alternatives

Aside from the fact that animal testing is cruel and painful to animals, it is also a fact that there are other methods that can be used to test substances that do not require animals, are more effective, are less expensive, and produce quicker results.. So why are animals still used in laboratory testing? That question remains unanswered, as well as a lot of other questions that consumers have. Read on to find out about tests that can be performed that do not use animals.

As stated on www.med.virginia.edu the federal Animal Welfare Act requires that researchers proposing to use vertebrate animals consider using an alternative method for their studies. Since all animal studies cause pain to animals, they are to find alternatives. Alternatives are to follow the "Three R's"
Refine existing test methods
Reduce Animal Usage
Replace animals as test systems

Listed below are some of the alternatives to animal testing that are available:
(These were found on allforanimals website, go to our links page for their address)

Eyetex
This test is an in-vitro (test-tube) procedure that measures eye irritancy by using a protein alteration system. A jack bean is the main species in this test. The jack bean is used to mimic the reaction of the cornea to an unknown substance. (Avon uses this test instead of the Draize eye test. This test was produced by the Natinal Testing Corp.)

Skintex
This is also an in-vitro test that uses a pumpkin rind to mimic the reaction of an unknown substance to human skin. ( Both the eyetex and skintex can measure 5,000 different materials.)

EpiPack
This test uses cloned human skin cells to test substances. (Produced by Clonetics.)

Neutral Red Bioassay
This uses cultured human cells to compute the absorption of a water-soluble dye to measure relative toxicity. (Developed by Rockefeller University and promoted by Clonetics)

Testskin
This test uses human skin grown in sterile plastic bags and can measure irritancy as well as other reactions. (it is used by Avon, Amway, and Estee Lauder. It was produced by Organogenesis.)

TOPKAT
This is a computer program that can measure toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and teratonogenicity. (It is used by the Army, the EPA, and the FDA. It was produced by Health Design, Inc.)

Ames Test
This tests for carcinogenicity by mixing a test culture with Salmonella typhimurium and adding activated enzymes. It was able to detect 156 out of 174 (90%) animal carcinogens and 90 out of 100 (88%) non-carcinogens.

Agarose Diffusion Method
This test measures the toxicity of plastic and other synthetics, such as devices for heart valves, artificial joints, and intravenous lines. Human cells and the test material are placed into a flask and separated by aragose. If the material is an irritant, an area of killed cells will appear around the substance.

Back