Do you know that chemicals’ toxicity is still tested on animals? If you look all around you, you will notice that many items in our daily lives are not cruelty free. Chemicals are everywhere. Chemicals are used in the paint, for creating innovative nanomaterials, for glue, motor oil, clothes, personal lubricant, pesticides, tissues, highlighters and many more.

Toxicity tests are performed on defenceless rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, rats, dogs and fishes. Animals forced to take or inhale chemicals for weeks or injected with highly irritating liquids or substances for testing the effect and that can often bring their bodies to irreversible consequences.

ANIMALS USED FOR TESTS

RABBITS

In the Draize eye irritation test, experimenters apply substances such as washing-up liquid or drain cleaner ingredients to the eyes of defenceless rabbits. As a result, their eyes swell, turn red and sometimes bleed. Some animals go blind. After the experiment is completed, rabbits are killed.

GUINEA PIGS

The “guinea pig maximization test”, which is more than 50 years old, involves injecting animals multiple times with the same chemical. The guinea pig’s fur is shaved from both shoulder (prior to the test). They’re monitored for signs of allergic reaction, including skin that’s itchy, inflamed, ulcerated or otherwise painful.

MICE

In the “repeat-dose toxicity test”, mice are force-fed chemicals for weeks. Experimenters restrain the animals, insert a tube into the oesophagus and administer a potentially toxic chemical directly into the stomach, which can lead to swelling, pain, bleeding, organ failure and death.

RATS

Rats, including pregnant mothers and their offspring are used in experiments in which they are repeatedly forced to ingest or inhale a toxic chemical for up to months at a time. To investigate where a chemical could cause cancer, the substance may also be applied to their skin for up to two years before they are killed.

BIRDS

Birds may be fed food laced with chemicals used in weedkillers, rat poison and cleaning products, causing them to suffer from breathing difficulties, weakness, internal bleeding and convulsions. If they don’t die during the test, they will be killed.

FISH

Fishes are held in a tank and exposed to chemicals dissolved into the water. Their eyes may bulge and they can suffer from convulsions, paralysis, haemorrhaging or hyperventilation and exhibit abnormal signs such as gulping, head shaking or rotating while swimming.

DOGS

25,717 dogs were used for animal experiments in the EU in 2018. The number refers to the total number of scientific procedures, including for chemicals. Imagine you are locked in a cage, and your only source of food is laced with pesticide and someone straps a mask on your face and forces you to inhale pesticide fumes every day for three months. This is what happens to beagles across the EU. They are not given any pain relief and can suffer from vomiting, seizures, internal bleeding, organ damage and death. Any who survive are killed.

TYPE OF CHEMICAL TESTS

REPRODUCTION TOXICITY

A rabbit couple is forced to swallow or inhale a chemical before mating. Experiments continue to dose the mother throughout her pregnancy an lactation period. Then, both the parents are killed.

INHALATION TEST

For inhalation tests, rats are squeezed into narrow plastic tubes and forced to inhale toxic substances for days, sometimes months, which can lead to pain, nausea and convulsions.

CARCINOGENICITY BIOASSAY

Rodents are forced to swallow or inhale a chemical or it may be applied to their shaved skin. The Test may be repeated for up to two years before the animals are killed.

SKIN/EYE IRRITATION

Experimenters immobilise a rabbit so that she cannot struggle. They pull her eyelids apart and apply a chemical onto the eye, which can cause ulcers or blindness.

DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY TEST

A pregnant rabbit is force-fed a chemical through a tube into her stomach every day. The day before she is due to give birth, she is killed and dissected, along with her unborn babies.

CHRONIC TOXICITY TEST

Rats are forced-fed an extremely large amount of chemicals directly into their stomachs via a tube. This is repeated daily for months. Animals may suffer from cramps, seizures or even bleeding.

 IS IT POSSIBLE TO REPLACE ANIMAL TESTS?

Non-animal methods are often cheaper, faster and more reliable for predicting potential adverse effects of chemicals on humans. These innovatie methods include:

ORGANS-ON-A-CHIP

Organs-on-a-chip have the potential to replace painful toxicity tests on animals. Networked together, these multi-organ chips can simulate the interplay of organs

CELL-BASED METHOD

A standard animal test, which uses pregnant rabbits or rats to see if a chemical could be harmful to babies in the womb, can only detect about 60% of dangerous substances, while a human cell-based method using stem cells has an accuracy of 88% to 100%.

OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES WITH VOLUNTEERS

Real-life data collected from the workplace or from humans who may have been exposed to a substance provide valuable results fro protecting human health and the environment.

COMPUTER MODELS

Computer methods can simulate the progression of diseases or predict the harmfulness of a substance. Such methods provide more reliable and accurate results than animal testing does and also save important resources such as time and money.

 

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