25
Apr
Closing Comments: World Week for Animals in Labs
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When you picture a dog, is s/he bouncing along after a ball, greeting a guardian at the front door or some other picture of health and happiness? In 2006, about 5,000 dogs were used in laboratory experiments in the UK alone. These dogs are no different than the ones who live in our own homes, yet the vast majority of them will spend all of their short lives confined indoors and used in drug and pesticide tests, and heart research.
As you’ve seen throughout the week, we don’t need to use animals in testing at all. Alternative, humane techniques provide relevant data about what will happen in humans, and these techniques are far more accurate than animal tests. Examples of animal-free methods include computer models that assess how a drug might work by looking at its chemical structure, cultures of human cells and tissues, and sophisticated scanning techniques that show how organs like the brain actually work in living human beings. These animal-free methods provide accurate, relevant information that we couldn’t get from animal tests. Exciting new techniques like toxicogenomics can assess the effects of chemicals on human genes in a matter of hours. Animal experiments are a throwback to Victorian times, and we should be doing a much better job today. Don’t support charities that conduct or fund animal experiments. Put your money to better use and only donate to charities that have a heart for animals as well as humans.
