Hyderabad: World Day for Laboratory Animals, observed every year on April 24 across the globe, serves as a movement to end the sufferings of the animals that are used for testing in laboratories around the world and replace them with advanced scientific non-animal techniques.
Since 1979, the day has been advocating for the cessation of animal testing in laboratories worldwide, replacing it with more advanced non-animal scientific techniques. This commemoration, spanning every continent, acknowledges the suffering endured by millions of animals and supports the mission of the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS).
April 24 was selected as it honours the birthday of Hugh Dowding, a staunch anti-vivisectionist and former president of NAVS, along with his wife Muriel, a NAVS Council member.
Presently, numerous animals endure confinement and experimentation in laboratories, experiencing pain, loneliness, and fear. However, most experiments on animals fail to translate to successful outcomes in humans, resulting in unnecessary harm to animals.
Animals Used for Experimentation
Right now, millions of mice, rats, rabbits, primates, cats, dogs, and other animals are locked inside barren cages in laboratories across the country. They languish in pain, ache with loneliness, and long to be free from animal testing. Instead, all they can do is sit and wait in fear of the next terrifying and painful procedure that will be performed on them.
A lack of environmental enrichment and the stress of their living situation cause some animals to develop neurotic types of behaviour such as incessantly spinning in circles, rocking back and forth, pulling out their own fur, and even biting themselves. After enduring a life of pain, loneliness, and terror, almost all of them will be killed.
Various organisations, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Americans For Medical Advancement (AFMA), advocate against animal testing, promoting alternative research methods involving human volunteers and innovative technologies.
Species differences often lead to incongruent results between animals and humans, as evidenced by the varied reactions to drugs like aspirin and Vioxx. Instances of drugs showing adverse effects in animals but not in humans underscore the limitations of animal testing and highlight the need for ethical and effective research methodologies.
Alternatives to Animal Testing
A high-profile study published in the prestigious BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) documenting the ineffectiveness and waste of experimentation on animals concluded that "if research conducted on animals continues to be unable to reasonably predict what can be expected in humans, the public's continuing endorsement and funding of preclinical animal research seems misplaced."
Research with human volunteers, sophisticated computational methods, and in vitro studies based on human cells and tissues are critical to the advancement of medicine. Cutting-edge non-animal research methods are available and have been shown time and again to be more accurate than crude animal experiments. However, this modern research requires a different outlook, one that is creative and compassionate and embraces the underlying philosophy of ethical science.
Human health and well-being can also be promoted by adopting nonviolent methods of scientific investigation and concentrating on the prevention of disease before it occurs, through lifestyle modification and the prevention of further environmental pollution and degradation. The public is becoming more aware and more vocal about the cruelty and inadequacy of the current research system and is demanding that tax dollars and charitable donations not be used to fund experiments on animals.
