Businesses worth $50 billion still rely on animal testing

Posted April 16, 2022

By McKensey Buck

Cub Investigative Reporter

“Animals do not get many of the human diseases that people do, such as major types of heart disease, many types of cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s Disease, or schizophrenia," Senior Scientist and Product Manager at biotech company MatTek, Michael Bachelor stated. "Instead, signs of these diseases are artificially induced in animals in laboratories in an attempt to mimic human disease.”

This means that the tests done on animals are probably going to be ineffective and inaccurate on humans.

Various types of animals are tested depending on the product. The most common animals used for cosmetics include rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice, and hamsters. The animal tested varies depending on the products.

“We can now create a model from human skin cells—keratinocytes—and produce normal skin or even a model that mimics a skin disease like psoriasis," Bachelor stated. "Or we can use human pigment-producing cells—melanocytes—to create a pigmented skin model that is similar to human skin from different ethnicities. You can’t do that on a mouse or a rabbit.”

This is another example of how products can be tested, but in a safer and less detrimental way. When testing, it can cause harmful substances to be exposed to patients putting them at unnecessary risk. Animal waste with chemicals in it can cause groundwater contamination. The more companies that continue testing on animals, the more pollution there is going to be. If animal testing continues, in some way it will end up doing more damage. Most consumers are not aware of the serious and cruel effects done to animals. This also negatively impacts biodiversity, which if it decreases a substantial amount in the future, can cause the population to be more exposed to diseases and pests.

Animal testing is still included in the production of daily products such as cosmetics, a $50 billion a year industry, and household cleaners and food additives.

This form of testing is seen by animal rights activists as the cruel mistreatment of animals, and they have tried for decades to put an end to it. California, Illinois, Nevada, Virginia, and Maryland have completely banned the practice of animal testing on the production of cosmetics. According to Animal Matters, it's oddly specific to ban just cosmetics while animal testing is used for more products than just cosmetics.

“More than $16 billion is spent on animal experimentation by the United States government each year,” Animal Matters states.

Having access to all this money, surely there is enough money to find a better alternative to ensure the safety of a product. In fact, scientists have created testing models using computers, also known as “silico modelling.” Non animal testing normally ends up taking less time to complete, so in the long run it is more efficient. According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 3% of animals actually end up surviving animal testing, leaving more than 110 million animals to die each year.