birds, rats and mice bred for research, and cold-blooded animals such as reptiles and most fish. [ ] [ ] [ ]
2. 89% of scientists surveyed by the Pew Research Center were in favor of animal testing for scientific research. [ ]
3. Chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans. The US National Institutes of Health announced it would retire its remaining 50 research chimpanzees to the Federal Chimpanzee Sanctuary System in 2015, leaving Gabon as the only country to still experiment on chimps. [ ] [ ]
4. A Jan. 2020 report from the USDA showed that in one year of research, California used more cats (1,682) for testing than any other state. Ohio used the most guinea pigs (35,206), and Massachusetts used the most dogs (6,771) and primates (11,795). [ ]
5. Researchers Joseph and Charles Vacanti grew a human "ear" seeded from implanted cow cartilage cells on the back of a living mouse to explore the possibility of fabricating body parts for plastic and reconstructive surgery. [ ]

More Animal Pros and Cons
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Biomedical experimentation on animals

Biomedical experimentation dates back many years. Early experimentation included blood transfusions, vivisection (surgical procedures performed on conscious, living animals), and dissection of apes, dogs, and pigs. In present times testing on nonhuman animals is obligatory in codes of ethics for biomedical research. According to the Nuremberg Code adopted in 1947, any experiments carried out on human beings should be “designed and based on the results of animal research.” 1 The Helsinki Declaration, adopted in 1964 by the 13th World Medical Assembly, also notes that medical research on human subjects “should be based on laboratory and animal experiments or other scientifically established facts.” 2

Since 1940 there has been a new specialty in veterinary medicine: “laboratory animal science.” This makes clear the central role given to the use of animals in research, to the point of being a true paradigm.

There are several different purposes for which animals are used and killed in the field of biomedical research, including the following:

Study of disease

A number of procedures are aimed at studying how different diseases evolve. This is done by deliberately giving animals the disease that is being studied so as to observe how the disease and treatments might work in humans. A wide range of diseases are studied in this manner, such as digestive, neurological and genetic diseases. Animals are also used to study brain injury, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s, AIDS, cancer, obesity, and many others. In order for these experiments to be carried out, animals are forced to endure terrible diseases, traumatic injury, force-feeding, burns, social deprivation, and exposure to toxic substances.

Development of new drugs

The discovery of new medicines generally involves four main steps:

1. Identification of potential drugs . First, new chemicals that may be useful as medicines are identified. The number of animals used in experiments during this phase makes up around 10% of the total number of animals who are used in the process of creating new medicines.

2. Testing new substances . Substances that are considered promising then go through further tests. This is by far the area in which the most animals are experimented on in the process of creating new medicines. Up to 80% of animals who are tested are used in this phase.

3. Safety testing . The safety of substances selected from the previous phase are then further tested. Generally more than 10% of the animals who are tested are used in this phase.

4. Refinement of the final product . The final phase in the development of new medicines involves studies on humans. In general, nonhuman animals are not experimented on at this point. 3

For a single drug, up to 3,000 animals may be used in various tests. Pain for these animals could often be controlled with medicine, but the medicines might interfere with the experiment. This is one reason why pain medication may not be given. In addition, experimenters may significantly prolong the suffering of animals by keeping them alive for a long time after they are fatally harmed by the experiments. Researchers keep these animals alive only because the death of animals during experiments may make the data less useful.

Animals used for experimentation

A wide variety of animals are used in research. They include the following:

Mice and rats . Mice and rats are used for a large number of purposes. They are commonly subjected to experiments on the reaction of mammals to an attack, intoxication, or experimental infection (parasitic, bacterial, or viral) and immunological, oncological (relating to tumors), teratological (abnormal physiological development), and embryological reactions and disorders. Mice are the animals most often used for analysis of human illnesses of genetic origin. Rats are also frequently used in nutritional, behavioral, and endocrinological studies. Mice and rats are used in experiments on cancer and nutrition, kidney disease, cholesterol and skin transplantation as well as many others.

Dogs and cats . Dogs are often used to study cardiovascular issues, CPR techniques, anemia, heart disease, and many other issues. Cats are commonly experimented on to study neurological diseases, cancer, genetic issues and also in studies of the immune system, among many others.

Rabbits . Rabbits are used to test the safety of drugs and vaccines, as well as to study transplants, cholesterol, product safety, and many other things that are mainly used in the production of antidotes, pharmacology, toxicology, teratogenicity, and reproduction.

Guinea pigs . Guinea pigs are used as models in immunological, pharmacological, and nutritional studies.

Hamsters . Hamsters are used for several purposes, including reproduction, cytogenesis, and immunology studies.

Birds, reptiles and frogs . Birds, reptiles and frogs are used in experiments involving diabetes, liver cancer, neurobiological issues and in many other experiments.

Cows . Cows are used in tests involving organ transplants, diabetes and heart disease, among others.

Primates . Primates are used in research on the subject of AIDS, Parkinson’s, anaesthesia, measles and many other diseases.

Most animals used by researchers have been bred specifically to be the subjects of experiments. However, other animals who are experimented on may be obtained from places such as shelters or by placing or answering ads. In many cases the animals are genetically modified, and the genetic modifications may cause them considerable suffering during their lives. Early death may also result due to some genetic modifications.

Examples of procedures

Below are just a few descriptions of the types of experiments and conditions 4 that animals are used in:

Tests for skin-sensitization . Guinea pigs are often used for this. Several doses of a chemical are placed on the skin of the guinea pig to see if a subsequent application causes a greater immune reaction than it does on the skin of a guinea pig who has not been previously exposed to the substance.

Tests on carcinogenicity . Animals such as rats are dosed with potentially carcinogenic substances for as long as two years and the tumors that grow are then studied. In other experiments, pregnant rabbits are dosed with a chemical during their entire pregnancy and their uterine contents are then studied to see if fetal death or altered growth occurred because of these chemicals.

Tests on heart conditions . Conditions such as heart attacks and strokes are induced artificially in dogs so they can be studied.

Paralysis tests . To create paralysis and spinal cord injuries, weights are dropped onto rodents.

Nausea tests . Electrodes are implanted in the intestines of dogs to make them vomit.

Headache tests . Migraine-like symptoms are artificially created in primates by using specific chemicals.

Toxicity tests . These tests assess, as their name suggests, the extent to which certain substances can be toxic. Some of these tests may cause the skin of the animals to crack and peel. Toxicity tests can also cause internal bleeding, vomiting, convulsions, and coma.

Metabolic studies . Animals have tubes implanted in their bile ducts.

Histocompatibility tests . In past histocompatibility tests, new materials were always evaluated on humans to see if they were biocompatible. Some time ago, this became unacceptable. Now, for a material to be considered biocompatible, it must pass through several stages. These are in vitro testing, in vivo testing (it is here that animals are used rather than humans), and in-use tests.

Medications . Animals are also used for bioavailability studies, which is research on the level or frequency with which a medicine or drug is absorbed or made available in body tissues or organs after having been administered.

Pathogenesis research . Transgenic animals are used in research on pathogenic mechanisms of illnesses as testing instruments for possible therapeutic compounds, and as in vivo instruments of validation for potential treatments.

Neurobiology . Animals, especially rats, are used to study the effects of surgery and nutrition on the brain.

The debate on animal experimentation

Defenders of animal experimentation claim that even though methods that do not harm animals may be developed, there are still a number of cases in which it is necessary to try drugs or procedures in living animals. Those opposing this view have argued that experiments on animals may not accurately reflect the effects these drugs will have in humans. Differences due to the species and breed of the animals used may cause the results to inaccurately predict effects in humans. Other problems can arise from the population of animals used being rather homogenous, whereas the population of humans is quite diverse. Differences between the way the tested materials are administered in the laboratory and the way they are ingested or absorbed by humans may also make the results inaccurate. 5

They further argue that even though humans and nonhuman animals may in many cases develop similar health problems, the physiological mechanisms are different. This would be the reason, they argue, why extrapolating data from animal experiments is not epistemologically sound. 6

Apart from these criticisms, and regardless of whether they are right or not, it can be pointed out that there is a sharp contrast between the ways humans and nonhuman animals are considered when it comes to biomedical research. We will see this in the following two sections.

Regulations are not making a difference

In a number of countries, there exist some regulations having to do with how animals can be used in experiments. However, these regulations, where they exist, commonly impose very few limitations on the use of nonhuman animals.

In the European Union, while animal experimentation for cosmetics is prohibited, experiments with scientific aims rarely prohibit the use of animals. The main current regulation in the EU is the Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes . 7 Though it shows less disregard for nonhuman animals than virtually any other piece of regulation in this field, it does not question animal experimentation itself. It stipulates some requirements aimed at reducing the suffering endured by animals, but these can be outweighed by the requirements of the experiment, and it does not consider that the lives of animals are worthy of being preserved and protected. This is shown not only by the fact that animals are routinely killed in procedures, but also by the large numbers of animals who are killed simply because they were bred to be used in experiments but were not. They are killed anyway, and not only is this not prohibited, it is standard practice.

In the USA, animal experimentation is meant to be carried out in accordance with what the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 stipulates. 8 Despite the advances in our understanding of animal sentience and the arguments regarding the moral consideration of animals in recent decades, a law that is around half a century old still applies and has not been replaced by new legislation that provides far more significant protection to animals. To understand how poorly the Animal Welfare Act can provide any defense to animals, it is important to note that it excludes from its consideration animals such as rodents, which are the overwhelming majority of animals used in experimentation.

The enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act is assigned to the Animal Care division of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which is a branch of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is not an animal protection body, but one that fully accepts the harm animals endure for human benefit.

It is similar in Canada, where animal experiments are meant to be carried out in accordance with the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) guiding principles.

In other countries such as Australia and Brazil, Animal Ethics Committees are the ones that can determine whether a certain procedure using nonhuman animals can be accepted or not. These committees commonly include supporters of experimentation, who are almost always their majority. Procedures are commonly accepted even if they cause significant harm to animals.

Finally, in some countries such as Japan, while there is a Law for Humane Treatment and Management of Animals, 9 in practice this is not meaningful at all, since there is no enforcement and there are no third-party agencies required to monitor what is done to the animals. It is assumed that experimenters will self-regulate, which is tantamount to having no regulation whatsoever.

All of this shows that animals used in biomedical testing will continue to have virtually no protection as long as laws accept that their lives and wellbeing have little value.

Animal ethics and experimentation

There are certain purposes for which the benefits of testing on nonhuman animals clearly do not outweigh the harms, because the harms are very significant in relation to trivial benefits (for example, cosmetics testing ). In other cases the benefits are greater and may outweigh the harms caused to the victims. Today different ethical theories exist with different conceptions of the criteria we should use in making decisions that affect testing subjects – human and nonhuman. 10 According to some theories, causing harm to an individual to benefit others is always morally unacceptable, so they would forbid experiments in these cases. According to other theories, we should instead consider the harms caused to some individuals alongside the benefits it gives to others, and give priority to the one that carries more weight. According to these views, experimentation in the latter cases would be acceptable. But as long as those defending this view do not apply it to humans but only to nonhuman animals they are displaying a speciesist bias and are not really accepting that ethical view consistently. In fact the question of the usefulness of in-use or clinical testing is rarely looked at from the benefits vs. harm perspective. It is simply assumed that nonhuman animals can be used as resources if it benefits humans. Speciesism should be rejected though: we must make our ethical evaluations of every practice by setting aside the species to which those involved belong, and considering only the interests they all have.

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ANIMAL ETHICS IN OTHER LANGUAGES

Committee on Animal Research and Ethics (CARE)

Animal Research

Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Nonhuman Animals in Research

Download the guidelines (PDF, 86KB)

February 2022

A foundational aspect of the discipline of psychology is teaching about and research on the behavior of nonhuman animals. Studying other animals is critical to understanding basic principles underlying behavior and to advancing the welfare of both human and nonhuman animals. While psychologists must conduct their teaching and research in a manner consonant with relevant laws and regulations, ethical concerns further mandate that psychologists consider the costs and benefits of procedures involving nonhuman animals before proceeding with these activities.

The following guidelines were developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) for use by psychologists working with nonhuman animals. The guidelines are informed by relevant sections of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 2017).The acquisition, care, housing, use, and disposition of nonhuman animals in research must comply with applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations, institutional policies, and with international conventions to which the United States is a party. APA members working outside the United States must also follow all applicable laws and regulations of the country in which they conduct research.

It is important to recognize that this document constitutes “guidelines,” which serve a different purpose than “standards.” Standards, unlike guidelines, require mandatory compliance, and may be accompanied by an enforcement mechanism. This document is meant to be aspirational and thereby provides recommendations for the professional conduct of specified activities. These guidelines are not intended to be mandatory, exhaustive, or definitive and should not take precedence over the professional judgment of individuals who have competence in the subject addressed.

Questions about these guidelines should be referred to the APA Committee on Animal Research and Ethics (CARE) via email at [email protected] , by phone at 202-336-6000, or in writing to the American Psychological Association, Science Directorate, Office of Research Ethics, 750 First St., NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242

These guidelines are scheduled to expire 10 years from (the date of adoption by the APA Council of Representatives). After this date users are encouraged to contact the APA Science Directorate to determine whether this document remains in effect.

Research should be undertaken with a clear scientific purpose. There should be a reasonable expectation that the research will a) increase knowledge of the process underlying the evolution, development, maintenance, alteration, control, or biological significance of behavior; b) determine the replicability and generality of prior research; c) increase understanding of the species under study; or d) provide results that benefit the health or welfare of humans or other animals.
The scientific purpose of the research should be of sufficient potential significance to justify the use of nonhuman animals. In general, psychologists should act on the assumption that procedures that are likely to produce pain in humans may also do so in other animals, unless there is species-specific evidence of pain or stress to the contrary.
In proposing a research project, the psychologist should be familiar with the appropriate literature, consider the possibility of nonanimal alternatives, and use procedures that minimize the number of nonhuman animals in research. If nonhuman animals are to be used, the species chosen for the study should be the best suited to answer the question(s) posed.
Research on nonhuman animals may not be conducted until the protocol has been reviewed and approved by an appropriate animal care committee; typically, an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), to ensure that the procedures are appropriate and abide by the principles for humane experimental techniques embodied by the 3Rs – Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement (Russell & Burch, 1959).
The researcher(s) should monitor the research and the subjects’ welfare throughout the course of an investigation to ensure continued justification for the research.
Psychologists should ensure that personnel involved in their research with nonhuman animals be familiar with these guidelines.
Investigators and personnel should complete all required institutional research trainings for the ethical conduct of such research.
Research procedures with nonhuman animals should conform to the Animal Welfare Act (7 U.S.C. §2131 et. seq.) and when applicable, the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (PHS, 2015) and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (National Resource Council, 2011), as well as other applicable federal regulations, policies, and guidelines, regarding personnel, supervision, record keeping, and veterinary care.
As behavior is not only the focus of study of many experiments but also a primary source of information about an animal’s health and well-being, investigators should watch for and recognize deviations from normal, species-typical behaviors as indicators of potential health problems.
Psychologists should assume it is their responsibility that all individuals who work with nonhuman animals under their supervision receive explicit instruction in experimental methods and in the care, maintenance, and handling of the species being studied. The activities that any individuals may engage in must not exceed their respective competencies, training, and experience in either the laboratory or the field setting

As a scientific and professional organization, APA recognizes the complexities of defining psychological well-being for both human and nonhuman animals. APA does not provide specific guidelines for the maintenance of psychological well-being of research animals, as procedures that are appropriate for a particular species may not be for others. Psychologists who are familiar with the species, relevant literature, federal guidelines, and their institution’s research facility should consider the appropriateness of measures such as social housing and enrichment to maintain or improve psychological well-being of those species.

The facilities housing laboratory animals should meet or exceed current regulations and guidelines (USDA, 1990, 1991; NIH, 2015) and are required to be inspected twice a year (USDA, 1989; NIH, 2015).
All procedures carried out on nonhuman animals are to be reviewed by an IACUC to ensure that the procedures are appropriate and humane. The committee must have representation from within the institution and from the local community. In the event that it is not possible to constitute an appropriate IACUC in the psychologist’s own institution, psychologists should seek advice and obtain review from a corresponding committee of a cooperative institution.
Laboratory animals are to be provided with humane care and healthful conditions during their stay in any facilities of the institution. Responsibilities for the conditions under which animals are kept, both within and outside of the context of active experimentation or teaching, rests with the psychologist under the supervision of the IACUC (where required by federal regulations) and with individuals appointed by the institution to oversee laboratory animal care.
Laboratory animals not bred in the psychologist’s facility are to be acquired lawfully. The USDA and local ordinances should be determined and followed prior to IACUC protocol submission.
Psychologists should make every effort to ensure that those responsible for transporting the nonhuman animals to the facility provide adequate food, water, ventilation, and space, and impose no unnecessary stress on the animals (NRC, 2006).
Nonhuman animals taken from the wild should be trapped in a humane manner and in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local regulations.
Use of endangered, threatened, or imported nonhuman animals must only be conducted with full attention to required permits and ethical concerns. Information and permit applications may be obtained from the Fish and Wildlife Service website at www.fws.gov .

Consideration for the humane treatment and well-being of the laboratory animal should be incorporated into the design and conduct of all procedures involving such animals, while keeping in mind the primary goal of undertaking the specific procedures of the research project—the acquisition of sound, replicable data. The conduct of all procedures is governed by Guideline I (Justification of Research) above.

Observational and other noninvasive forms of behavioral studies that involve no aversive stimulation to, or elicit no sign of distress from, the nonhuman animal are acceptable.
Whenever possible behavioral procedures should be used that minimize discomfort to the nonhuman animal. Psychologists should adjust the parameters of aversive stimulation to the minimal levels compatible with the aims of the research. Consideration should be given to providing the research animals control over the potential aversive stimulation whenever it is consistent with the goals of the research. Whenever reasonable, psychologists are encouraged to first test on themselves the painful stimuli to be used on nonhuman animal subjects.
Procedures in which the research animal is anesthetized and insensitive to pain throughout the procedure, and is euthanized (AVMA, 2020) before regaining consciousness are generally acceptable.
Procedures involving more than momentary or slight aversive stimulation, which is not relieved by medication or other acceptable methods, should be undertaken only when the objectives of the research cannot be achieved by other methods.
Experimental procedures that require prolonged aversive conditions or produce tissue damage or metabolic disturbances require greater justification and surveillance by the psychologist and IACUC. A research animal observed to be in a state of severe distress or chronic pain that cannot be alleviated and is not essential to the purposes of the research should be euthanized immediately (AVMA, 2020).
Procedures that employ restraint must conform to federal regulations and guidelines.
Procedures involving the use of paralytic agents without reduction in pain sensation require prudence and humane concern. Use of muscle relaxants or paralytics alone during surgery, without anesthesia, is unacceptable.
All surgical procedures and anesthetization should be conducted under the direct supervision of a person who is trained and competent in the use of the procedures.
Unless there is specific justification for acting otherwise, research animals should remain under anesthesia until all surgical procedures are ended.
Postoperative monitoring and care, which may include the use of analgesics and antibiotics, should be provided to minimize discomfort, prevent infection, and promote recovery from the procedure.
In general, laboratory animals should not be subjected to successive survival surgical procedures, except as required by the nature of the research, the nature of the specific surgery, or for the well-being of the animal. Multiple surgeries on the same animal must be justified and receive approval from the IACUC.
To minimize the number of nonhuman animals used, investigators should maximize the amount of data collected from each subject in a manner that is compatible with the goals of the research, sound scientific practice, and the welfare of the animal.
To ensure their humane treatment and well-being, nonhuman animals reared in the laboratory must not be released into the wild because, in most cases, they cannot survive, or they may survive by disrupting the natural ecology.
Euthanasia must be accomplished in a humane manner, appropriate for the species and age, and in such a way as to ensure immediate death, and in accordance with procedures outlined in the latest version of the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) Guidelines on Euthanasia of Animals (2020).
Disposal of euthanized laboratory animals must be conducted in accordance with all relevant laws, consistent with health, environmental, and aesthetic concerns, and as approved by the IACUC. No animal shall be discarded until its death is verified.

Field research that carries a risk of materially altering the behavior of nonhuman animals and/or producing damage to sensitive ecosystems is subject to IACUC approval. Field research, if strictly observational, may not require animal care committee approval (USDA, 2000).

Psychologists conducting field research should disturb their populations as little as possible, while acting consistent with the goals of the research. Every effort should be made to minimize potential harmful effects of the study on the population and on other plant and animal species in the area.
Research conducted in populated areas must be done with respect for the property and privacy of the area’s inhabitants.
Such research on endangered species should not be conducted unless IACUC approval has been obtained and all requisite permits are obtained (see section IV.D of this document). Included in this review should be a risk assessment and guidelines for prevention of zoonotic disease transmission (i.e., disease transmission between species, including human to nonhuman and vice versa).

Research on captive wildlife or domesticated animals outside the laboratory setting that materially alters the environment or behavior of the nonhuman animals should be subject to IACUC approval (Ng et al., 2019). This includes settings where the principal subjects of the research are humans, but nonhuman animals are used as part of the study, such as research on the efficacy of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) and research conducted in zoos, animal shelters, and so on. If it is not possible to establish an IACUC at the psychologists’ own institution, investigators should seek advice and obtain review from an IACUC of a cooperative institution.

Researchers should minimize and mitigate any distress on the nonhuman animal subject caused by its involvement in the study. Qualifications for appropriate handling of animal subjects in AAI settings have been well described by the AVMA (2008). Psychologists studying the use of AAIs should have the expertise to recognize behavioral and/or physiological signs of stress and distress in the species involved in the study. However, when psychologists lack such expertise, they should ensure that the research team includes individuals with the necessary expertise to recognize and intervene to reduce the nonhuman animal subject’s distress. Any study that carries risk of experiencing, or being exposed to the experience of, another organism’s pain, fear, or distress requires greater justification and should be addressed in the IACUC protocol.
When research is conducted in applied settings, such as hospitals, health clinics, and offices of doctors and mental health professionals, the investigator should understand the risk of, and declare mitigating strategies for, disease transmission between human and nonhuman participants. For example, studies of AAIs in health-care facilities offering mental health services may introduce risks for bi-directional zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (Lefebvre, et al., 2008). Investigators studying AAIs in health-care settings should therefore adhere to the guidelines for AAI management offered by the AVMA (2008).
In all experimental circumstances, investigators should structure into the schedule the basic needs of the nonhuman animals such as food, water, and rest breaks.

Laboratory exercises as well as classroom demonstrations involving live animals are of great value as instructional aids. Psychologists are encouraged to include instruction and discussion of the ethics and values of nonhuman animal research in relevant courses.

Nonhuman animals may be used for educational purposes only after review by an IACUC or other appropriate institutional committee.
Consideration should be given to the possibility of using nonanimal alternatives. Procedures that may be justified for research purposes may not be so for educational purposes (e.g., animal models of pain that are used to develop safer analgesics would be in excess of what is needed to merely demonstrate the use of animal models in the study of behavior and cognition).
All handlers of nonhuman animals in educational settings should adhere to the recommendations outlined above for personnel, housing, and acquisition of subjects. APA has adopted separate guidelines for the use of nonhuman animals in research and teaching at the pre-college level. A copy of the APA Guidelines for the Use of Nonhuman Animals in Behavioral Projects in Schools (K-12) can be obtained via email at [email protected] , by phone at 202-336-6000, or in writing to the American Psychological Association, Science Directorate, Office of Research Ethics, 750 First St., NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242 or downloaded at apa.org/science/leadership/care/animal-guide.pdf .

American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/

American Veterinary Medical Association. (2008). Guidelines for animal-assisted interventions in healthcare facilities. American Journal of Infection Control, 36(2), 78-85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2007.09.005

American Veterinary Medical Association. (2020). AVMA guidelines for the euthanasia of animals. https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/2020-Euthanasia-Final-1-17-20.pdf

Animal Welfare Act 7 U.S.C. § 2131 et seq. http://awic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=3&tax_level=3&tax_subject=182&topic_id=1118&level3_id=6735

Institute for Laboratory Animal Research. (2011). Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals (8th ed.). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press

Lefebvre, S. L., Peregrine, A. S., Golab, G. C., Gumley, N. R., WaltnerToews, D., & Weese, J. S. (2008). A veterinary perspective on the recently published guidelines for animal-assisted interventions in health-care facilities. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association , 233(3), 394-402. https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.233.3.394

National Institutes of Health Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare. (2015). Public Health Service Policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Bethesda, MD: NIH. https://olaw.nih.gov/policies-laws/phs-policy.htm

National Research Council. (2006). Guidelines for the humane transportation of research animals . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Ng, Z., Morse, L., Albright, J., Viera, A., & Souza, M. (2019). Describing the use of animals in animal-assisted intervention research. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science , 22(4), 364-376.

Russell W.M.S., & Burch, R. L. (1959). The principles of humane experimental technique. Wheathampstead (UK): Universities Federation for Animal Welfare.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. (1989). Animal welfare; Final Rules. Federal Register , 54(168), (Aug 31, 1989), 36112-36163.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. (1990). Guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits; Final Rules. Federal Register , 55(136), (July 16, 1990), 28879- 28884.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. (1991). Animal welfare; Standards; Part 3, Final Rules. Federal Register , 55(32), (Feb 15, 1991), 6426-6505.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2000). Field study; Definition; Final Rules. Federal Register , 65(27), (Feb 9, 2000), 6312-6314.

U.S. Public Health Service. (2015). Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. https://olaw.nih.gov/sites/default/ files/PHSPolicyLabAnimals.pdf

Additional Resources

Dess, N. K., & Foltin, R. W. (2004). The ethics cascade. In C. K. Akins, S. Panicker, & C. L. Cunningham (Eds.). Laboratory animals in research and teaching: Ethics, care, and methods (pp. 31-39). APA.

National Institutes of Mental Health. (2002). Methods and welfare considerations in behavioral research with animals: Report of a National Institutes of Health Workshop. Morrison, A. R., Evans, H. L., Ator, N. A., & Nakamura, R. K. (Eds.). NIH Publications No. 02-5083. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

National Research Council. (2011). Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals. (8th ed.). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2003). Guidelines for the care and use of mammals in neuroscience and behavioral research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2008). Recognition and alleviation of distress in laboratory animals. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2009). Recognition and alleviation of pain in laboratory animals. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Nonhuman Animals in Research was developed by the American Psychological Association Committee on Animal Research and Ethics in 2020 and 2021. Members on the committee were Rita Colwill, PhD, Juan Dominguez, PhD, Kevin Freeman, PhD, Pamela Hunt, PhD, Agnès Lacreuse, PhD, Peter Pierre, PhD, Tania Roth, PhD, Malini Suchak, PhD, and Sangeeta Panicker, PhD (Staff Liaison). Inquiries about these guidelines should be made to the American Psychological Association, Science Directorate, Office of Research Ethics, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002, or via e-mail at [email protected].

Related Resources

Some Friendly Advice for Responding to Requests for Information About Animal Research
Resolution on the Use of Animals in Research, Testing and Education (PDF, 95KB)

Contact Science Directorate

September 12, 2019

Japan Approves First Human-Animal Embryo Experiments

The research could eventually lead to new sources of organs for transplant, but ethical and technical hurdles need to be overcome

By David Cyranoski & Nature magazine

Sinclair Stammers Getty Images

A Japanese stem-cell scientist is the first to receive government support to create animal embryos that contain human cells and transplant them into surrogate animals since a ban on the practice was overturned earlier this year.

Hiromitsu Nakauchi, who leads teams at the University of Tokyo and Stanford University in California, plans to grow human cells in mouse and rat embryos and then transplant those embryos into surrogate animals. Nakauchi's ultimate goal is to produce animals with organs made of human cells that can, eventually, be transplanted into people.

Until March, Japan explicitly forbade the growth of animal embryos containing human cells beyond 14 days or the transplant of such embryos into a surrogate uterus. That month, Japan’s education and science ministry issued new guidelines allowing the creation of human–animal embryos that can be transplanted into surrogate animals and brought to term.

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Human–animal hybrid embryos have been made in countries such as the United States, but never brought to term . Although the country allows this kind of research, the National Institutes of Health has had a moratorium on funding such work since 2015.

Nakauchi’s experiments are the first to be approved under Japan’s new rules, by a committee of experts in the science ministry. Final approval from the ministry is expected in October.

Nakauchi says he plans to proceed slowly, and will not attempt to bring any hybrid embryos to term for some time. Initially, he plans to grow hybrid mouse embryos until 14.5 days, when the animal’s organs are mostly formed and it is almost to term. He will do the same experiments in rats, growing the hybrids to near term, about 15.5 days. Later, Nakauchi plans to apply for government approval to grow hybrid embryos in pigs for up to 70 days.

“It is good to proceed stepwise with caution, which will make it possible to have a dialogue with the public, which is feeling anxious and has concerns,” says science-policy researcher Tetsuya Ishii of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

Ethical concerns

Some bioethicists are concerned about the possibility that human cells might stray beyond development of the targeted organ, travel to the developing animal’s brain and potentially affect its cognition.

Nakauchi says these concerns have been taken into consideration in the experiment design. “We are trying to do targeted organ generation, so the cells go only to the pancreas,” he says.

The strategy that he and other scientists are exploring is to create an animal embryo that lacks a gene necessary for the production of a certain organ, such as the pancreas, and then to inject human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into the animal embryo. iPS cells are those that have been reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state and can give rise to almost all cell types. As the animal develops, it uses the human iPS cells to make the organ, which it cannot make with its own cells.

In 2017, Nakauchi and his colleagues reported the injection of mouse iPS cells into the embryo of a rat that was unable to produce a pancreas. The rat formed a pancreas made entirely of mouse cells. Nakauchi and his team transplanted that pancreas back into a mouse that had been engineered to have diabetes. The rat-produced organ was able to control blood sugar levels, effectively curing the mouse of diabetes.

But getting human cells to grow in another species is not easy. Nakauchi and colleagues announced at the 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Austin, Texas, that they had put human iPS cells into sheep embryos that had been engineered not to produce a pancreas. But the hybrid embryos, grown for 28 days, contained very few human cells, and nothing resembling organs. This is probably because of the genetic distance between humans and sheep, says Nakauchi.

It doesn’t make sense to bring human–animal hybrid embryos to term using evolutionarily distant species such as pigs and sheep because the human cells will be eliminated from host embryos early on, says Jun Wu, who researches human–animal chimeras at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “Understanding the molecular basis and developing strategies to overcome this barrier will be necessary to move the field forward,” Wu says.

Nakauchi says the approval in Japan will allow him to attack this problem. He will be experimenting with iPS cells at subtly different stages, and trying some genetically modified iPS cells to try to determine what limits the growth of human cells in animal embryos.

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on July 26, 2019.

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26 July 2019

Japan approves first human-animal embryo experiments

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2023’s wins for animals in labs signals a future without animal testing

Artificial intelligence, organ-on-chip technology and 3D bioprinting: These advancements promise to dramatically reshape our world, and they’ll play a part in making animal experiments obsolete. Sophisticated testing and research methods that use human cells or human biology-based technology will one day completely replace experiments on animals—a game-changer not just for animals, but for human health. The only question is how quickly it will happen.

Our mission is to expedite this change so that animals no longer suffer in laboratories when more modern and ethical methods for understanding human biology and diseases and ensuring that products are safe and effective are in place. We’re doing this by tackling the issue of animal testing and experimentation and the need for non-animal approaches head-on. In 2023, we made notable progress on the following fronts:

Banning or phasing out animal tests. This year, we worked across the U.S. and around the world to move away from animal testing:

Oregon became the 11 th state to ban the sale of cosmetics tested on animals.
Illinois banned dogs and cats from being used in toxicity testing —tests that attempt to determine how a substance, ingredient or drug may affect human health—unless such testing is explicitly deemed necessary by a federal agency.
Just this week, Chile became the 45 th country to enact a cosmetic animal testing and sales ban.
Brazil became the 43 rd country to ban cosmetic testing on animals and is one vote away from enacting a further ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics. With our help, Brazil has also moved away from testing school supplies like paint and glue on animals and is advancing chemical legislation that includes strong animal-protective language.
Canada became the 44 th country to ban cosmetic animal testing and the sale of animal-tested cosmetics. Canada has also modernized its environmental protection law to require that non-animal methods be used to test chemicals where available, and has begun work on a national strategy to phase-out toxicity testing on animals more broadly.
India revised its rules for testing new drugs to expressly specify the government’s acceptance of non-animal approaches.
South Korea announced its decision to phase out the use of horseshoe crab blood — commonly used in tests for drugs and vaccines—and rely on a synthetic substitute instead. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety also announced its openness to receiving data from a range of modern non-animal approaches from companies applying for the approval of new pharmaceutical products. Additionally, the Promotion of Alternatives to Animal Methods (PAAM) Act, which we helped to develop, was endorsed by the lead committee in Korea’s National Assembly with backing from hundreds of scientists and industry experts .
Our global outreach to the vaccine industry and regulators helped influence Japan to fully remove an obsolete animal test from its safety requirements.
In response to the successful European Citizens Initiative led by our international colleagues and allies, the European Commission kick-started a plan to phase out animal testing for chemicals, pesticides, biocides and human and veterinary medicines, as well as explore effective non-animal approaches with help from scientists.
The Humane Cosmetics Act , federal legislation to ban production and sale of animal-tested cosmetics in the U.S. recently reintroduced in the House of Representatives, currently has more than 200 bipartisan cosponsors and the support of 400 individual cosmetics companies, in addition to the Personal Care Products Council—the leading national trade association representing 600 global cosmetics and personal care products companies.

Ensuring that non-animal methods are funded, developed and used worldwide. We worked with scientists, legislators and others to help promote alternatives that can replace animal experiments.

Maryland became the first American state to require that laboratories that test on animals contribute to a research fund to provide grants for scientists using or developing non-animal research alternatives .
California passed a law expanding the list of non-animal alternatives that laboratories testing products such as pesticides, household products and industrial chemicals are required to use. The bill also mandated that laboratories submit an annual report with the number and type of animals and non-animal alternatives they have used to test these products.
With our partners, we created and launched a free, first-of-its-kind master class in animal-free safety assessment for cosmetics and their ingredients to assist companies, regulators and other industry entities in fully turning away from cosmetics animal testing.
Through our scientific contributions at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development we helped to establish 16 new or improved non-animal methods as internationally recognized test guidelines by the OECD’s 38 member countries.
We co-organized and sponsored the leading global congress on alternatives to animal use in science, and our global team presented or contributed to 15 different scientific sessions , including a 10-year retrospective on our initiative to end animal testing for cosmetics.

Eliminating duplicative, ineffective or redundant animal tests. Scientific papers authored by our staff and published in 2023 are making waves in the scientific community:

Our peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology analyzed data from the 90-day pesticide test on beagles to demonstrate that, in nearly all cases, the test provided no added value in protecting humans from pesticides’ toxic effects. This test, which involves forcing dozens of dogs to ingest pesticides every day for 90 days and then killing them is required by the Environmental Protection Agency and its regulatory counterparts around the world. In response to our findings, the EPA is reviewing the test to see how it might be avoided in the future.
Our peer-reviewed paper in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals explores why animal experiments have given false hope to patients with diseases such as Alzheimer’s and asthma and explains how switching to non-animal methods based on human biology could help provide us with highly sought-after medicines to treat and cure human diseases.
We teamed up with vaccine regulators, industry and other experts to co-author a peer-reviewed article in Biologicals on non-animal approaches for veterinary vaccine safety testing .
Our Biomedical Research for the 21 st Century (BioMed21) Collaboration project worked toward ending the common practice of scientific journals asking scientists to conduct animal tests to verify non-animal research results. We did this through several workshops and the creation of an Author Guide for Addressing Animal Methods Bias in Publishing by an international group of researchers and advocates.
With our Animal-Free Safety Assessment Collaboration partners—including Procter & Gamble, Kenvue, Unilever, ExxonMobil, Shell, Givaudan, Firmenich, Innospec, Sasol and the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals—we published several case-studies highlighting instances when unnecessary animal testing was requested by the European Chemicals Agency contradicting EU law.

Improving the lives of animals in animal testing facilities. Until animals are no longer living in laboratories or research breeding facilities, we’ll continue to fight for their better treatment and improved living conditions to help ease their suffering:

Michigan became the 16th state to require laboratories to allow dogs and cats to be adopted after their use in testing. Teddy’s Law was named in honor of a beagle adopted by a loving family following our 2019 undercover investigation at a Michigan lab.
In the year since we completed the historic transfer of nearly 4,000 beagles —most of whom were destined for laboratories—from Envigo’s Virginia breeding facility, we’ve celebrated the many stories we’ve heard about these beagles who have settled happily into their new homes.

You can help end animal testing and experiments by resolving to take action in 2024 and beyond:

Cosmetics tests on animals are still legal in the U.S. Urge your legislators to join Canada and Mexico in banning cosmetic testing on animals .
Thousands of mice and rats could suffer through painful and unnecessary procedures to test sunscreen ingredients if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration goes through with a new plan. Tell them to reconsider .
Ask your U.S. legislators to support the Better Collaboration, Accountability, and Regulatory Enforcement (CARE) for Animals Act , which would give the U.S. Department of Justice more enforcement options with respect to animal testing laboratories and other facilities that violate the Animal Welfare Act.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plays a pivotal role in promoting animal testing. Urge the agency to stop relying on outdated animal tests and prioritize non-animal methods that are more accurate .

Thanks to your advocacy and support, the world is ever closer to a future in which animals no longer suffer in the name of science or safety.

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

Taking Suffering Out of Science

About the author

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and CEO of Humane Society International, the international affiliate of the HSUS

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Also of Interest

New York state bans cosmetics animal testing, capping off a year of wins for animals in labs

Major progress for animals in laboratories in 2021 signals a more humane future

A decade’s worth of wins against cosmetics animal testing

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Facts and Statistics About Animal Testing

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.

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.

Animal Testing Facts and Figures

U.S. (2022) 1,2

In 2022, more than 1.27 million animals were held captive in laboratories or used in experiments, excluding rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and agricultural animals used in agricultural experiments. The number of mice and rats is estimated to have been 111 million.

Canada (2022) 3

Institutions certified by the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) reported that 3.52 million animals were used in experiments in 2022.*
Of these, 105,253 animals were subjected to “severe pain near, at, or above the pain tolerance threshold of unanesthetized conscious animals.”

*The CCAC is a “national peer-review organization” funded by the Canadian government but with 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 use of animals is therefore not included in the organization’s figures.

U.K. (2023) 4

In 2023, 2.68 million procedures were conducted on animals.
Of those, 80,400 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.”

1 Data from all 2022 annual reports was derived from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s public search tool . 2 Larry Carbone, “ Estimating Mouse and Rat Use in American Laboratories by Extrapolation From Animal Welfare Act–Regulated Species ,” Scientific Reports 11, 493 (2021). 3 CCAC, “ CCAC Animal Data Report 2022 ,” 2023. 4 U.K. Government, “ Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2023 ,” Home Office, September 11, 2024. 5 Cary 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 6 Peter Aldhous and Andy Coghlan, “ Let the People Speak ,” New Scientist 22 May 1999. 7 Daniel 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. 8 Marlene Simmons et al., “ Cancer-Cure Story Raises New Questions ,” Los Angeles Times 6 May 1998. 9 Rich McManus, “Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research,” NIH Record 21 June 2013. 10 Jarrod Bailey, “ An Assessment of the Role of Chimpanzees in AIDS Vaccine Research ,” Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36 (2008): 381-428. 11 Steve Connor and Chris Green, “ Is It Time to Give Up the Search for an AIDS Vaccine? ” The Independent 24 Apr. 2008. 12 National Institutes of Health, “ About New Therapeutic Uses ,” National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences 9 Oct. 2019. 13 Steve Woloshin, M.D., M.S., et al ., “ Press Releases by Academic Medical Centers: Not So Academic? ” Annals of Internal Medicine 150 (2009): 613-8. 14 Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, “ Media Reporting on Research Presented at Scientific Meetings: More Caution Needed ,” The Medical Journal of Australia 184 (2006): 576-80. 15 Diana E. Pankevich et a l., “ International Animal Research Regulations: Impact on Neuroscience Research ,” The National Academies (2012). 16 National Institutes of Health, “ Budget ,” (last accessed on 3 May 2021). 17 Pankevich et a l. 18 Deborah Ziff, “ On Campus: PETA Sues UW Over Access to Research Records ,” Wisconsin State Journal 5 Apr. 2010. 19 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, “Animal Welfare, Definition of Animal,” Federal Register, 69 (2004): 31513-4. 20 Justin Goodman et al. , “ Trends in Animal Use at US Research Facilities ,” Journal of Medical Ethics 0(2015): 1-3. 21 The Associated Press, “Animal Welfare Act May Not Protect All Critters,” 7 May 2002. 22 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, “Animal Care: Search.” 23 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, “ APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities ,” audit report, 30 Sept. 2005. 24 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, “ USDA Employee Survey on the Effectiveness of IACUC Regulations ,” Apr. 2000. 25 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, “APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities,” audit report, 30 Sept. 2005. 26 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, “ Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Oversight of Research Facilities ,” audit report, Dec. 2014. 27 Lawrence A. Hansen et a l., “ Analysis of Animal Research Ethics Committee Membership at American Institutions ,” Animals 2 (2012): 68-75. 28 Pandora Pound and Michael Bracken, “ Is Animal Research Sufficiently Evidence Based To Be A Cornerstone of Biomedical Research? ,” BMJ (2014): 348. 29 Junhee Seok et al ., “ Genomic Responses in Mouse Models Poorly Mimic Human Inflammatory Diseases ,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (2013): 3507-12.

Please immediately tell the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service not to resume monkey imports from Cambodia.

rhesus macaques with family in front of blue background

Removing the protection of rhesus macaque monkeys will expose them to capture, abuse, and exploitation.

A just-released report reveals a laundry list of violations in a tax-funded laboratory at Emory University, where, among other horrors, experimenters caused a baby monkey to suffer.

two long tailed macaques purple background

Please urge SkyTaxi to stop flying these animals to their deaths.

sunscreen and rabbit on yellow background

Please urge the FDA not to ask for animal tests and to instead collaborate on the development of a non-animal testing approach that protects human health without harming animals.

PETA shut down one miserable lab in Colombia and got the authorities to rescue all the animals. Now, we’ve uncovered another. We need your help to stop it from killing any more monkeys.

The first World Day for Laboratory Animals protest in the U.S., 1980

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“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights? ”

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind

Text EGYPT to 73822 to urge Egyptian officials to stop using horses & camels at the pyramids. They are routinely beaten & denied sufficient food!

Terms for automated texts/calls from PETA: http://peta.vg/txt . Text STOP to end, HELP for more info. Msg/data rates may apply. U.S. only.

Redirect Notice

Why properly designed experiments are critical for animal research, and advancing public health.

Good research practices are critical to ensuring rigorous, reproducible, and relevant results. When experiments are designed properly, the results are more likely to be replicated in future studies and relevant for human health.

Properly designing experiments means:

Thinking about and planning for the appropriate number of animals necessary for the research
Understanding the health of the animals and how they are cared for, such as their housing and other environmental factors
Clearly explaining, identifying, and sharing the study methods when discussing the research to ensure it can be repeated by others
Applying the 3Rs when conducting research to reduce, replace, and refine the use of animals when scientifically appropriate

NIH is committed to ensuring the research it supports is of the highest quality, is efficient, and the results can be explained and understood. This includes ensuring that studies involving animals are rigorous and reproducible.

NIH and the wider research community is actively working toward identifying, developing, and sharing any and all research methods that improve the quality and transparency of animal research. A group of independent experts have even provided recommendations for NIH to consider going forward.

NIH is actively listening and participating throughout this process.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke funds the development of educational resources to advance rigor in animal research and build a greater emphasis on rigor at universities around the country. They also held a workshop that brought together a diverse cross-section of individuals who promote rigor and transparency in biomedical research and are invested in catalyzing change.
The National Institute on Aging developed a publicly available, searchable, database, called the AlzPED program , to increase the transparency, reproducibility and translatability of preclinical studies of possible treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
NIH also provides many resources for researchers to address rigor in their grant applications. For example, we encourage the use of a free online tool that guides researchers through the design of their experiments, helping to ensure that they use as few animals as possible. This webinar explains how and why this tool is used.
NIH encourages recipient organizations and researchers to include the ARRIVE Essential 10 (essential elements of study design) in all NIH-supported publications describing vertebrate animal and cephalopod (such as octopus) research. The ARRIVE Essential 10 is a checklist that explains the most basic information to report in a scientific paper that includes animal research, which will help readers assess the reliability of the findings. You can watch this webinar to learn more.

NIH will continue to devise strategies that minimize the numbers of animals needed in NIH-supported studies, while remaining committed to promoting rigorous and transparent research in all areas of science.

Related NIH Leadership Statements

February 10, 2023: Dr. Michael Lauer (NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research) -
Take Advantage of Our Many Resources for Enhancing the Rigor of Animal Research
December 8, 2022: Dr. Lyric Jorgenson (NIH Associate Director for Science Policy) - Catalyzing Research with Novel Alternative Methods (which complements animal research to minimize animal use where possible and strengthen the reproducibility of results when animal models are necessary)
June 11, 2021: Dr. Francis Collins (former NIH Director) - Statement on enhancing rigor, transparency, and translatability in animal research
May 4, 2020: Dr. Carrie Wolinetz (former NIH Associate Director for Science Policy) - Summary of “NIH Workshop on Optimizing Reproducibility in Nonhuman Primate Research Studies by Enhancing Rigor and Transparency” Now Available .

IMAGES

First ever human-pig hybrid animal created in lab for organ harvesting
Animal Testing: Animals Used in Experiments
Halb Mensch
Experiments on Animals: Overview
How can studies on rats apply to humans?
Introduction to How Animal Testing Works

COMMENTS

Using animals in experiments
It is estimated that more than 50 million animals are used in experiments each year in the United States. Unfortunately, no accurate figures are available to determine precisely how many animals are used in experiments in the U.S. or worldwide. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does compile annual statistics on some animals used in ...
Ethical considerations regarding animal experimentation
Introduction. Animal model-based research has been performed for a very long time. Ever since the 5 th century B.C., reports of experiments involving animals have been documented, but an increase in the frequency of their utilization has been observed since the 19 th century [].Most institutions for medical research around the world use non-human animals as experimental subjects [].
The Flaws and Human Harms of Animal Experimentation
The use of nonpredictive animal experiments can cause human suffering in at least two ways: (1) by producing misleading safety and efficacy data and (2) by causing potential abandonment of useful medical treatments and misdirecting resources away from more effective testing methods. Humans are harmed because of misleading animal testing results.
Why Animal Research Is Necessary
While some treatments and procedures can be studied in humans without using animal models first, many therapies require testing in animals before being used in humans. In the wake of historical atrocities involving experimentation in humans, the international community has established ethical guidelines that call for conducting animal studies ...
About Animal Testing
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.
Why Animal Research?
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 ...
What Is Animal Testing & Which Animals Are Used For Testing?
Animal testing is the process of experimenting on live, non-human animals to assess the effectiveness or safety of cosmetics, household products, or medicines. These experiments often cause tremendous suffering for innocent subjects. Most animals used for testing are killed after the experiment is complete.
Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms
The human-animal mixtures are being created by injecting human stem cells into days-old animal embryos, then gestating these in female livestock. ... The experiments rely on a cutting-edge fusion ...
Animal Experiments in Biomedical Research: A Historical Perspective
The amorality of human experiments prior to animal testing in animals was also an ethical argument raised in favor of vivisection by Bernard , who wrote: No hesitation is possible, the science of life can be established only by experiment, and we can save living beings from death only by sacrificing others. Experiments must be made either on ...
Use of animals in experimental research: an ethical dilemma?
Results obtained in animals might not be reliably extrapolated to man and in spite of series of animal experiments and clinical trials in humans, side effects of drugs may not be recognized due to ...
Alternatives to animal experiments
Alternatives to animal experiments. Millions of dogs, monkeys, mice and other animals currently suffer in U.S. laboratories. But non-animal alternatives will one day completely replace experiments on animals. This will be a game-changer not just for animals, but for human health. Our mission is to accelerate this change so that animals in ...
Animal testing
Animal testing, science, medicine, animal welfare, animal rights, ethics. Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals, such as model organisms, in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study.
Why Do Scientists Experiment on Animals?
By ScienceAlert Staff. (Shanelle Hulse/EyeEm/Getty Images) Animal studies in science are experiments that control an animal's behaviour or physiology for study, often to serve as a model for human biology where testing on humans is impractical or unethical. The species or classification of animals used in testing largely depends on the goal of ...
First monkey-human embryos reignite debate over hybrid animals
Japan approves first human-animal embryo experiments. But the latest work has divided developmental biologists. Some question the need for such experiments using closely related primates — these ...
Animal Testing
1. 95% of animals used in experiments are not protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which excludes birds, rats and mice bred for research, and cold-blooded animals such as reptiles and most fish. [1] [2] [3] 3. Chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans.
Biomedical experimentation on animals
5 See for instance Sharpe, R. (1994) Science on trial: The human cost of animal experiments, Sheffield: Awareness Books; Croce, P. (1999) Vivisection or science: An investigation into testing drugs and safeguarding health, 2 nd ed., New York: Zed. See also: Greek, J. S. & Greek, R. (2000) Sacred cows and golden geese: The human cost of experiments on animals, New York: Continuum; (2003 ...
Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Animals
Research procedures with nonhuman animals should conform to the Animal Welfare Act (7 U.S.C. §2131 et. seq.) and when applicable, the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (PHS, 2015) and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (National Resource Council, 2011), as well as other applicable ...
End harmful animal experiments
These animals are deliberately sickened with toxic chemicals or infected with diseases, live in barren cages and are typically killed when the experiment ends. But humans and animals are very different, so outdated animal experiments often don't accurately mimic how the human body will respond to drugs, chemicals or treatments.
Japan Approves First Human-Animal Embryo Experiments
This article was originally published with the title " Japan Approves First Human-Animal Embryo Experiments " in SA Health & Medicine Vol. 1 No. 5 (October 2019) doi:10.1038 ...
Japan approves first human-animal embryo experiments
Japan approves first human-animal embryo experiments. The research could eventually lead to new sources of organs for transplant, but ethical and technical hurdles need to be overcome. By. David ...
2023's wins for animals in labs signals a future without animal testing
Artificial intelligence, organ-on-chip technology and 3D bioprinting: These advancements promise to dramatically reshape our world, and they'll play a part in making animal experiments obsolete. Sophisticated testing and research methods that use human cells or human biology-based technology will one day completely replace experiments on animals—a game-changer not just for animals, but for ...
Animal Testing Facts and Statistics
501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510. 757-622-PETA (7382) 757-622-0457 (fax) PETA is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) corporation (tax ID number 52-1218336). CFC #11651. 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.
Why Properly Designed Experiments Are Critical for Animal Research, and
Why Properly Designed Experiments Are Critical for Animal Research, and Advancing Public Health . Scope Note. Good research practices are critical to ensuring rigorous, reproducible, and relevant results. When experiments are designed properly, the results are more likely to be replicated in future studies and relevant for human health.