Putting animal testing to rest... sort of

According to a piece on Marketplace (American Public Media), the number of animals used in experimentation has declined by 50 percent over the last 25 years, due at least in part to software that allows researchers to input data about the chemicals they're testing and get an output of just how toxic it is.

Ok, so a 50% decrease is good news, right? Not to be all the-glass-is-half-empty (or should I say still half full... confusing metaphor, sorry), but that means that there are still tons of animals enduring cruel experiments that can only be called torture. Just how many animals, you ask?

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is part of the USDA, reported that researchers tested on over a million animals in 2004, which was the most recent report I was able to find on their site. The number does not include birds, mice, or rats bred for testing because those animals are not covered under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and researchers are not only not required to report the numbers of birds, mice, and rats they test on. (They're also not required to comply with the few protections offered to the animals that are covered under the AWA). The ASPCA estimates that researched experimented on 14 million rats and mice in 2002 in the US alone, and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) puts the worldwide estimate at 100 million animals a year.

The problems with animal testing are twofold. First, it's obviously cruel. (If you don't know what I'm talking about see: The Earthlings, PETA, BUAV, Johns Hopkins University, CaringConsumer.com, etc., etc. Second, the results of experiments on rats, mice, and other animals don't always correlate to people. The results don't always even correlate among more similar animals:

When rat and mouse carcinogens are compared, the tests in rats agree with the tests in mice only
two thirds of the time.
-- Dr. Martin Stephens, Vice President for Animal Research Issues at The Humane Society and Dr. Andrew Rowan, Senior Vice President for Research, Education and International Issues, "An Overview of Animal Testing"

Fortunately, in many cases alternative experiments can be done with computer models and human tissues grown in the lab. These experiments are not only cruelty-free, but often much more accurate. But yet research on animals continues.

So what can we do? Lots. To encourage companies to stop animal testing, check out CaringConsumer.com's list of the companies that still do test on animals. We can stop using their products and write them a letter to let them know why. And choose to support companies that don't test on animals when we need to purchase something. We can also write letters to our representatives, medical schools, and local papers, invest only in cruelty-free companies, and spread the word to friends and family members.