Drug tests performed on animals can be divided into two basic categories. Tests designed to find out whether a new drug is dangerous or toxic and research tests which are designed to aid the development of new drugs. At present under British Law, all new drugs must pass tests on animals before they can be given to humans. Tests may include giving a drug to different animals and monitoring side effects over several months, monitoring the withdrawal symptoms experienced when the drug is withdrawn and a particularly cruel and pointless test called LD50.
LD stands for lethal dose and the test involves a number of animals being given greater and greater quantities of a drug over a number of weeks in order to find the minimum dose required to kill 50% of the animals involved. Before 50% of the animals die, all are likely to be in great pain and highly distressed. This test is now illegal in the UK although vivisectors have worked around this by performing LD tests of 10%.
The other type of drug tests involve animals being infected with AIDS, Cancer and other diseases, deliberately brain damaged or driven insane, put into drug induced comas or surgically mutilated and disabled. Researchers say that by doing these things they can research new cures and treatments for humans but many experiments come to no conclusion or to a very poor one. Tests are also repeated time and time again beacuse researchers are reluctant to share results.
Cosmetics is a general word for products we use purely to make us look or smell good. It refers to make-up, shampoos and conditioners, hair dyes and styling products, facial and body washes, creams and lotions, perfumes and personal care products such as toothpaste. Every day, thousands of animals are forced to endure tests for these products even though it is not a legal requirement that cosmetics are tested on animals before they reach us and the tests don't actually protect us. Toxicity tests, for example, do not prevent inquisitive toddlers who drink shampoo or perfume needing to go to hospital and you can still do serious damage if you splash nail varnish remover in your eye. That's not to mention the thousands of people who suffer severe allergic reactions to these 'safe' products.
If you don't want to buy animal-tested cosmetics anymore, there are simple things you can do. Look out for the 'White Rabbit' logo on all the cosmetics you buy. It is a symbol of approval from BUAV (the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) and it is only given to companies which meet the strict criteria they require. The BUAV produce a FREE guide to its approved products which is updated regularly. Click here to order your copy. Alternatively, buy your cosmetics from the many animal rights campaigning organisations which produce their own brands. In doing so, you will be supporting the vital work which they do to improve life for all animals and you will know that everything you buy is 100% cruelty free.
Animals are also used in warfare research and this is, in my opinion, the sickest animal testing of all. Warfare research involves animals being shot, blown up, tortured and maimed to aid the development of new guns, bullets, bombs and torture techniques with which to destroy other members of the human race. It's so barbaric that it almost defies belief but I don't know much about it and I'm not going to pretend I do. I do know that pigs are favoured in this research because their skin and organs are similar to ours in many ways and the damage inflicted on their organs by various devices is an accurate estimation of the damage they would inflict on our organs.
Animals are also used to predict the damage caused by nuclear weapons. In the sixties, a group of researchers even built a large boat which was nicknamed 'The Nuclear Ark', filled it with animals and set it adrift in the Pacific before deliberately exploding it with a newly developed nuclear weapon. Several months later they returned to the wreckage and collected the remains of the bodies to study the damage they had sustained.