An End to Animal Tests?

An animal dies in a government-mandated toxicity test every two seconds in this country. There is a way to stop this, and you can help.

The U.S. government spends hundreds of millions of your tax dollars every year testing well-known chemicals on animals while the agency charged with approving non-animal test methods refuses to take action that could end thousands of crude and cruel tests on animals.

The Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) is not doing its job. In its 10 years of existence, ICCVAM has approved only one non-animal test method that originated in the U.S. This is not because there are no non-animal test methods—ICCVAM's European counterpart has approved more than 20 non-animal test methods. A recent landmark report by the National Academy of Sciences, our government's chief advisory body on science issues, entitled "Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century" called for the use of more efficient non-animal test methods for testing dangerous substances: "Recent advances in systems biology, testing in cells and tissues, and related scientific fields offer the potential to fundamentally change the way chemicals are tested for risks they may pose to humans. The new approach would generate more-relevant data to evaluate risks people face, expand the number of chemicals that could be scrutinized, and reduce the time, money, and animals involved in testing."

Yet ICCVAM and its member agencies ignore or refuse to approve even those methods that are accepted—and in widespread use—internationally and has become a major obstacle to the adoption of more sophisticated and accurate test methods. This causes animals to suffer needlessly and it jeopardizes public health, as non-animal test methods have been demonstrated to be more accurate, more sensitive, and more protective of public health.

PETA recently sent an alarm clock and a letter to the heads of all the government agencies that make up ICCVAM, letting them know that it's "time for a change." Please help the millions of animals killed in toxicity tests each year by letting your congressional representatives and the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences—the agency that oversees ICCVAM—know that you want ICCVAM and its member agencies to wake up and get to work.

Personalized and polite letters work best.