LCA: Animal Testing in the News! 2.22.08
February 24th, 2008 11:12 am by Kelly———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Last Chance for Animals - campaigns [at] lcanimal.org
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 12:56 AM
Subject: Animal Testing in the News! 2.22.08
According to an USA Today article released last week a new program announced by a coalition of three government agencies - the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Toxicology Program and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - could lead to the end of animal testing to evaluate the safety for humans of new chemicals and drugs.
These agencies have signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” to develop and implement the new methods. Historically, toxicity has been identified by injecting chemicals into animals and seeing whether they were harmed. According to the director of the NIH’s National Genome Research Institute, Francis Collins, “It was expensive, time-consuming, used animals in large numbers, and it didn’t always work.”
The agencies acknowledge that full implementation of the shift in toxicity testing could take years because it will require scientific validation of the new approaches.
The new systems the agencies hope to use rely on human cells grown in test tubes and computer-driven testing machines. They allow the scientists to examine potentially toxic compounds in the lab rather than injecting them into animals.
All the data produced will be put into a public database.
Read the journal article that appeared in Science here.
Read Medicine.net article here.
Read the NIH press release here.
Last Chance for Animals, and other anti-vivisection organizations, have been fighting for the millions of animals in laboratories for over 20 years! This is great news. While we know these tests will not end the suffering of animals overnight, it is a positive step in the right direction.
For the Animals,
Campaigns Department
Last Chance for Animals
Last Chance for Animals | 8033 Sunset Blvd. #835 | Los Angeles | CA | 90046
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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare action alerts lca last chance for animals animal research animal testing vivisection animal experimentation news National Genome Research Institute Francis Collins in the news USA Today Environmental Protection Agency EPA National Toxicology Program National Institutes of Health NIH
