Animal Rights: Alternatives to Testing on Animals

There can be no justification for animal testing in any caring society, but despite widespread opposition an estimated 11.5 million animals in Europe are subject to some form of animal experimentation each year. Millions of animals are subject to cruelty and torture such as poisoning, food, water and sleep deprivation, deliberate infection, force-feeding, and electrocution. However, in most industries, there are now viable alternatives to animal testing.

Michael Kern, teacher of Craniosacral Therapy and former Osteopath, is a keen supporter of animal rights and organisations working to prevent cruelty to animals.

The Cosmetics Industry

Since 2013, new regulations have banned the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals in Europe. This ban stands even if the testing itself takes place outside the continent. The result has been that many cosmetics companies, not wishing to lose the lucrative European market, have adapted their practices and stopped animal testing. However, there is still huge demand in other areas of the world for cosmetics that have been tested on animals, so conscientious consumers need to be careful that the company they are purchasing from has implemented cruelty-free policies.

REACH Chemical Testing

In the chemical sector, animal testing is a different story. The REACH law in the European Union demands that certain chemicals be tested on animals, resulting in hundreds of thousands of creatures being subjected to cruelty. PETA and its affiliates have been campaigning for many years to introduce alternatives to animal testing for chemical companies, but at present many avoidable injustices to animals are still taking place. While REACH is exploring alternative methods of testing, there is still a long way to go.

Medical Testing

Evidence from multiple studies shows that animal testing in the medical industry is not only cruel, it is also ineffective. Even the most promising results from trials involving animal testing rarely translate to humans.

Despite this, the Home Office estimates that in the UK alone, around 4 million animals are subject to medical testing each year. In many cases viable alternatives to animal testing — such as human tissue testing, cell-based research, high-fidelity simulators, and epidemiological studies — have proven to be more effective.

New technologies have all but eradicated the requirement for testing on animals, including ‘organs-on-chips’, which allow researchers to test on real human cells grown on chips to gain a more accurate representation of the effects of a medicine on humans