Animal Experiments
Animal experiments include any experiment on an animal where the animal is caged or interfered with. Most are conducted in animal experimentation laboratories, which may be specialized facilities or within universities, hospitals, zoos or farms. Animal experiments, also known as vivisection, are broadly separated into cosmetic and medical. Cosmetic testing is not only for cosmetics, but also household products such as toilet cleaner, furniture polish, toothpaste etc. Medical experiments are said to promote human health, but also include research into illegal drugs, diet and cosmetic surgery.
2,655,876 animals were used in animal experiments in 2002. It is now illegal to use animals to test cosmetics in this country, however, selling cosmetic products tested abroad is still legal and such items are sold in most shops. It won't even become illegal to test cosmetics on animals in the rest of Europe until 2013. By purchasing products from companies that do not test on animals you can use your consumer power to encourage companies to stop using animal testing methods. Click here to send for a guide to which products are and which are not tested on animals: www.naturewatch.org Many of the products listed come from super markets and high street stores and so are easily obtainable.
In 2005 European Union researchers used 12.1m animals in so called medical experiments. Britain uses the second largest amount of animals; the greatest number is used by France. These animals are kept in unnatural situations where they must experience high levels of stress. They are then subjected to painful invasive procedures such as having their organs mutilated or removed before being fed drugs to try and correct a human caused infliction. Often animals are experimented upon without painkillers. All animals are killed at the end of the experiment, which could be years after the torture began.
The government and animal testing organizations want us to believe that these sick experiments are necessary to improve human health, but the results are unscientific, leaving the first set of humans taking the drugs to be subject to painful, distressing and damaging drug side affects. For example thalidomide which caused horrific birth defects in children born to mothers who took thalidomide during pregnancy to ease the effects of morning sickness. The drug was animal tested again after the disastrous effects of human prescription; the same results were only found in one breed of rabbit. The results of the test were not replicated even within one species. Often the same experiments are repeated on different species until the desired affect is found, then when people are hurt the companies involved hide behind their animal results.
As animals cannot talk, they cannot describe the emotional side effects caused by the drugs. They cannot tell researchers that they feel suicidal, and even if they could, they probably already did when they were first contained alone, in a hostile environment without any contact with their own species or natural environment.
Huntington Life Sciences is the largest animal test laboratory in Europe. Every day 500 animals die there. These animals' lives will not go on to find cures for human afflictions as they give information about the effects of the drugs and procedures on stressed animals. Each species reacts differently to drugs, in fact there are even differences in drug reactions between genders, race and other groups of human beings. The animal abusing industries would like us to believe that there is a choice between saving your child and saving a rat. In reality we would be much more likely to find cures or preventative measures for modern illness if we looked at the humans suffering from the diseases. It was in this way that it was found that smoking causes numerous cancers; this information did not come from the beagle dogs which were forced to endure smoke inhalation trials. The beagles never did get cancer, but humans sure do. For more information from experts in this field please see: www.curedisease.net
There are a number of current campaigns against animal testing companies. Merseyside Animal Rights frequently organize transport to nation demos in connection with these campaigns.
For more details see their websites.
Campaign Against Covance Animal Laboratory www.covancecruelty.com
Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC) www.shac.net
SPEAK - Campaign against Oxford Universities new animal laboratory www.speakcampaigns.org