Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Both options have proven to be effective in different ways: categorical consumer
bans have been partly responsible for the seventh amendment of the European Union
Cosmetics Directive, which prohibits any animal-based safety testing of cosmetics
from 2009 on (such products already cannot be tested on animals in Germany). They
have also prompted cosmetic companies to fund research into alternative product test-
ing. Categorical and uncompromising student protests have also made a difference.
One example is the University of Marburg, Germany, in which such protests managed
ment and systematic opposition to animal experiments, triple-R policies would not
have been endorsed to begin with.
On the other hand (in terms of effectiveness), work done on validating alternatives
has succeeded in eliminating some experiments and techniques that involved death or
severe pain to numerous animals. A notable example is the Murine Local Lymph
Node Assay, which has dramatically reduced the number of guinea pigs used as part
of a particular test. Efforts to replace LD 50 toxicity testing (determining toxicity
levels by examining exposure level that kills 50 percent of the animals) by the re-
vised up-and-down Procedure for Determining Acute Oral Toxicity are also important
in attempts to practically and substantially change things for the better. The work
done on devising humane endpoints for experiments (early biomarkers such as weight
loss or urinary change that can indicate toxicity and that the experiment can be ter-
minated without waiting for acute toxicity signs such as severe pain or death) is like-
wise a practical attempt to reduce pain. The numerous individuals and organizations
that are industriously devoted to bringing about these changes (the European ECVAM,
the U.S. ICCVAM, the German ZEBET, or the Dutch NCA as well as the animal-
welfare organizations that partly back the search for alternatives) are surely effectively
diminishing unnecessary pain and death for many animals.
So should a believer in the immorality of experiments oppose animal-based research
or chip in and join the international effort to reduce, refine, and replace some experi-
ments? Logically, these are not mutually excluding strategies: one can protest against
animal experiments as such, yet as long as that goal cannot be achieved, energetically
participate in four-R initiatives, or in promoting the implementation of these once
they are validated. Psychologically, however, such reconciliation might prove more
difficult to maintain in one of the more important spheres of possible action: ethical
committees. Ironically, if one actually attains some institutional power by being in-
vited to serve on such a committee, one is likely to be asked to authorize and act-
ively promote projects that one deeply objects to (e.g., projects that incorporate hu-
mane endpoints that reduce suffering but in effect mean that the animal is euthanized
earlier). Even if there is no moral or logical contradiction between service on such a
