Vivisection

An estimated 115 million mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, primates, and other animals are cut, burned, shocked, drugged, starved, irradiated, blinded and killed each year in the U.S. for biomedical experimentation, product and cosmetic testing, and in education. The animals' only legal protection, the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) specifically exempts more than 90 percent of animal used in these tests. The AWA covers only housekeeping standards and does not regulate or prohibit any experiment, no matter how frivolous or painful.

In addition to being cruel, animal experiments are often performed with no tangible or practical results and work to impede scientific progress. Taking healthy beings of a different species, artificially inducing a condition, keeping them in unnatural and stressful conditions, then trying to apply the "results" to humans rarely works and is bad science. Human gene studies, human cell models and cultures, state-of-the-art software, "super" computers, artificial skin, and test-tube studies are now replacing animals in many modern laboratories and are providing data and discoveries that animal models never could, and never will. However, many vivisectors driven by greed and vanity continue using animals, even though they are not required to by law, for their own personal and commercial gain and to limit the company's liability to its customers in case of a lawsuit. It is in our own best interest and in the best interest of the animals to direct our resources elsewhere.