The term “lab animals” often conjures up images of white rabbits and mice or rats. While most people might not know the specifics of what animals are used for in experiments, they are somehow comfortable with knowing these rodents are subjected to life in a lab. Well, we could only wish that these animals were ever only tasked with completing mazes in exchange for cheese, but sadly this isn’t the case. There are over 100 million animals subjected to painful cosmetic and pharmaceutical tests in the U.S. every year. If that came as a shock, what if we told you that a portion of those animals isn’t rats or rabbits, but dogs? Pretty crazy right?
Well, unfortunately, this is reality. According to the American Anti-Vivisection Society, between 70,000 and 75,000 dogs are used for research in the United States each year. The majority of these are beagles. We typically think of dogs as beloved companions and even family members, not “test subjects,” but these animals are used for pharmaceutical testing nonetheless.
Beagles are a favorite of testing facilities for their docile and trusting nature. Researchers often have the dogs’ voice boxes removed to prevent the animals from barking. Despite their loving and trusting nature, beagles are treated like little more than commodities, relegated to a concrete cage.
To help draw attention to the plight of beagles in labs, Beagle Freedom Project shared this telling image on Facebook.
It’s a bit hard to imagine that anyone could treat a dog like this, isn’t it? But then again, why is it that we accept rats and rabbits being used for testing yet are repulsed by this? The fact is, consumers are completely shielded from what has to happen to make many of the products they buy possible. After all, if they really knew that rabbits were being kept in tight restraints to have corrosive acids dropped in their eyes or rats were force-fed chemicals to see the toxicity threshold, would we support any animal testing? Probably not. Add in the fact that animal testing has been proven to be highly ineffective and inaccurate, and it just seems like cruel and unusual torture.
Luckily, we can all help create a better world for animals by educating ourselves on the issues and voting for more advanced and humane science with our dollars. Alternative technologies do exist and many companies have decided to remove animals from their testing process altogether. As consumers, we can work to end this cruel practice by looking for products that have a “cruelty-free” label, which signifies products were made without the use of animal tests. The more interest consumers show in cruelty-free products, the more likely it is that brands and companies will opt to create items that do not involve this outdated practice.
You can also support Beagle Freedom Project, an organization working to reform testing legislation and rehome animals after their lab trials have ended. No animal should have to suffer when we have all the tools to do better.
For more Animal, Earth, Life, Vegan Food, Health, and Recipe content published daily, subscribe to the One Green Planet Newsletter! Lastly, being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content. Please consider supporting us by donating!
The number of dogs used is a little over 60,000 and they’re used because they predict human toxicity really well, with a median NPV of 94% (if it’s toxic to a dog, 94% of the time it’ll be toxic to humans. There aren’t any alternatives otherwise they’d be used because they’re 4 times cheaper than animal models. It gets quite complicated when looking at different uses, like lots of countries don’t test cosmetics on animals, but they also outlaw more than 2,000 chemicals from being in cosmetics, whereas the US doesn’t. Compared to cosmetics from the EU, US cosmetics can include lead, nerve agents and any number of potentially deadly compounds. ‘Natural’ brands like Lush aren’t much better either, containing naturally-produced chemicals that are used as pesticides in other settings. Fewer animals could be used for cosmetics if tighter restrictions were put on ingredients, but there aren’t alternatives for the medical stuff which changes the ethics because whatever you do there’s a victim. The answer is to invest in developing alternatives rather than blaming medical researchers for trying to tackle diseases they didn’t create using the only tools at their disposal. Pretending we already have alternatives is childish considering there are laws in the places like the UK which don’t allow animals to be used if there’s an alternative, but there are still 4 million experiments each year. Invest in alternatives. Ditch this simplistic tribalism.