WHAT IS ANIMAL TESTING?

Animal Testing is the process where living animals are used to research about biology, medicines, and important consumer and industry products like food additives, cosmetics, pharmaceutical chemicals and many more. These procedures can cause sufferings, distress and even death to animals.

Animals in the laboratories suffers brutally. With the pain, injuries, diseases and death, life there is indeed miserable and terrifying. They are kept alone in a tight cage or room so that they can move less. They hear other animal scream and cry for help because of pain, usually their families.

WHAT ANIMALS ARE USED IN ANIMAL TESTING?

Rabbits, rat, mice, cat, dog, pig, monkey ( marmosets and macaques ), horse, hamsters and llamas. Laboratories bred animals purposely to be used in experiments, some are taken from the wild, bought from class A's, class B dealers or animal shelters. 

COMMON PROCEDURES THAT ARE USED IN ANIMAL TESTING:

• DRAIZE TEST - a substance is placed in one eye of the rabbit while the other one serves as the control. They can suffer eye redness, bleeding, blindness, and death
• ACUTE TOXICITY TESTING - used to determine the danger of exposure to a chemical by oral force-feeding, inhalation, injections and skin. Animals may experience pain, seizures, and convulsions. They are killed after the test to be studied. 
• ECOTOXICITY TESTING - used to analyze the effect of chemicals to the environment. Chronic fish test is used here, fish are evaluated for growth, hatching, spawning, and mortality. It lasts from seven to 200 days.
• CARCINOGENCITY TEST - substance or mixture of substance that increases the possibility of cancer. A chemical is administered orally, on skin, and inhaled. This is usually done with rats or mice. The animals are killed after the exam to study their organs and tissues for evidence of cancer.
• REPRODUCTIVE DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY - reproductive toxicity is used to measure the toxic effect of a substance on a reproductive ability of an animal. Developmental toxicity involves giving pregnant animals doses of chemicals orally. The animals are killed why the fetuses are examined for any effect of the substance.

WHAT KIND OF EXPERIMENTS ARE ANIMALS USED IN?

RABBITS - force fed, injected, force inhalation and close contact to chemicals.

CATS - have their spinal chords damaged and forced to run on treadmills.

RATS - forced to inhale cigarette smoke for hours.

DOGS - have their organs damaged and removed for studies

MONKEYS - taken from their mother to study how stress affects human being.

SOME ALTERNATIVES TO BE USED

1. Non-Animal method using the modern technology.
2. Use deceased human organs for experiments for more accurate results.
3. Use criminals who committed unhuman crimes instead of giving them death penalty. They will die with purpose.
4. Computer models to predict results.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP END ANIMAL TESTING?

Start using animal cruelty free products such as shampoos, cosmetics, household chemicals and many more. Spread awareness and speak to the world.