65,000 Dogs Killed Every Year in Outdated Tests; Pharmaceutical Companies Outsourcing Experiments to China

Washington -- PETA has taken out a full-page ad in the Tuesday, July 22, edition of The Washington Post, slamming Andrew Von Eschenbach, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Displaying his photo next to the heading "Meet Andrew Von Eschenbach. On His Watch, the 'FDA' Stands for 'Federal Dog Abuse,'" the ad condemns the FDA for pushing cruel and outdated animal tests. The ad continues, "Help PETA pressure the FDA to replace cruel animal tests with reliable 21st century non-animal testing methods," and describes what happens to dogs and other animals used in crude laboratory poisoning tests. PETA points out that besides being cruel, animal tests are notoriously unreliable.

In the tests, dogs--usually beagles, because of their gentle nature--are given sickening doses of toxic substances until they are poisoned to death or killed when the experimenters are done with them. Every year, mice, rats, dogs (approximately 65,000 of them), cats, rabbits, primates, and other animals used to test drugs, vaccines, and medical devices are confined to barren cages, where they are denied everything that is natural and important to them. After the experiments, the animals who aren't killed are put back in their cages, often without any painkillers. PETA has created a new Web feature, www.PETA.org/FDA, where visitors can learn how to pressure the FDA to stop these cruel, wasteful tests.

Increasingly, pharmaceutical companies are outsourcing laboratory experiments to China, where animal protection laws are virtually non-existent. Forbes magazine has reported that the primary rationale for outsourcing animal experiments to China is that "scientists are cheap, lab animals plentiful and pesky protesters held at bay." An article in The Boston Globe quoted the head of a pharmaceutical company as saying, "China is a good place to be [for U.S. companies], as it is the world's largest supplier of lab monkeys and canines--mostly beagles." The article added that these companies want "to turn China's dogs into global economic assets."

For more information and to view the ad, please visit PETA.org/FDA.