Animal Testing...

Animal Testing

I had to rewrite this thread twice so far. It's hard to keep my personal feelings out of it, but I'm trying. So, I apologize in advance if any of those biases seep in. The thread subject is animal testing. I know that it's needed for science advancements, but it doesn't hurt to take a look at it every now and then and see how it's progressing. And I beleive that everyone wants to see it go away. That the real advancement of science will be not to have to use animals anymore. With the help of our animal friends, and their sacrifices, we all hope that there will be no need for it in the future.

First, I want to look at the history of it's use, then where we're at in the process. What the animals are being used for test wise, how many we use, what species we are using, etc. Are we being responsible with the way we use them? Only using them for what we can't find the answers for any other way? That remains to be seen. But I do hope that as I pull links/resources and read through them that that will turn out to be the case.

I would also like to go through some advancements in medicine that may help us minimize their usage. Is there another, better way to get the answers we need? How else could we minimize the need for animal testing and how much better would the results be? So far, I've found a few promising ideas.

I have to warn you on the pics I used in here. Each one is an animal that is used in testing. The pic you see is the animal cute version. If you click on it, you will see the animal in some phase of testing. Not everyone will want to see the linked photo, some are gruesome ( I hope that most of them aren't real and also, I stayed away from PITA pics so far as I know.). So, a little word of caution.

Animal Testing History

Apparently animal testing has a very long history. Dating back to the 3rd and 4th centuries, it was believed to be performed by both Aristotle and Erasistratus. This was back in 300-200 BC. An excerpt from one of the texts that have been translated:

From Aristotle's Parts of Animals :

There is a story which tells how some visitors once wished to meet Heracleitus, and when they entered and saw him in the kitchen, warming himself at the stove, they hesitated ; but Heracleitus said, " Come in ; don't be afraid ; there are gods even here." In like manner, ve ought not to hesi- tate nor to be abashed, but boldly to enter upon our researches concerning animals of every sort and Idnd, knoAving that in not one of them is Nature or Beauty lacking. I add " Beauty," because in the works of Nature purpose and not accident is predominant ; and the purpose or end for the sake of which those works have been constructed or formed has its place among what is beautiful. If, however, there is anyone who holds that the study of the animals is an unworthy pursuit, he ought to go further and hold the same opinion about the study of himself, for it is not possible without considerable disgust to look upon the blood, flesh, bones, blood-vessels, and suchlike parts of which the human body is constructed. In the same way, when the discussion turns upon any one of the parts or structures, we must not suppose that the lecturer is speaking of the material of them in itself and for its own sake ; he is speaking of the whole conformation. Just as in discussing a house, it is the whole figure and form of the house which concerns us, not merely the bricks and mortar and timber ; so in Natural science, it is the composite thing, the thing as a whole, which primarily concerns us, not the materials of it, which are not found apart from the thing itself whose materials they are." ...

The translation of his works on animal dissection can be viewed at the link. It is a online PDF and 580 pages.

try to visit Alexandria. 221
But if you cannot, it is still possible to see something of human
bones. I, at least, have done so often on the breaking open of a
grave or tomb. Thus once a river, inundating a recent hastily
made grave, broke it up, washing away the body.
If you have not the luck to see anything of this sort, dissect
an ape^^ and, having removed the flesh, observe each bone
with care. Choose those apes likest man, with short jaws
and small canines ...

The link and quote above is to an online translation of Galen's book On Anatomical
Procedures. There is some pretty gross stuff in there, but it is all very physician like in explanation.


Note that, at this time, anesthesia had not been invented so all dissection and medical experiments were done without any sedative. This is where we started at. Doing tests and dissection on animals without any pain medication to understand their anatomy. Granted, I would assume the majority of these animals were dead. But you have to wonder if some of them were not dissected alive in order to figure out what the nerve endings, muscles, tendons, and such did.

I guess the question is: If we had not performed these acts would we have advanced to the level we have in today's age medically? A lot of good did come from these works. Galen's book explains how his animal dissection helped with the plague and other diseases a bit. The following timeline denotes what was discovered by using animals in testing:

1242 - Using animals to study blood circulation
1660 - Using animals to test that living beings needed air to live
1700's - Using animals to prove theories such as animation caused by electricity, respiration as combustion, and blood pressure
1880 - Pasteur's Germ theory, proved germs where harmful and caused illnesses.
1904 - Guinea pigs were used to test theories on Diphtheria.
1920 - Frogs were used to prove brains send signals for communication
1921 - Dogs and cows were used to develop treatment for diabetes.
1940's - Guinea pigs used to prove soil could help cure tuberculosis. Also, monkeys were used to create a vaccination against the polio virus.
1950's - Finally develop anesthesia! Yay!. Rodents, dogs, cat's and monkeys were used to test it.
1968 - Heart valve surgery attempted in dogs.
1970's - Depression treatments developed by using guinea pigs

I pulled and summarized a lot from another list, but there are a few details/dates I excluded. The more complete version can be found here ...

That should bring us up to current times. The one thing I noticed is that all these animal testings were done for major medical reasons. Developing vaccinations, learning about the human anatomy and germs, etc. I don't know if we would have discovered this stuff without testing animals. But at least I can say that the end result seems to have saved thousands of live with each test done, if not immediately, but maybe through accumulated time and other medical advances spun off from them.

Continued..

Animal Testing in Use Today

This is where I kind of get a bit, well, sorry if I go into rant mode. I'll try not to. Because some of the stuff that we use animals for in testing or research is just plain horrible and doesn't need to happen. Mind you, I am sure that there's still a need to use them in some areas of study, but I can't even... well, I'll just list what I found and you can decide for yourself.

Here is a selection of common animal procedures:

Forced chemical exposure in toxicity testing, which can include oral force-feeding, forced inhalation, skin or injection into the abdomen, 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
Short periods of physical restraint for observation or examination
Prolonged periods of physical restraint
Food and water deprivation
Surgical procedures followed by recovery
Infliction of wounds, burns and other injuries to study healing
Infliction of pain to study its physiology and treatment
Behavioural experiments designed to cause distress, e.g., electric shock or forced swimming
Other manipulations to create “animal models” of human diseases ranging from cancer to stroke to depression
Killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means ...

Today, animal research is not being used to test for new medicines/cures for human or animals like it used to be. The success rate with using animals for test subjects has deteriorated. From what I can gather, it is because most drugs/chemicals metabolize differently in a non human subject versus a human subject. Basically, scientists can have positive results with a substance in an animal, yet when used on humans, it can have negative results.

Also, as I said, we are using them differently now. Instead of testing them to find cures for acute diseases, we sacrifice them for the betterment of our cosmetic lines (still legal in USA, illegal in the UK... ) and eye care products. Yes, there are some still used for testing drugs, which, depending on the drug may be necessary. But, is there really any need for using them to make new facial skin care products? And, who would really want to use those products after you see a rabbits flesh burned by some of the test samples? What are they putting in those things anyways???

Here is a more detailed list of areas that we currently use animals in testing:

Common Product Safety Tests.

Which sounds very mundane. What it involves is feeding an animal a lethal dose of chemicals. The original test was called LD50 (Lethal Dose 50%). The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association came out against it in 1985 and in order to satisfy them, the FDA and EPA decided that what would be acceptable would be to limit or minimize the amount of test subjects to 6-10 animals. Although this makes the numbers look good on paper, those 6-10 animals still go through some very horrible deaths.

Although traditional LD50 tests for acute toxicity testing may have been replaced with alternative methods, many of those methods still involve the lethal use of animals, even though the number of animals used is reduced. For example with acute toxicity testing, the “Up and Down Procedure” may be used, in which a small number of animals are dosed one at a time and the dosage of consecutive animals is increased or decreased based on the survival of the previous animal. While a smaller number of animals are used in this test compared to the traditional LD50 test, the animals still experience immense pain (along with convulsions, seizures, and loss of motor skills) and eventual death. For chronic toxicity testing, also called repeated dose toxicity, animals are still heavily used in testing and evaluating the long-term effects of toxins, particularly on various organ systems, through oral, dermal, and inhalation repeated dose studies. These studies last between 28 to 90 days and often involve rodents, although dogs may be used as well. At the end of the study, the animals are killed so researchers can look for signs of organ or body system damage. ...

Draize Test

The Draize test measures the eye irritancy of chemicals and other products by dropping concentrated amounts of a test substance into an animal’s eye (often albino rabbits, who are docile and inexpensive) and then assessing the eye’s reactions using a subjective numeral score to indicate the level of eye damage and injury—i.e. degree of swelling, redness, ulcerations, etc.. In addition to redness and ulcers, rabbits also experience bleeding and blindness in these experiments. In most instances, the conscious animals are immobilized in full body restraint stocks and remain unanaesthetized for up to 14 days for evaluation. Interpretation of the Draize test is based on the experimenter’s subjective appraisal of eye damage and results can vary significantly between different testing laboratories.

SKIN IRRITATION, CORROSION, SENSITIZATION, AND ABSORPTION TESTS

Tests for skin irritation (level of damage caused to the skin by a substance) and corrosivity (potential of a substance to cause irreversible damage to the skin) are typically conducted on rabbits using the classic Draize skin test, the lesser-known cousin of its ocular counterpart.The test is done by placing a chemical or chemical mixture on an area where the animal’s skin has been shaved; the skin may be prepared by removing layers of skin to cause abrasions. These tests cause severe pain to the animal and can result in ulcers, bleeding, bloody scabs, and discoloration of the skin.

MUTAGENICITY AND CARCINOGENICITY:

Mutagenicity and carcinogenicity tests examine potential genetic effects from pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, and consumer products, classifying the chemicals for cell mutations and carcinogens. Rats and mice are commonly used in these studies and killed afterward for examination.

TOXICOKINETICS AND ADME:

In order to determine how a toxic substance will affect the body, a series of tests on the drug’s absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) are carried out. These studies often involve rats and mice, who are given the substance through means of intravenous injection, inhalation, topical application to the skin, or forced feeding.

continued...

METABOLIC TOXICITY:

Some chemicals and drugs are essentially nontoxic but become hazardous once ingested and metabolized by the body. For this reason, information from in vitro systems utilizing human cell lines, genetically engineered human cells, and subcellular components, as well as several computer-based systems (METEOR, Hazard Expert, Metabol Expert, COMPACT), are being utilized to detect metabolism-mediated toxicity.

PYROGEN TESTING:

This test is designed to identify potential bacterial contamination of injectable products, implants, medical devices, dialysis machines, cellular therapies, recombinant proteins and IV products. For over seventy years rabbits have been used in pyrogen testing and injected with test materials to check for reactions to contamination; subsequently millions of rabbits died.

PHOTOTOXICITY:
Drugs and chemicals that become toxic when human recipients are exposed to sunlight. It seems as though they have developed an in vitro technique for this one. Which means they no longer need to perform tests on animals. I am unsure if they still do though.

EMBRYOTOXICITY:

Embryotoxicity involves the toxic effects of a substance on the development of an embryo. In these studies, pregnant animals (rats, mice, rabbits, and sometimes amphibians) are killed just prior to delivery and the fetuses are examined for any sign of toxic effects by the test substance.

ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS:

This represents a class of chemicals believed to have potentially toxic effects on human and wildlife reproductive systems. In response to these concerns, the EPA introduced the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program to screen pesticides and environmental contaminants for their potential to affect the endocrine systems of humans and wildlife.

ECOTOXICITY:

Utilized to determine the negative effects of chemicals entering the environment, these tests measure acute toxicity using fish in a 96 hour LC50 (Lethal Concentration 50%) test, and for chronic toxicity over a period of up to 200 days to monitor growth, spawning, hatching, and mortality.

Here is a couple of studies done in 2011 that kind of show how the use of animal testing has changed with the way we've changed as a society.

2011 Study #1 - Obese monkeys kept in individual cages for months or years with limited access to exercise.

Some tests have already produced tangible results. Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company in Boston, tested its experimental dietdrug on some of the Oregon monkeys. After eight weeks, the animals reduced their food intake 40 percent and lost 13 percent of their weight, without apparent heart problems.

Study #2: Obese monkeys as well

In another study, a group of academic researchers is using the monkeys to compare gastric bypass surgery with weight loss from forced dieting. One goal is to try to figure out the hormonal mechanisms by which the surgery can quickly resolve diabetes, so that drugs might one day be developed to have the same effect. To that end, the study will do what cannot be done with people — kill some of the monkeys to examine their brains and pancreases ...

We are purposely fattening up monkeys and then killing them off in order to produce a weight loss pill. I don't know how these are important studies that need to be done in order to save the human race. I also don't see why we can't find another venue to test these types of drugs with. The diabetes part...maybe. But I notice they list the weight loss part first, which means it is the primary reason for the testing.


So, we went from using them to cure diphtheria and polio to using them to cure obesity or test our cosmetics and eye drops. It seems that we have drifted away from being humane a bit if that is the case. And again, I am not saying that there isn't a need for some animal testing, but I am saying that studies like those above do not seem to be beneficial to anyone. Not enough to warrant the purposeful animal cruelty and the death of those monkeys. Moving on before I get to saucy...

Continued...

Psychology Animal Testing

Yep, we even have it here. I don't know if this is worse than the other ones. We are messing with their minds, yet still using physical depravations to do so. Here is a list of some of the things they do to animals in this area of study.

Deliberately Induce Stress: Social Isolation
Separating the child from their mom at an early age and putting them into isolation in order to observe what the effects will be on them.

Other experiments have been carried out to discover whether the distress caused by social isolation could be reduced by allowing the animals to see their reflection in a mirror.

Physiological And Biochemical Effects Of Fear And Stress - Animal Research Vivisection:
Electric shocks and other painful stimuli have been widely used to induce fighting behavior, in the study of aggression. In electric shock-induced fighting experiments, animals have been exposed to 60 electric shocks of 2 mA intensity over a 10 minute period. Yet it is known that 0.1 mA can force rats to alter their behaviour so this must be somewhat painful.

Brain Damage - Animal Experiments Psychological Laboratory Animal Testing
There is a vast literature covering the effects of brain damage on the behavior of laboratory animals. In some cases, the effects caused by damaging a specific part of the brain will be observed, but apart from scientific curiosity, it is difficult to understand why such experiments are performed. Brain lesions in human beings occur either accidentally or during therapeutic surgery, but the resulting effects can still be observed clinically. For instance it was found that bilateral removal of the mesial temporal lobes in man resulted in profound amnesia, indicating that the hypothalamus plays an important role in human memory.

Consequently, there is no medical justification for producing brain lesions in healthy animals who in any case may respond quite differently.
Many experiments have been performed to investigate the effect of an enriched environment on recovery from brain damage. It is hardly surprising that brain damaged animals, living in a social and enriched environments fared better than those kept socially isolated, or in boring conditions.

Drugs - Animal Research Psychological And Behavioural Testing
Psychologists also study the effect of drugs on animal behavior and this includes drug addiction and withdrawal. Much of this research is designed to investigate the effects of already known mood changing drugs such as antidepressants, sleeping pills, sedatives, stimulants and tranquillizers despite the fact that more reliable information could surely be obtained by observation of the large number of people actually taking the drugs. For instance this approach has shown that millions of people given minor tranquilizers regularly become drug dependent. ...

For me, none of this is really needed. What gains are we getting by subjecting these animals to this kind of cruelty? What impact has it had on our lives, has anyone seen the results? And can those results be linked to the testing of animals? These are honest questions, I really don't have the answers to. Before, we sacrificed animals for the right things. I'm unsure if my long lash mascara is really worth a few dozen animal lives...

Continued...

New Ways to Test Product

Thank the heavens that there has been advancement in other areas of medical technology that can alleviate some or all of animal testing. I wasn't lying when I said that most scientists want this part of their job to go away. And, I think, they have been working just hard to get rid of it either directly or indirectly. Hat's off to all of you who have thought a bit harder and come up with other means of testing product.

Vitro Diagnostics:

In vitro diagnostics refers to a wide range of medical and veterinary laboratory tests that are used to diagnose diseases and monitor the clinical status of patients using samples of blood, cells, or other tissues obtained from a patient. ...

It is a better way to test for some side effects of topical products or diseases. Hopefully, in the future, this will cut down on the need for animal testing if it already hasn't. They are at least looking into the possibility though, which is encouraging:

In-vitro tests for the long-term safety evaluation of drugs offer certain advantages. Specific properties of drugs can be identified including mutagenic and carcinogenic effects. The mechanisms leading to toxicity can be assessed. Tissue from several species, including man, can be examined. These tests should reduce the number of animal tests required for screening new drugs. ...

Cell Cultures

Almost every type of human and animal cell can be grown in the laboratory. Scientists have even managed to coax cells to grow into 3D structures, such as miniature human organs, which can provide a more realistic way to test new therapies. ...

Human Tissue:

Both healthy and diseased tissues donated from human volunteers can provide a more relevant way of studying human biology and disease than animal testing.
Human tissue can be donated from surgery (e.g. biopsies, cosmetic surgery and transplants). For example, skin and eye models made from reconstituted human skin and other tissues have been developed and are used to replace the cruel rabbit irritation tests.

They also list Computer Models, and human volunteers as other options.
We've come a long way and are at the point where we almost don't need to do animal testing anymore. They are even working on a 3D organ printer and have grown organs in the lab successfully. A ton of animals gave up their lives (and quite horribly I must add) so you could live yours. Hopefully as we forge our way into the future, we don't forget about our furry little friends who helped us get there both scientifically and medically.

I leave you with a 2016 article entitled Second Thoughts of an Animal Researcher ...
(this is what lead me to make this thread) and some facts on animal testing:

• Research by Cruelty Free International and the Dr Hadwen Trust suggests that at least 115 million animals may be used in experiments worldwide each year.
• We estimate that the top 10 animal testing countries in the world are the USA, Japan, China, Australia, France, Canada, the UK, Germany, Taiwan and Brazil, in that order.
• Animal experiments are sadly not in decline, and in many parts of the world are on the increase (e.g. China) or remain at the same level as they were in the 1980s or 1990s (e.g. the UK, Europe)
• on rabbits, 3,851 on cats, 11,250 on horses and 22,967 on dogs.
• There were also 8,898 experiments on primates. The use of new world monkeys (marmosets, tamarins) has increased by 8% and the use of old world monkeys (macaques and baboons) increased by 49%.
• Baboons were used in France (149 experiments), Spain (32 experiments) and Germany (2 experiments).
• Austria (10%), Belgium (15%), Bulgaria (27%) and Ireland (40%) reported the highest levels of severe suffering. Testing of botulinum toxin on animals is a significant activity in Austria and Ireland which might account for this as the test is an LD50 test which causes severe suffering and death to at least 50% of the animals in each and every experiment.

UK animal experiments

• According to the latest Government figures (for 2016), a total of 3.9 million experiments were completed in Great Britain during 2016.
• Of these, 1.9 million (49%) related to the creation or breeding of genetically altered animals who were not used in further experiments.
• The remaining 2.0 million (50%) were other experiments on animals.
• Almost 700,000 animals were subjected to experiments that even the researchers considered had caused them moderate or severe suffering.
• Animals used in the UK included mice (1.2 million experiments), rats (238,841 experiments), birds (149,97 experiments), rabbits (15,431 experiments), guinea-pigs (26,186 experiments), monkeys (3,569 experiments), dogs (4,932 experiments), cats (190 experiments), horses (8,948 experiments), sheep (47,904 experiments), pigs (5,358 experiments), and fish (286,600 experiments).
• Of the 2.0 million experiments conducted on animals, 55% (1.1 million experiments) were in the area of basic research – much of it driven by the curiosity of university researchers.
• 49% of experiments were conducted in universities, often using taxpayers’ funds.
• Only 13% of experiments were apparently required by regulators.
• In 2016, 89% of experiments conducted on monkeys used animals who were imported from outside the EU.
• Experiments are still being conducted for toxicological tests where there are valid non-animal alternatives available. This includes:
o skin irritation (252 tests in 2016)
o eye irritation (128 tests in 2016)
o acute lethal toxicity tests (11,530 tests in 2016)
o pyrogenicity (fever) tests (2,472 tests in 2016) on live rabbits ...

As always, Thanks for reading through all this stuff and I hope you found something of value.

blend57

Amazing thread,a proper detailed thread.
I have only read a few paragraphs so far but couldn't help but click on the monkey picture,holy # that's torture.
You'd have to be a sicko to be the scientist doing that torture session.

I am so sorry I wanted to give your thread all the attention and respect it deserves but I couldn't bear to continue to click on the photos after the cat. & I'm sure in reality the animals end up looking much worse than the photos you chose. So thanks for at least going for the tamer photos.

You have put together such an educational and inspiring post, I'm going to share it to my social media if that's alright.

-Alee

Myxomatosis

"A baby rabbit with eyes full of pus,
this is the work of scientific us."

Spike Milligan

Animal testing is an affront and because of that it should be rare. There are different methods that can be used. That said, in well regulated research with a good end-goal, I think limited animal testing could be allowed.

Testing cosmetics won't advance mankind, nor getting beagles and monkeys to smoke.

a reply to: paraphi

I disagree. There is no well regulated research and deliberately giving innocent animals terminal diseases only advances 2 things if I look at the progress till now. The needless suffering of animals, and the huge profits to big pharma. The reearch pays for THEIR employees and equipment, that's it. I'm still waiting on that cancer cure! Or the cure for anything else, muscular dystrophy, autism, parkinsons, multiple sclerosis....

Firstly congrats on an extremely well composed thread, it shows how much we have relied on animal testing over the years and how we are using scientific breakthroughs to reduce the need.

I’ve worked in Pharma for over 20 years and I do to an extent understand the need in early phase development. Establishing basic toxicity profiles is important, however the more that can be done by simulation or cell cultures the better. There’s a company locally that does tox absorption studies on human tissue removed from your larger than average person. Works perfectly.

What sickens me is cosmetics. Especially when an ethical product that has been in use for years is suddenly tested on animals to allow entry to another market - despite having years of data for human use.

www.independent.co.uk... l

I refuse to knowingly purchase products that have been tested on animals. Most of the testing isn't needed and could be done with other methods, including advanced computer modeling. At least the US has SOME restrictions, other countries, such as CHINA, don't have to think twice about performing barbaric tests on innocent and helpless creatures.

Thank you for posting this! I would like to contribute more to the thread, but I lost a bunny last night in a horrific accident caused by someone else's carelessness and I am just not in much of a mood to say much at this time. The University of Washington is one of the worst culprits that takes part in these atrocities on a large scale.

Bookmarked.

As a veterinary consultant specialised in animal welfare I will come back here shortly.

Touchy subject and everyone’s opinion is respected.

Warmest

Lags

Thanks, I believe you laid this out nicely and hopefully will help others interested in the topic to explore it and choose wisely.

Get to know the brands you use.
Here's a list List of Officially Cruelty-Free Brands

originally posted by: LightSpeedDriver
a reply to: paraphi

I disagree. There is no well regulated research and deliberately giving innocent animals terminal diseases only advances 2 things if I look at the progress till now. The needless suffering of animals, and the huge profits to big pharma. The reearch pays for THEIR employees and equipment, that's it. I'm still waiting on that cancer cure! Or the cure for anything else, muscular dystrophy, autism, parkinsons, multiple sclerosis....

Just remember ... everyone wants a cure, and someone always has to go first whether it happens to be your beloved or your beloved dog or an anonymous person or lab animal.

Someone, somewhere always has to go first, and that will always be an experiment, no matter what.

Heck, no matter how "safe" any medication is, every time you put a new on in your personal system, you are conduction an experiment because your personal biology is unique, and you never know how it will react to this compound or that one.

I just thought someone ought to mention that.

We Suck.

You have written an educational thread, for anyone that doesn't understand how bad we suck.

I want to thank you for the warnings on the clicking of the pics, I couldn't do.

This thread should be out in in the general public.

a reply to: ketsuko

Respectfully disagree. I would rather die with dignity today knowing that it is "my time" rather than live another day knowing that my life was only still possible because of the pain and suffering of a helpless animal that couldn't do a thing to stop it.

On this no one can change my opinion. Trust me.

ETA No disrespect to anyone. Just voicing my opinion.

a reply to: LightSpeedDriver

You can disagree all you want.

There are some things that will never be able to be adequately compensated for without an actual living system, and even if you say we can clone it, then you get into all the ethics that implies.

I LUV that the CEO of Volkswagen (you may have heard about him and those cars) wants now to provide a report about the monkeys used in those diesel-NOX-related study (you may have heard about that, either, although we here are told that as soon as the US-Americans got money for their faked diesel-gugglers, they lost interest in the whole affair) about:

(a) their status
(b) their health.

I think this is ridiculous, those studies were done several years ago, so I guess those monkeys are either dead or lost without traces by being used in other studies. Because there were no fundings to keep the animals alive after the study was done, at least that is what I heard about every other animal-testing-study.

"You done? Okay, just let me shut down the lights and kill the animals, just a moment!"

An ugly story for which Daimler, Volkswagen and the other companies are under heavy fire here around right now.
I do think that the extent to this is hugely blown up, way out of proportion, but this is the sow which is driven around town these days by the media..

I wanted to step back in and thank everyone for their responses as well as their support. I know no one responded directly to me, but I felt that I should take the time to tell you how much I appreciated the compliments and most importantly, the comments. I read every one of them (which I always do) and there were some pretty good points made and thoughts presented .

It is a touchy subject. But, as I said in the opening post, I don't think there is any harm in reviewing how far we've come and making sure we are not crossing lines. I'm sure that there are others who are more qualified to make that decision, whether we are using animals as test subjects in the proper, most humane way possible, but I still like to see how far we've come in getting rid of the need for such a practice.

Again, thanks so much for adding value to the thread with your comments/posts.

blend