Doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is
the classic definition of insanity. It is therefore quite disheartening
to hear the clamor by some environmental organizations for more and
more animal testing at the EPA as the answer to our current chemical
pollution mess.
In more than a decade, the EPA has not banned a single toxic industrial
chemical using its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
This, despite killing hundreds of thousands of animals in crude and
cruel toxicity tests. Chemicals such as benzene and trichloroethylene
are tested and re-tested ad infinitum - the bureaucratic alternative to taking action on chemicals we already
know are dangerous, reducing emissions and preventing exposures.
The chemical industry goes along with these endless animal tests as
they serve to delay regulation, and the test results are always subject
to interpretation and challenge in the courts. If chemicals - such as
atrazine or phthalates - are shown to cause cancer or other harmful
effects during animal testing, industry representatives claim the
results aren’t applicable to humans and successfully challenge any
attempt to regulate them. Yet company officials happily display the
results of EPA-required animal tests that suggest their chemicals are
not harmful.
Non-animal tests are often faster, cheaper, and their results are less
subject to manipulation, yet they are under-funded and ignored. It is
not surprising that industry prefers the ambiguous results of animal
tests, but it is astounding that the federal agency in charge of
protecting the public health follows suit, aided and abetted by some
environmental organizations.
Environmental Defense (ED), for example, fought (unsuccessfully, it
turned out) our attempt to incorporate the non-animal genetic toxicity
test into the EPA’s high production volume (HPV) chemical-testing
program, in which more than 500,000 animals are slated to die.
(Astoundingly, ED even opposed asking companies to open their files and
provide already existing health and safety data on the HPV chemicals so
as to reduce the number of substances that would be re-tested on
animals!)
The EPA’s addiction to animal testing is so strong that even when
evidence from human epidemiological studies implicates a chemical, the
results are ignored. For years, population studies showed that arsenic
in drinking water causes cancer in humans. Yet the EPA dragged its feet
for more than 20 years while thousands of animals were killed in tests
that attempted to reproduce the effects already documented in humans.
Sadly, several environmental organizations have lobbied for other EPA
animal-testing programs, and oppose efforts to reduce that agency’s
reliance on animal tests. They have actively resisted our efforts to
ensure that animal tests meet the same scientific scrutiny that all
non-animal tests must undergo prior to their use.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is almost single-handedly responsible for
the development of the largest animal-testing program in history - the
EPA’s endocrine disruptor screening program (EDSP) - which will kill
1.2 million animals for every 1,000 chemicals tested (with upwards of
80,000 chemicals being tested) even though scientists have denounced
the animal tests.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) described proper
validation efforts for animal tests as “time-consuming procedural and
substantive roadblocks” when it intervened against us in a lawsuit PETA
filed to force the EPA to incorporate non-animal tests into the EDSP.
NRDC and WWF refuse to recognize that results from animal tests that
have not been properly “validated” for their reliability and relevance
to humans are useless as a basis upon which to regulate hazards.
Representatives of ED, WWF, and NRDC are clearly unconcerned with the
suffering of dogs, rabbits, and mice poisoned in laboratories. But WWF
and NRDC - organizations that purport to protect wildlife - endorse
plans by the EPA to develop a new series of chemical-poisoning tests
using wildlife! They ignore EPA’s admission that it will never be able
to establish the relevance of these tests to other wildlife species. If
these tests go forward, they will mean painful deaths for tens of
millions of wild animals in laboratory settings.
While animals are choking on chemicals in EPA-mandated tests, the EPA
is choking on its own inertia and inaction. The campaign against the
EPA’s massive do-nothing animal-testing programs is as much an
environmental issue as one of animal rights. There is simply no excuse
for poisoning animals for data that will not protect the public or the
environment. In the interests of ethics, good science, and the
protection of our children, environmental groups must stop demanding
more animal tests.
Jessica Sandler, a former OSHA health and safety official, is the
federal agency liaison for People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals. For more information, visit www.MeanGreenies.com and www.StopAnimalTests.com
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