Five Areas of Abuse (Part 3) - Animal Testing

Hi Everyone,

My vegan economics journey continues today with Part 3 of my series ‘five areas of abuse’. The five areas of abuse are based on the five areas identified in the documentary ‘Earthlings’. These five areas are as follows:

• Pets
• Entertainment
• Science (animal testing)
• Food
• Clothing

In Part 1, I covered pets. I focused on abuse that takes place in puppy mills and the extent of abandonment of pets. In Part 2, I covered the entertainment industry and the extent of abuse that takes place in areas such as horse racing, greyhound racing, cock fighting, hunting and many more.

In Part 3, I will investigate animal testing.

Where does animal testing occur?

According to Cruelty free international, the top 10 animal testing countries in the world are as follows:

• USA
• Japan
• China
• Australia
• France
• Canada
• UK
• Germany
• Taiwan
• Brazil

Source

Over 100 million animals are killed every year in the USA for the purpose of animal testing. These animals include mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds Source.

Areas of animal testing

In this post I will be focusing on a few areas where animal testing typically occurs. The identified areas are as follows:

• Animal testing for educational purposes
• Animal testing for cosmetics and household products
• Drug testing on animals
• Agricultural research
• Government animal testing programs

Animal testing for educational purposes

In the USA, it is estimated that 20 million animals a year are abused for the purpose of education. About half of these animals are killed for dissection in classrooms, while most of the rest are kept alive for psychological tests or classroom biology. Millions of frogs are taken from their natural habitat, killed and used in these classroom experiments. Animals such as cats are taken from animal shelters or taken off the streets to be used as part of classroom experiments Source.

In Australia, the use of animals in secondary schools is fairly commonplace. Most of the occasions when animals are used in schools it is not for even veterinary purposes. Most students that participate in these classroom exercises do not pursue degrees in veterinary sciences. There seems to be very little grounds to support the use of animal experiments in schools Source.

In the UK, for A-Level students, dissection of animals is required as part of the official curriculum by the Department for Education. The animals included in dissection exercises are rats, frogs, fish, and rabbits. The animals used in schools are often acquired from biological suppliers who breed the animals and keep them in cages for the duration of their short lives Source.

Animals are also used for military training exercises by countries such as the USA, UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands. These training exercises involving shooting, maiming, dismembering, blowing up, and burning animals such as goats and pigs. These exercises are claimed to be required for training military surgeons Source.

Animal testing for cosmetics and household products

Many companies still test their products on animals. Cosmetic companies are particularly guilty of doing this. According to PETA, the following cosmetic brands still test on animals in one form or another.

• Avon
• Benefit
• Clinique
• Estee Lauder
• Makeup Forever
• Maybelline
• OPI
• Victoria’s Secret

Source

Animals Australia identified a far more extensive list of companies and brands of cosmetics that test on animals because of legal requirements of the countries that they export to Source.

So what harm does cosmetic products do to animals?

Below is a list of the types of tests performed on animals by cosmetic brands.

• Eye irritancy
• Acute Toxicity
• Repeated Dose Toxicity
• Skin Corrosivity/Irritation
• Skin Sensitisation
• Pharmacokinetics/Toxicokinetics and Metabolism
• Mutagenicity
• Dermal Penetration
• Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity
• Neurotoxicity
• Carcinogenicity
• Ecotoxicity
• Pyrogenicity

Source

All of these tests are harmful to the animals that are being tested on. The Draize eye is very painful and can cause permanent damage to the animal’s eyes. Acute toxicity tests involves poisoning animals until half of them die. Repeated dose toxicity tests requires large doses of a cosmetic until there is vital organic damage to the animal. Skin tests cause damage to the animal’s skin such damage includes inflamed skin, ulcers, bloody scabs, and bleeding. For carcinogenicity testing, animals are tested on for two years before being killed and then checked for signs of cancer Source 1, Source 2, and Source 3.

Animal testing also extends to other household products such as cleaning products, deodorant, and air fresheners. Animals Australia has a list of 68 companies/brands that either directly or indirectly test their household products on animals. These animals undergo similar tests to those tested on by cosmetic companies Source.

Animal testing is also conducted by tobacco companies. Animals are forced to be exposed to cigarette smoke for up to six hours at a time, every day for as long as three years. The tests are conducted in an ‘attempt’ to make smoking safer. These experiments are typically conducted on rats Source.

Drug Testing on Animals

For over 50 years, monkeys, dogs, rabbits, mice, and rats have been used for testing drugs for human usage. In 2016, approximately 250,000 animals were used for drug testing in the UK. This number is in addition to millions more animals that are used in basic medical research. It is the law in most countries that drugs are tested on animals before they are tested on humans. Even after extensive testing on animals, 90% of drugs fail clinical trials on humans Source.

What harm are we doing to animals with drug tests?

As part of the testing, animals are typically subject to the following abuse:

• infected with diseases
• poisoned as part of toxicity tests
• electrodes implanted in their brain
• blinded
• burned
• maimed

Even when they are not being tested on, animals are typically restricted to living in barren cages with very minimal stimulation. After the tests are complete, with except of chimpanzees, the animals are killed Source.

Agricultural research

Agricultural research is focused almost entirely on increasing productivity. Research investigates housing size for animals such as chickens and pigs. Research also looks at genetically modifying animals so that animals can produce more wool or milk or produce a higher quality of meat or wool. Cloning techniques are also being researched so that more animals of a particular genetic make-up can be produced Source.

Pigs on factory farms are sometimes used for testing vaccines. These tests involve infecting the pigs with diseases such as Erysipelas. The effects of Erysipelas are fever, chronic arthritis, heart inflammation, painful skin lesions, and often death. The pigs that are tested on, suffer considerably because of this testing Source.

Government animal testing programs

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires by law that pesticides are to be tested on dogs. Dogs are put into inhalation chambers where they are exposed to deadly poisons. The food and drug administration (FDA) require fluoride products to be tested on rats for a two week period. After which they are killed Source.

Government regulation

The Australian Government is planning on restricting the use of animal testing. After July 2018, industrial chemicals used in cosmetics will not be allowed to be tested on animals. This approach will be consistent with regulations put in place in the European Union regrading animal testing for cosmetic products Source.

As mentioned earlier in the post, testing cosmetics on animals is only one type of animal testing. Any form of animal testing causes suffering to the animals involved. Will these new restrictions reduce the overall extent of animal testing in Australia? The extent of animal testing in Australia between 2004 and 2015 does not indicate that animal testing is declining, see table below.

Information extrapolated from www.humaneresearch.org.au

The European Union may have restrictions in place regarding testing on cosmetics but animal testing still occurs in the European Union. This testing may become worse if changes are made to the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation. The proposed change is in regards to nanomaterials. The changes to the regulation will require more information regarding nanomaterial. To acquire this information, more tests on animals can be expected to occur. These tests will likely require animals to be forced to inhale or ingest nanomaterials for months while the effects are monitored Source.

Activism

Several medical organisations advocate against using animals for medical testing. In Australia, such organisations are the Medical Advances Without Animals (MAWA) and Humane Research Australia (HRA) organisations. These organisations promote alternative forms of testing that do not involve animals.

MAWA have investigated in vitro research using human cell and tissue cultures, stem cell research, analytical technology, plant tissue cultures, human gene studies, post mortem studies, molecular research, mathematical models, computer simulations, ethical clinical research with volunteer patients and healthy subjects, and bioinformatics and population studies Source. HRA are reaching into areas such as microdosing, microfluidic chips, non-invasive imaging techniques, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and reconstructing human epidermis s Source.

Conclusion

This brings me to the end of Part 3 of my animal abuse series. This post covered several areas of animal abuse relating to animal testing. This post was intended to provide a general idea of how animals suffer from tests that are done as an attempt to improve the safety of the products we consume.

I hope you found this post informative. My next post will take a look at animal abuse in relation to the food we eat. I will be covering the treatment of animals most commonly reared for meat as well as animals used to produce dairy products.