Choosing to eat plant-based is a big way we can create a kinder world for animals. But we actually use animals in many aspects of our lives, some you may not even be aware of. As well as in foods and drinks, animals are used in the production of household products, cosmetics, toiletries, clothing, jewellery, accessories, art materials, furnishings, weedkillers and pesticides and more. They are also used for entertainment in zoos, circuses and aquariums, as well as being hunted and fished for sport. 2.5 million farm animals are slaughtered each day in the UK and there has been a 40% increase in animal experiments since 2000 which includes animals such as cats, pigs, birds, rats, dogs and non-human primates.
In March 2013 the EU banned the sale of cosmetic products that were developed using animal testing. But no such legislation exists for household products meaning that animal testing for cleaning products is still perfectly legal in the UK and the rest of Europe.
Some of the biggest brands we use everyday are still testing their products on animals:
1. Dettol 7. Cillit Bang
2. Flash 8. Comfort
3. Mr Muscle 9. Duck
4. Vanish 10. Fairy
5. Cif 11. Harpic
6. Febreze 12. Finish
Testing is carried out through force feeding,forced inhalation, injection and absorption through the skin. In the UK, around four million animals are used in laboratory experiments each year. Hundreds of thousands more animals are bred and killed so parts of their bodies can be used in research. In addition, millions of surplus animals are bred but never used – they are just disposed of and their deaths are not even recorded. Mice and rats are used mostly because they are small, cheap and easy to breed, but guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, monkeys, birds, reptiles, pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens, horses and fish are also routinely used.
The UK Government defines an animal experiment as a ‘procedure’ which is ‘likely to cause… pain, suffering, distress, or lasting harm’. Laboratory animals are typically kept in small cages or kennels and generally denied any comfort or stimulation, until they are killed at the end of the experiment – which could last days, weeks, months or even years – their lives are marked by pain and fear. Deprived of the ability to exercise any of their natural instincts and stressed due to the frustration of confinement, the animals are not even being examined in a ‘normal’ condition, which has the potential to skew results from the start.
Animals are hurt and killed to test the safety of new agricultural and industrial chemicals, food additives and other products. They are force-fed substances, they have chemicals rubbed into their skin or dripped into their eyes and they are made to inhale toxic fumes to see how poisonous they are. New drugs and surgical techniques intended for people are first tested on animals. Animals are surgically damaged, given cancer, infected with viruses, brain damaged and injured in other ways in an attempt to recreate human diseases. In arthritis research, animals are injected in their joints (with collagen or various other substances) to produce the painful swellings and destruction of cartilage and bone that is characteristic of the disease. Animals are also fed addictive substances in order to study dependency.
Birds are plucked repeatedly whilst still alive to produce down for bedding and even chimpanzees, our closest living relative, who are social, intelligent individuals who have rich emotional lives, are still kept prisoners in U.S. laboratories, where many have been forced to endure decades of painful, invasive procedures and solitary confinement. Recently, a government panel concluded that experiments on chimpanzees were “unnecessary” and the National Institutes of Health promised to retire all federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries, but since this announcement, few have been retired and many have died while waiting.
Animals are also used in psychology research. They are deliberately driven mad, starved, given electric shocks, brain damaged, deprived of sleep and taken from their mothers to see how this affects their behaviour. Stress is produced by dropping animals into tanks of water and forcing them to swim to stay alive. Epileptic fits are induced by electric shocks, flashing lights, loud noises and chemicals. Electrodes surgically planted into their brains allow scientists to measure brain activity while they are abused in these ways.
Animals are not ours to experiment on and other non-animal methods are not hindered by species differences that make applying animal-test results to humans difficult or impossible, and they usually take less time and money to complete.
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