FDA = Federal Dog Abuse?
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has taken a provocative full page ad in the Washington Post charging that "‘FDA’ Stands for ‘Federal Dog Abuse.’" PETA’s allegation is that antiquated FDA guidelines result in dogs being subjected to cruel and unreliable medical tests. The advertisement states, "Help PETA Pressure the FDA replace cruel animal tests with reliable 21st century non-animal testing methods."
According to PETA, in addition to "millions of mice and rats—hundreds of thousands of dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, fish, birds, and primates are poisoned each year with pesticides, industrial chemicals, vaccines, and drugs. The...FDA...and the Environmental Protection Agency...often require that these substances be tested in at least two animal species, even though these tests do not accurately predict how a substance will affect humans."
PETA also stated that "increasingly, pharmaceutical companies are outsourcing laboratory experiments to China, where animal protection laws are virtually non-existent." To the extent that regulatory agencies support or require needless animals tests, they undermine the legitimate and necessary role that animals perform in medical research. Even aside from the animal cruelty issue, it is essential that FDA, and other agencies, use of only validated testing methodologies.
Agencies cannot adequately protect human health through unreliable or otherwise pointless testing regimes.
See PETA FDA website
See NRDC’s Anti-Science, Anti-Animal Agenda
