- Don Lichterman
- Mar 18, 2020
- 6 min read
Beagle Freedom Project
With COVID-19 threatening our world, laboratories across the nation have begun closing their doors. This means that the animals need a place to go.
We have already heard that some places have begun killing the animals, while others, are reaching out and looking for placement. BFP wants everyone to know that we are working around the clock and are READY to take in any and ALL animals who need placement. If you work at a laboratory or facility that has animals who need a place to go, please contact us immediately at: 818-382-6500 or info@BFP.org Any placement will remain entirely confidential. BFP has secured ground transport across the United States so that air travel does not have to be involved and is ready at any given moment to take in these animals into loving homes prepared for them. As is always the case, if you would like to contact us confidentially, you may contact us here: confidential@BFP.org To foster or adopt, during this time of need, click here. To help financially during this crisis, please click here.
True Beauty is Cruelty-Free: Support the Humane Cosmetics Act!
For the sake of new lipstick shades, skin creams, or shampoo formulas, animals endure torturous tests and suffer in silence in laboratories.
The Humane Cosmetics Act of 2019 would eliminate cruel and ineffective testing and would also ban the sale of animal-tested cosmetics throughout the United States.
Please urge your U.S. legislators to support the Humane Cosmetics Act today! ACT NOW
Scottish Laboratory that Crushes Live Rats to Death Gets Sanctioned
A whistleblower at a laboratory in Scotland alerted PETA to animal cruelty at its facilities. PETA stepped in to file a complaint and the facility is now under investigation and has been sanctioned.
Charles River Laboratories’ allegedly crushed live rats to death, administered chemical overdoses to rats and other harmful acts toward the animals. PETA ‘s information from the whistleblower claimed that rats were removed via forklift to a trash compactor and crushed inside.
PETA claimed this shows, “issues of flagrant incompetence, poor standards of care, and a blatant disregard for life.” The company violates animal welfare regulations in the United States as well.
According to the Sunday Post, Dr. Julia Baines, a senior science policy adviser at Peta UK, said, “Experimenting on animals is a dirty business, and Charles River Laboratories is one of the world’s top peddlers of misery and death, reportedly supplying one in every two animals used in experiments and therefore having a hand in half of all the pain, fear and distress endured by animals in laboratories around the globe. The company has previously been found to have violated animal welfare regulations in the US and now in Scotland. Animals are not inanimate pieces of laboratory equipment to be recklessly drugged, gassed, discarded or cut up in cruel experiments. PETA is calling for the Home Office to revoke Charles River Laboratories’ licence.”
The Home Office confirmed sanctions against Charles River Laboratories, one of the largest suppliers of research to pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
Animal testing is harmful to animals and unnecessary. The majority of animal testing is used in medicine and for other human products and treatments. According to PETA, the National Institutes of Health wastes $12 billion annually on animal testing that leads nowhere, these experiments on animals actually fail 90% of the time! The research used on animals rarely correlates when it is then tested on humans, making it a waste of money and unnecessary. Monkeys, mice, rats and dogs are all used in animal experiments around the nation.
The FDA does not require animal testing for cosmetics in the United States.
These tests are not only cruel, but they have long been proven to be unnecessary, inefficient, and inconclusive. Although animal and human anatomy appear to be similar, all species respond differently to chemicals. The way a rabbit or mouse responds to a specific substance may be entirely different to a human's response or even to each other. If a substance is determined to be safe for one animal species through these tests, it may not be safe for human use, which renders the test to be inconclusive and unnecessary. To make these tests even more tragic, the animals used are mercilessly killed once testing concludes, often by suffocation, decapitation, or neck-breaking.
The Physicians Committee Urges the National Institute of Mental Health To Reshape Their Strategic Plan
The lead federal agency for research on mental illnesses, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is updating its Strategic Plan for Research to guide its efforts over the next five years.
As a part of the strategic planning process, NIMH sought public feedback on a draft of the Strategic Plan early this year. The Physicians Committee notified and requested input from mental health professional members and submitted a comment outlining our recommendations.
We supported the four high-level goals in the Strategic Plan, which included: [1] Define the brain mechanisms underlying complex behaviors; [2] Examine mental illness trajectories across the lifespan; [3] Strive for prevention and cures; [4] Strengthen the public health impact of NIMH-supported research. However, the Strategic Plan did not reflect the numerous scientific and ethical limitations of the use of animal experiments, despite the Institute’s own admission of the failure of animals in capturing the complex genetic risk associated with mental illnesses. Our broad recommendations were as follows:
Shift away from the use of animal experiments and expand human-based research.
Prioritize environmental, social, and lifestyle factors research.
Prioritize diversity in research and the workforce and promote diverse research ideas.
Increase ethics standards, practices, and training. Advancements in mental health research must be developed concurrently with the strongest of ethical regulations, guidance, and training.
Our full comment can be found here. The NIMH received a record number of over 6,000 comments from the public on their Strategic Plan and are still incorporating this feedback. The final version of the Strategic Plan will be released this spring or summer, and the Physicians Committee will continue to work to engage NIMH to ensure that they are accountable in providing the most effective and responsible mental health research.
Training the FDA on Alternatives to Animal Testing
Physicians Committee toxicologist Kristie Sullivan, MPH, led about 75 U.S. FDA scientists through a three-hour training session on assessing the safety of drugs and chemicals with Adverse Outcome Pathways—a framework for using data from nonanimal methods to understand chemical risks. More >
One important way the Physicians Committee works to ensure the acceptance of nonanimal test methods by regulatory agencies is to conduct or sponsor trainings for the scientists working at these agencies, since these scientists are making decisions about whether to accept nonanimal test methods every day.
Recently, the Physicians Committee was invited to spend an afternoon at the Food and Drug Administration in College Park, Maryland, conducting a training on the use of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOP)—a framework or plan for using data from nonanimal methods to understand chemical risks. Together with other organizations and scientists, the Physicians Committee has been working to promote and develop the AOP framework. This is a key step in advancing nonanimal test methods, especially for the complex effects chemicals may cause, like cancer or reproductive harm.
On Tuesday, February 25th, Kristie Sullivan, MPH, vice president of research policy at the Physicians Committee, and Catherine Willett, from Humane Society International, led about 75 U.S. FDA scientists through a three-hour training session titled An introduction to the Adverse Outcome Pathway framework and its practical application in chemical safety evaluation. They discussed how the AOP framework has been developed, the importance of replacing animal tests for drug safety, and gave some examples of how a variety of Adverse Outcome Pathways could be used to assess the safety of drugs and chemicals.
The online and in-person audience was engaged and excited. The FDA have invited the Physicians Committee to continue to collaborate to create shorter training lectures on more nonanimal test method-related topics.
Stop Animal Testing - Animal Testing Weekly Updates
Dogs, cats, monkeys, horses, mice, rats, and many other animals are being cut open, burned, poisoned, and killed in cruel and archaic experiments.
Animal testing is a major problem. About 1,438,553 animals [Not including rats, mice and other small animals] are killed in testing each year!
These tests are cruel and in-humane.
Animals are often taken form streets or bought from shelters to become test subjects!
Just think, you could loose your pet one day and find out the animal shelter sold him/her to testers!
The tests preformed are extremely cruel. And we fund them.
Many tax dollars go to these cruel companies to make animal tests happen. we need to reduce the amount of animal tests going on, if not get rid of tests for good.
But today, you can do twice as much to help end their suffering.
Please help the PETA "Stop Animal Testing" challenge today and sign the Petition to Stop Animal Testing at once!
"Corporations are people, my friend."
Our companies are known for creating products that enhance people's lives. Through Sunset Corporation of America and its companies, we’re equally dedicated to improving lives. Our commitment extends to helping local communities, fostering better educational systems, supporting the arts and culture, helping disadvantaged youth, protecting and improving the environment, animal welfare, wildlife issues and encouraging employee volunteerism.
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