Animal testing is one of the world's most accepted and practiced pseudosciences. It is likely that everyone has heard others call this method of testing a "necessary evil" that saves innumerable human lives. You may have even thought or said that yourself. However, scientific literature has increasingly demonstrated that animal testing is extremely unreliable and often does not produce the same or otherwise expected results in humans—not to mention the many ethical concerns this practice raises.

The following text contains some key points and information from Dr. Aysha Akhtar's discourse on animal testing, published online to the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the U.S. National Library of Medicine in 2015. For more elaboration and evidence on this matter, I would encourage you to read the article in its entirety and check its sources.

Annually, more than 115 million animals are used worldwide in experimentation or to supply the biomedical industry

In general, animal testing in relation to human health has remained unheld to an evidence-based standard

There are three major reasons why animal testing, regardless of disease category, fails to predict human outcomes:

1. The effects of laboratory environments and other variables on study outcomes
2. Significant differences between animal models of disease and human diseases
3. Interspecies differences in physiology and genetics

Animal testing harms not only animals but can harm humans as well by:

• producing misleading safety and efficacy data,
• potentially causing the abandonment of useful medical treatment, and
• misdirecting resources away from more effective testing methods

In 2004, the FDA estimated that 92 percent of drugs that pass preclinical tests, including “pivotal” animal tests, fail to proceed to the market. More recent analysis suggests that, despite efforts to improve the predictability of animal testing, the failure rate has actually increased and is now closer to 96 percent. This failure rate was determined to have been primarily caused by both the lack of effectiveness and the inability to predict safety problems through animal testing.

Humans and animals do share many similarities, including the psychological and physiological characteristics of pain, fear, and suffering. However, crucial differences between the two often invalidate studies in many areas, including human diseases, treatments, pharmaceuticals, and more.

Please join me in petitioning some of the major U.S. policymakers to abolish this unethical and unscientific practice. If this petition succeeds, not only will you help protect millions of animals from being subjected to unnatural and inhumane conditions, but you will also help humans from being harmed due to misleading results.