Animal Experimentation

BY CAROLINE MARRON '25, Staff Reporter

Animal experimentation is taking the lives of over 100 million dogs, cats, mice, monkeys, rabbits and others, a year in the United States. The Animal Welfare Act of 1966, created by President Johnson, was created to regulate animal testing in laboratories. This act is clearly not being put to use. Animal experimentation that infringes upon animal rights can take a toll on the animal’s physical and mental health.

Currently, there are secluded laboratories that conduct animal testing located in the nation's largest universities, including Yale, Louisiana State University, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. According to People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a controversial source, animals are poisoned, burned, and being cut open for “training exercises” at these universities. The goal of experimenting at these universities is to understand more about diseases, medicines, and animal anatomy. For example, at the University of Wisconsin, researchers drill holes into cats’ faces, crushing their optic nerves (nerve fibers that connect between the eyes and brain) before removing the cats' eyes.

Members of PETA, researchers conducted an undercover experiment at the Professional Laboratory and Research Services. PETA claims to have found that “cats suffered seizures and bled from the nose and mouth after an experimental chemical was applied to their skin” at the hands of this facility. After undercover researchers from PETA saw this, the laboratory was later shut down due to the investigators notifying the authorities.

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was passed in August of 1966 and is the only law in the United States that has been put into place to protect animals used in research. According to the Association of Shelter Veterinarians, the contents in this act include, “Freedom of Discomfort, Freedom from Pain, Injury, and Disease, Freedom from Fear and Distress, etc.… ” This act was supposed to maintain authority and caution around experimentation on animals, but it has never been truly enforced. In addition to this, rats and mice make up nearly 95 percent of testing subjects. The AWA's “safety rules” do not extend toward mice or rats; therefore, this law is prejudiced against certain animals and is unable to completely carry out its mission.

According to the National Library of Medicine, animal experimentation is unreliable and has little to no justification. It does not effectively exhibit the risks that would come from using a product. Data from many scientist’s shows that animal testing fails to predict accurate outcomes for humans, in 50 to 100 percent of occasions. No species will one hundred percent match a human's biology, so this method is neither ethical nor functional. It merely serves as an excuse to tamper with substances and unlawfully inject them into animals.

Experimenting on animals is an out-of-date practice. There are less harmful ways to test the safety of a product. For example, human tissue and eyes can be donated and used for testing instead of rabbits. Not only does this increase the likelihood of an effective outcome, but also, it decreases the suffering that would result from testing beauty products on animals.

Animal experimentation will never necessarily end, but enforcing the AWA and coming up with new ways of evaluating the safety of cosmetic products will bring the universal problem to a more humane solution.