Animal Vivisection

Vivisection (pronounced vih-vih-SEK-shun) literally means the dissection or cutting of a living animal.

In silence they suffer
In Loneless they die

More than 100 million animals every year suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food and cosmetic tests, biology lessons, medical training exercises, and curiosity-driven medical experiments.

Animals have the right to be treated as beings of value in themselves , not as the means to human ends. This principle must be applies in order to guarantee the end of cruelty to animals. The application of this principle means that animals should never be experimented upon whatever the potential gain for humanity. To infect monkeys with the AIDS virus or to expose rodents to toxic chemicals and radiation is simply not acceptable , whatever the supposed benefit .

Although in principle it is more important to reduce human suffering that to prevent animal suffering , in practice it is possible (and absolutely right) to keep animal suffering to an absolute minimum . Animal experimenters should aspire to the highest levels of animal welfare in their laboratories , using anaesthetics wherever possible and keeping animals in clean , comfortable , and healthy conditions.

In short, it is possible to experiment on animals without being cruel to animals.

To test cosmetics, household cleaners, and other consumer products, hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year by cruel corporations.

In practice, as everyone knows, animals are not routinely treated well by animal experimenters. Apart from the fact that millions of animals die each year in experiments, others are often not adequately anaesthetised and are abused by handlers and experimenters. It is idealistic to suppose that this will ever stop as long as society endorses vivisection.

The Department of Defense spent about $180 million on experiments using 553,000 animals in 1993.

Agricultural experiments are carried out on cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and turkeys to find ways in which to make cows produce more milk, sheep produce more wool, and all animals produce more offspring and grow "meatier."


In fact, most animal experiments are done on animals that are nothing like human beings - rats and mice - which undermines the argument that these experiments are a reliable guide to human reactions. Scientifically, as well as morally, most animal experimentation is to be rejected - the reaction of a mouse to a substance is no guide to human reactions. Each species has its own unique physiology. And the more similar an animal is to a human being - e.g. a chimpanzee - the more intelligent and sentient it is, and so the more immoral it is to treat is as a disposable and worthless biological object.


There are indeed new issues raised by the advent of genetic engineering and 'transgenic' animals; these, like all animal experiments should be closely monitored so as to minimise animal suffering.

The UK Government annual statistics for 2009 reveal that over 3.5 million animals suffered and died in British laboratories in experiments are "likely cause pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm" (experiments that are considered unlikely to cause pain do not need to be licensed and are therefore not included in the annual statistics). An estimated additional 8 million animals are bred and then destroyed as surplus to requirements.

http://www.uncaged.co.uk/

There are many reasons to oppose vivisection. For example, enormous physiological variations exist among rats, rabbits, dogs, pigs, and human beings.

The drugs Thalidomide, Zomax, and DES were all tested on animals and judged safe but had devastating consequences for the humans who used them.

It is only acceptable to test human medicines on human beings if they give their consent. Non-human animals are never able to give such consent. It is therefore never acceptable to test medicines on perfectly healthy animals, even if the treatments are for use on other animals.

Over 100 million animals are used in experiments worldwide every year.

In Japan, starved rats with electrodes in their necks and electrodes
in their eyeballs were forced to run in treadmills for four hours at
a time.

A group of 64 monkeys was addicted to drugs by automatic injection in their jugular veins. When the supply of drugs was abruptly withdrawn,
some of the monkeys were observed to die in convulsions. Before dying,
some monkeys plucked out all their hair or bit off their own fingers
and toes.


The largest breeding company in the United States is Charles River Breeding Laboratories (CRBL) headquartered in Massachusetts and owned by Bausch and Lomb. It commands 40-50 percent of the market for mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, rhesus monkeys, imported primates, and miniature swine.

Estimates of the number of animals tortured and killed annually in U.S. laboratories diverge widely - from 17 to 70 million animals.

Vivisection effectively reduces sentient beings to the status of disposable tools, to be used and discarded for the benefit of others. This forgets that each animal has an inherent value, a value that does not rise and fall depending on the interests of
others.

Private institutions and companies also invest in the vivisection industry. Many household product and cosmetics companies still pump their products into animals' stomachs, rub them onto their shaved, abraded skin, squirt them into their eyes, and force them to inhale aerosol products. Charities, such as the American Cancer Society and the March of Dimes, use donations from private citizens to fund experiments on animals.


Human medicine cannot be based on veterinary medicine. This is because animals are different histologically, anatomically, genetically,
immunologically, and physiologically.

Animals and humans react differently to substances. For example, some drugs are carcinogenic in humans but not in animals, or vice-versa.

Do they give us an accurate picture of animal experimentation, or are they misleading? It may be best to characterize these statistics as limited. They are limited by the manner in which the USDA/APHIS enforces the Animal Welfare Act, and they are limited by the accuracy of the research facilities that file reports.

20,000,000

The first and most important limitation of these numbers is that they ignore the majority of animals used in experimentation. Rats, mice, and many other species (i.e. all non-mammals) are not required to be reported. Therefore, if we want an accurate total of the number of animals used in experimentation, we can only estimate. Rodents and the other unreported species are estimated to make up 85 - 95% of all animals used in experimentation. Therefore, the total of all animals experimented on could exceed 20,000,000, but we really don't know an exact total.

http://www.all-creatures.org/wlalw/articles-anexp.html


Our best estimates indicate that about 165 primates are experimented on every day, or about 60,000 per year. And another 40,000 spend their entire lives in the barren captivity of breeding colonies. Their lives are litanies of stress, deprivation, confinement, and loss.
Either they are tortured in experimentation, or they have their priceless offspring ripped away from them to be fodder for the vivisection machine.

Many animals are used in scientific and medical research. They often undergo cruel methods of testing and suffer greatly as a result. Animal experimentation is both cruel and unnecessary and humans have no right to put innocent animals through such torture. Scientists often don't benefit from testing on animals as they are so different from us and react differently to drugs

The Draize Eye Test

This test is used to test shampoos, weed-killers, pesticides, household detergents and riot natural gases. The substances are applied to the eyes of conscious rabbits in order to test irritancy. Apart from the cruelty of this test, a rabbit's eye is a bad model and there are major differences between a rabbit's eye and a human eye.

The LD50

Rabbits, dogs, cats, mice and guinea pigs are used in the LD50 test and it's used to test lipsticks, skin-care products such as moisturisers and cleaners, shampoos and nail polish. The LD50 test (Lethal Dose 50 percent) is administered by introducing the ingredients under investigation into the animal via the mouth or intravenously. The animal is fed up to 50 percent of its body weight and the aim of the test is to find the dose which will kill half the animal sample. For the test to be valid statistically, a minimum of 50 animals are required.

Skin Test for Toxicity

Rats are used in this test. Their fur is shaved and the substance to be tested is applied thickly to the exposed skin. The skin is frequently abraised (broken) to increase absorption.

What Can Be Done About Animal Tests Required by Law?

Although animal testing of pharmaceuticals and chemicals is still mandated by law,
the same arguments against using animals in cosmetics testing are valid when applied to the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

These industries are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, respectively, and animal tests are now required by law -- laws that were developed haphazardly in the 1920s.

We know that non-animal test methods exist right now and that these tests are more accurate in predicting toxicity than are crude, cruel tests on animals. It is the responsibility of the companies that kill animals in order to bring their products to market to convince the regulatory agencies that there is a better way to determine product safety.

Companies resist progress because the crude nature of animal tests allow them to market many products that might be determined too toxic if cell culture tests were used. Let companies know how you feel about this.



Each of us can help save animals from suffering and death in experiments by demanding that our alma maters stop experimenting on animals, by buying cruelty-free products, by donating only to charities that don't experiment on animals, by requesting alternatives to animal dissection and by demanding the immediate implementation of humane, effective non-animal tests by government agencies and corporations.


http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/default.aspx

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/vivisection.asp