Dear Next President,

In 2015 more than 600,000 animal tests caused moderate or severe suffering to the animals. The animals we test on don’t contract the same diseases as humans like HIV, Parkinson's, schizophrenia and many types of cancer, so we don’t know for sure if the products even work. I wish to eradicate animal testing since it’s ineffective, inefficient, and a waste of money.

One reason animal testing doesn’t work is that the animals we test on are way different than humans. “95% of drugs fail in human trials despite promising results in animal tests – whether on safety grounds or because they do not work” This means that even though they work almost perfectly on animal tests the results on humans don’t have guaranteed success . If we already test humans, why do we need to test animals?

Another reason testing is not worth the time and effort is because animals have different resistances. “Vioxx, a drug used to treat arthritis, was found to be safe when tested in monkeys (and five other animal species) but has been estimated to have caused around 320,000 heart attacks and strokes and 140,000 deaths worldwide.” This shows that even promising results on an animals can still have deadly reactions on humans. “The most commonly used species of monkey to test drug safety (Cynomolgus macaque monkeys), are resistant to doses of paracetamol (acetaminophen) that would be deadly in humans.” If the animals can be resistant to all these deadly chemicals and drugs but not humans, then why do people still test on them?

If we always tested on animals we wouldn’t have aspirin. If you don’t know what aspirin does, it helps relieve pain, fever, headaches, and even reduce the risk of a heart attack. “Aspirin is toxic to many animals, including cats, mice and rats and would not be on our pharmacy shelves if it had been tested according to current animal testing standards.” Maybe if we stopped testing on animals we could get great medicine like aspirin or even better.

People tried to cure cancer by testing on animals but it hasn’t worked “The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human beings.” (Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the US National Cancer Institute) If we can cure cancer from mice but not from humans then testing on animals doesn’t working. Maybe, if we tested new drugs to cure cancer on humans we might find a cure.

If you would like to obliterate animal testing one small but major thing you could do is to not use products that were tested on an animal. If the product you're using have a stamp of a leaping bunny the product was not tested on animals. Please if you would like to help animals in facilities have normal lives then help out the movement to eradicate animal testing on this terrestrial planet.

Sincerely,

Dominic S