Please enjoy this article from the latest issue of our magazine, PETA Global. To begin your subscription, become a PETA member today!
Forget for a second how cruel, unethical, and wasteful of lives, time, and money animal experiments are. Wipe from your mind all “curiosity-driven” procedures, like catching penguins and attaching recording devices to their heads to listen in on their underwater sounds.
Instead, let’s look only at experiments intended to determine whether a new drug works. Now, take a guess: What percentage fails? Twenty-five? Fifty? No – an astounding 95% of new medications that test safe and effective in animal experiments fail or harm humans in clinical trials. The failure rates of drugs developed in research on specific diseases are even higher: 100% for HIV/AIDS vaccines and 99.6% for Alzheimer’s and cancer treatments. Nearly one in three pharmaceuticals still come with safety concerns even after FDA approval, leading to adverse reactions and black-box warnings. That’s why so many attorneys run ads to represent people who’ve taken such “wonder” drugs.
But PETA has the solution: the Research Modernization Deal (RMD), a strategy mapped out by a team of PETA scientists to refocus laboratory research on modern, non-animal methods that save lives. The Dutch government, which aims to eliminate animal experiments in some areas and promote better research, originally requested the plan. Now, PETA is taking it global!
PETA Plan Lands in Important Laps
The RMD has been presented to US government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The plan’s benefits will be far-reaching – PETA entities in the UK, Germany, and India are busy with this effort, too. Its strategies include the following:
- Promptly ending animal experiments in fields in which their use has been shown not to lead to treatments for humans
- Reviewing all other research to determine where non-animal methods would yield better results
- Redirecting funds toward human-relevant biomedical research
- Working with governments around the world to implement this plan
Slashing NIH Waste
NIH’s mission is to “enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness.” Instead, the agency throws away nearly half its budget, or roughly US$18 billion last year, on maiming and terrorizing millions of animals as if they were disposable lab equipment instead of unique individuals who feel fear and pain and yearn to be free.
Scientists have known since 2013 that sepsis, a deadly reaction to acute infection, is not the same disease in mice that it is in humans – which is why none of the dozens of treatments developed in mice have yielded useful results. After PETA revealed that an experimenter at the University of Pittsburgh was inducing sepsis in mice by puncturing their intestines so that fecal matter would seep into their abdomens, his NIH gravy train, which had been running for more than a decade, was derailed.
Torturing Monkeys, Not Investing in Cures
Over the course of 30 years, Elisabeth Murray has received millions of tax dollars to torture monkeys in these ways and more:
- Sawing off parts of monkey’s skulls
- Suctioning out, burning, or injecting toxins into their brains to cause permanent damage
- Isolating each of the traumatized animals in a small box
- Repeatedly scaring them with fake snakes and spiders
When she’s done with them, she kills them or “recycles” them into other studies. Her cruel experiments have not produced a single treatment for humans.
Take Action Now
US readers: Please visit PETA.org/MonkeyTorture and urge NIH to stop funding Murray’s experiments and shut down her house of horrors. You can also call her directly at 301-443-7401.
PETA ads are being placed around the facility and online.
PETA Will Prevail
Using animals as human “models” robs funds from promising state-of-the-art research methods, such as organs-on-a-chip, human stem cells, genomics, and high-speed computer modeling.
PETA entities worldwide are now working with governments, industry, and educational institutions and contributing millions of dollars toward the development and implementation of non-animal test methods. As a result, scientists and physician organizations representing more than 100,000 doctors endorse the RMD.
Take Action Now
US readers: Please visit PETA.org/RMD and urge Congress to direct NIH to end animal experiments and redirect funds toward non-animal research.
“PETA’s ‘Research Modernization Deal’ … offers a step-wise guide to eliminate misguided experiments on animals and instead prioritize more effective, ethical and economical non-animal research methods that will better advance human medical research for all.” – Martin Hamlette, Executive Director, National Medical Association
