At least 115 million animals are abused, experimented on, and killed in laboratories across the U.S. every year. Common practices in animal testing—such as pumping chemicals into rats’ stomachs, removing portions of rabbits’ skulls, cutting chunks of muscle out of dogs’ thighs, and keeping infant primates in isolation chambers—are funded by you, the American consumer.
So just what animal testing is required by law in the US?
The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing the safety and labeling of products sold in the United States. With regard to cosmetics, whose manufacturers are notorious and widespread animal testers, the FDA does not specifically require the use of animals in testing. However, the FDA enforces the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which does require certain substantiations of safety to be made prior to marketing.
The FDA requires testing of different varieties for products intended for human consumption. For instance, the FDA requires companies marketing fluoride products to perform a test which involves swabbing the teeth of 200 rats with a test substance for two weeks, after which time the animals are killed and their heads baked in an oven for an hour.
For pharmaceutical products, the U.S. FDA requires extensive animal testing. Thousands of rats, mice, rabbits, dogs, and primates are killed each year in pre-clinical laboratory poisoning experiments to test the safety of new drugs, individual ingredients, and variations in formulation for toxicity, chronic & sub-chronic , cancer-causing properties, and long-term genetic & reproductive damage.
For those products intended for human use, rather than consumption, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency steps in. The EPA requires by law that pesticides be tested on dogs, who are caged in “inhalation chambers” which are pumped full of deadly poison.
While both the EPA and the FDA require massive amounts of animal testing for the marketing of industrial chemicals, vaccines, and drugs, other U.S. agencies that require and/or conduct animal testing include the Department of Agriculture, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Department of Transportation.
American taxes are funding these tests, and many others.
In Defense of Animals Research Director, Eric Kleiman, argues, “With unemployment sky-high and our economy still suffering from the Great Recession, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) still spends billions of your tax dollars every year to fund animal experiments. Our own research indicates that this is little more than ‘white-coated welfare’ for experimenters living off of a grant gravy train funded by hard-hit American taxpayers.”
The Environmental Protection Agency is allocated a $600 million annual research budget. Virtually none of these funds are spent on the development of non-animal test methods.
College and university research laboratories are also often known for turning public education funds into experiment campaigns.
What legal restrictions are there on animal testing?
The Animal Welfare Act was signed in
to law in 1996, and it is the only Federal Law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport, and by dealers. The AWA requires that minimum standards of care and treatment be provided for certain animals bred for comm In December 2000, President Clinton signed Public Law 106-545, the ICCVAM (Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Validation of Alternative Methods) Authorization Act. The law empowers ICCVAM to require federal agencies to use and accept valid alternative test methods. It also eradicates the double standercial sale, used in research, transported commercially, or exhibited to the public.ard requiring non-animal-testing alternatives to meet higher standards of validation.
As animal testing has become a matter of which the American consumer is more aware, many companies have elected to refuse the use of animals in pre-marketing for their products. For a list of cruelty free companies and products, as well as those who routinely use animal testing, click here.
