Vivisection is the practice of experimenting on live animals. Over 25 million animals in the U.S. suffer and are killed each year in laboratories for product and cosmetic testing, in education, and in biomedical experimentation. Often these tests do not even purport to be linked to human health. While children should be learning respect for life and the natural world around them, classroom dissection and other mutilation exercises send the opposite message to young, impressionable minds: that life is cheap, expendable and unimportant.

*What kinds of animals are used in experiments?-- Mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, cats, dogs, primates, sheep, cows and pigs are common laboratory victims. They suffer from confinement, stress, pain and fear.

*Who conducts animal experiments?-- Government agencies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, universities, the military, and manufacturers of cosmetics and household products conduct most animal experiments. Most of them still conduct painful and useless tests on live animals, even though no law requires them to do so.

*What kinds of animal tests are conducted?-- In acute toxicity, chronic toxicity, skin irritation, and inhalation tests, animals are forced to ingest or inhale everything from mascara and ink to caustic or harmful substances like detergents and pesticides. Toxic chemicals are force-fed to fully conscious animals. Burning chemicals are forced into their eyes and placed onto shaved, raw skin. Often, this is done without sedation or painkillers.

These tests, which cause so much pain and distress to the animals involved, do nothing to promote consumer safety. Nor do they provide information for the effective treatment of injuries that may result from the products's use. Animal testing merely determines the level of toxicity for animals and cannot save a person who eats or drinks a deadly substance accidentally.

*Do animal tests improve human health?-- No. Carefully controlled clinical, epicemiological and other human-based studies are the best means of studying, treating and preventing human illness. The vast physiological differences between species make it impossible to accurately apply test results from one to another. Animal experiments waste time and lives, and take money from programs that could help prevent human illness and treat the afflicted.

*What are the alternatives to animal tests?-- Human skin patch tests, tests using tissue cultures or egg membranes, and computer models are all cheaper and more reliable than animal tests.

"As a practicing physician who is board-certified in internal medicine and oncology, I can find no evidence that the Draize test, LD 50 test, or any other tests using animals to support the 'safety' of chemicals and cosmetics have any relevence to the human species..." --Donald C. Doll, M.D.