This is a letter circulated to both candidates and national news editorial pages, as well as to my congressionl rep and senators. I encourage anyone concerned about this issue to feel free to sign your name and circulate it as well:
Re: An Appeal to the United States to be a Model of CompassionTo the Honorable Senator ____________:Many areas of Government policy deal with issues on which public opinion is divided. Good government requires that all legitimate views are taken into account to ensure the development and implementation of policies that are best suited to the public’s needs and priorities. With the impending election of a new American president, I am hopeful that you will address the issue of animal experimentation in this country as well as with your neighbors in the international community. In recent years, the inadequacies of vivisection have been observed is every arena from academic circles to governmental regulatory agencies. And, technology offers everything from biochips to software, that are more humane and more efficient methods of testing the spectrum of products available for human consumption. Therefore, I am appealing to you as the potential leader of one of the most influential nations in the world to set an example of compassion, and abandon the ineffective and inhumane practice of vivisection. Every year, in many countries, tens of millions of animals are dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and blinded in hidden laboratories on college campuses and research facilities. U.S. Still more animals are used to test the safety of cosmetics, household cleansers and other consumer products. These innocent primates, dogs, cats, rabbits, rodents and other animals are used against their will as research subjects in experiments and procedures that would be considered sadistically cruel were they not conducted in the name of science.Yet, the dangers, as well as the invalidity, of animal experimentation is widely recognized. In 2006, Health & Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt observed that “currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.” Further, Yale University's Dr. David Katz writes, "Extrapolation from rodent research to outcomes in people is notoriously uncertain and fraught with danger. Basic science studies and animal experiments have resulted over the years in headlines about cures for cancer, a definitive obesity gene and effective AIDS vaccines, to name a few. None of these has yet to materialize, and early hyperbole in each case gave way to disappointment."Educators recognize the necessity for humane alternatives. Nancy Harrison, MD; Pathologist-San Diego, CA: "Computerized dissection alternatives have grown so sophisticated they now surpass traditional wet dissections in many ways. Numerous studies published in the literature of the education profession demonstrate same or better academic performance by students who study alternatives. Given that animal dissection is ethically objectionable to many students, it's only reasonable to allow students free access to alternatives. No student should be forced to participate in the academically inferior teaching mode of animal dissection. Serious pre-meds and pre-vets can best master the dissection by repeatedly studying the superb images found on CD-ROMs."It has been conclusively demonstrated that many humane, more cost-effective, and much more reliable methods of research are available.Pharmagene Laboratories in Royston, England, has rejected all animal studies because they are unnecessary and outdated. The pharmaceutical company uses sophisticated computer technologies that show the effects of chemicals on the human body. Says Pharmagene cofounder Gordon Baxter, "If you have information on human genes, what's the point of going back to animals?"Physiome Sciences in New Jersey has developed software programs that simulate the human body's organs and processes. Its computer model of the heart is so advanced that it can be used to predict the heart's reaction to pharmaceutical compounds, eliminating the use of animals.TOPKAT is a software package that allows researchers to predict the oral toxicity and the degree of skin and eye irritation of chemicals. It is faster, cheaper, and more accurate than animal tests and is now used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Army.Molecular assay systems (test-tube tests) can show how human and animal bacterial cells react when exposed to various compounds. These speed up the testing process and enable scientists to tests thousands of substances at the same time–something that is impossible with animal studies.The Irritation Assay System has spared millions of animals from blinding eye- and skin-irritation tests. This simple test-tube procedure is used by many personal-care product manufacturers.Scientists can now "grow" artificial human skin for skin grafts and for skin-irritation testing.The National Cancer Registry and other disease-reporting mechanisms reveal exactly what is happening to people under all kinds of conditions and tell us more about human disease than animal studies ever will.DNA studies are unlocking the doors to human illness and birth defects. These studies show us that trying to learn about the human body by experimenting on animals is like trying to drive from Boston to San Francisco using a map of France.The international community is becoming increasingly intolerant of unnecessary animal exploitation.For example, beginning in March 2009, the European Union will ban cosmetics and toiletries tested on animals. Further, the European Union will ban the import of animal-tested cosmetics and toiletries from other countries, including the United States. This is a huge step toward abolishing obsolete animal research in favor of biochips, which mimic human physiology; other species do not.The United States needs to take a pro-active position in promoting compassion and protecting, rather than exploiting, the most vulnerable among us; this is, perhaps, the best indicator of our moral fiber as a global community.Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
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