Before considering the Big Pharma lies in this instance let’s define the term “animal testing” in this particular context – this refers to procedures performed on living animals for purposes of research into the effectiveness of new pharmaceutical products and is also referred to as “vivisection”. Every procedure, even those misleadingly classified as “mild,” has the potential to cause the animals physical as well as psychological distress and suffering. It is often the case that such procedures cause extreme suffering.
The majority of these unfortunate animals are killed at the end of the experiment, but some may be re-used subsequently.
Just to give you an idea of what this actually involves, it is a pharma truth that common abusive procedures include:
● Enforced chemical exposure as toxicity testing, which may include oral force-feeding, forced inhalation, injection into the skin abdomen or muscle etc.
● Exposure to drugs, chemicals or infectious disease at levels that cause illness, pain and distress, or death
● Genetic manipulation, e.g., addition or “knocking out” of one or more genes
● Ear-notching and tail-clipping for identification
● Prolonged periods of physical restraint
● Food and water deprivation
● Disturbing manipulations to create “animal models” of human diseases ranging including cancer and stroke
● Killing these unfortunate animals when they have outlived their usefulness, by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation and other horrific means
What types of animals are subjected to these horrors?
Various species are used in pharmaceutical animal testing including mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, cats, dogs and non-human primates.
For each individual chemical test, 5000 animals are subjected to inhumane procedures. (National Centre for Biotechnology Information)
Every year millions of animals are used in cruel pharmaceutical animal testing worldwide every year. In the region of 202,000 animals were used in 2018 in Britain alone. However, these figures are misleading as they do not include animals bred for research but culled as being “surplus” and not recorded in official statistics.
What’s wrong with pharmaceutical animal testing?
Inflicting physical pain, psychological stress and immense suffering on sentient creatures, notwithstanding the obvious ethical issues involved, ultimately provides scant understanding of how chemicals behave within the human body and is not predictive of real-world human reactions. It is known that 9 out of every 10 pharmaceuticals considered safe and effective from animal experimentation fail in the human context! Fundamental differences in genetics, physiology and biochemistry between humans and other species can result in wildly different reactions to pharmaceuticals.
Scientists, thankfully, are increasingly questioning the relevance of such research.
Are there alternatives to this carnage?
Clearly a shift in perspective to a consideration of human-relevant research tools would appear to be all too logical. A more appropriate manner of pharmaceutical testing would take place in vitro in the laboratory on human cells or cell lines. Scientists could use computers to interpret and integrate this information with data from human and population-level studies. These results would be more relevant to real-world humans than data acquired from flawed animal models.
Why does flawed animal experimentation continue?
In the face of growing evidence that animal experimentation is flawed and often ineffective it remains the “default method” for such testing – old habits die hard.
It is often argued that, because of big pharma lies and the fact that animal experiments have been in place for centuries while medical progress has been made, they are therefore necessary. This is distorting cause and effect and is a very flawed scientific viewpoint.
The following statement was made in a review paper featured in the respected British Medical Journal:
“The claim that animal experimentation is essential to medical development is not supported by proper, scientific evidence but by opinion and anecdote. Systematic reviews of its effectiveness don’t support the claims made on its behalf” (Pandora Pound et al).
This is commendable. However, one should note that this paper was published in 2004 – nineteen years later not a lot has changed!
Shifting beyond the paradigm of anthropocentrism (whereby humans consider themselves central to everything on Earth), we have to question our justification for torturing and destroying animal life we should exist in harmony with.
What can we do to help bring this to an end?
Please support Humane Society International and Cruelty Free International in their efforts to bring these abhorrent practices to an end.