Some countries do have some laws in place, supposedly, to ensure that animals used in research and testing are treated, handled, cared for, housed, and fed humanely. There are no laws that apply to birds, mice and certain other animals. None of the laws specifically prohibit any type of experimentation. For example, if a dog is fed properly, housed in a clean crate, handled and treated with consideration, it does not matter what sort of experiment is conducted on the dog. The laws also require the laboratories to have a committee of veterinarians, researchers, and other authorities whose job is to make use of as few animals as necessary and also to put them through as minimal of a torture as possible. The law only requires that they have a committee; however, as the people in the committee are employed by the laboratory, shutting off a project for not following the law could potentially make them lose their job. It is said that the committee does not adhere to the law diligently. USDA inspectors are supposed to inspect the laboratories to make sure they are complying with the law; unfortunately, there are too many laboratories and too few inspectors.

Have you heard of drugs such as Zomax, Vioxx, thalimide, and DES? These drugs were all tested on animals; the testing hurt and killed several animals. When the drugs were later used on humans the consequences were severe that they had to call the drugs off the market. Vioxx, an arthritis painkiller, was withdrawn from the marked four years ago, after it caused heart attacks in over 300,000 people; nearly 140,000 of those heart attacks turned out to be fatal! Scientific facts clearly show that drugs tested on animals for human use work less than 5 to 25% of the time. This is worse that the probability of getting heads when you flip a coin! Did you know that substances that could help humans do not get used on humans because they proved fatal to animals? Substances that seem to work well on animals get produced for human use, only to find out later that they are actually harmful or fatal to humans. Side effects of prescription drugs released into the market is estimated to kill about $10,000 humans in the UK yearly, and about 100,000 humans in the USA yearly. The bottom-line, we have so much information on human genes that it is foolish and insensitive to take animal and human lives in the name of drug testing.