Are animals used in testing given pain relief or other protections?
No, pain relief is not normally provided. And to make matters worse, laboratory-bred rodents and fish—the species most commonly used in chemical tests—are not protected under U.S. law governing animal experimentation. Besides animal welfare, are there other arguments against testing on animals? Yes, there are a number of points to consider. Most animal tests have never been properly “validated” to demonstrate their relevance to humans, and as a result may under- or over-estimate real-world hazards to people. For example, both rat and rabbit tests failed to predict the birth defect-causing properties PCBs, industrial solvents and many drugs, while cancer tests in rats and mice failed to detect the hazards of asbestos, benzene, cigarette smoke, and many other substances—delaying consumer and worker protection measures by decades in some cases. Animal tests are also quite time- and resource-intensive and inefficient. To evaluate the cancer-causing potential of a single pesticide chemical
