Canada’s New Strategy Could Spare Animals From Chemical Testing—PETA Urges Swift Action
Better protection for animals, human health, and the environment? That may be well on its way in the Land of the Maple Leaf, as Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada have released a new strategy emphasizing new approaches over outdated chemical testing on animals. PETA scientists submitted recommendations on a draft of this strategy, urging broader adoption of non-animal test methods.
Because chemical testing on animals is written into laws and has been conducted for decades, it is critical that governments update these outdated laws to incorporate reliable and human-relevant non-animal tests.
Releasing a strategy is only step one. While we wait to see if the new strategy has teeth, PETA scientists continue actively working to ensure Canada advances human-relevant science while protecting the environment. From pushing for regulatory change to building scientific confidence in new test methods, here’s how PETA scientists have helped drive the shift to animal-free testing in the Great White North.
Saving Animals From Chemical Testing
PETA toxicologists collaborated with Health Canada and others to publish a strategy on avoiding lifetime cancer tests on rats and mice. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) vetted, accepted, and published this strategy, which now reaches scientists and regulators worldwide. Companies have already used it to save thousands of mice and rats.
In addition to cancer tests, PETA scientists have worked alongside Health Canada scientists to help replace inhalation tests on animals with non-animal approaches. They jointly outlined a pathway to create non-animal strategies for better understanding deadly lung effects. This pathway was also published by the OECD, meaning it is reaching scientists and regulators globally and being used to design non-animal testing approaches.
PETA scientists helped end a required chemical test on dogs by prompting Health Canada to review existing data and consult with other countries that had already eliminated the requirement. This review ultimately led to the decision to stop requiring the test in Canada, sparing dogs from being forced to ingest or inhale pesticides daily for a year before being killed.
Speaking Out for Human Health and Relevant Science
To help ensure scientists know about the latest non-animal science, PETA scientists helped write a major publication with Health Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showing how non-animal testing methods can and have been used to meet regulatory testing requirements. The publication is one of the journal’s most viewed and cited articles.
PETA scientists also collaborate with Health Canada experts on webinars and conference sessions, spotlighting how Canada uses non-animal tests for chemical safety. For example, at this year’s American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology conference, PETA scientists invited a Health Canada expert to present on non-animal testing in a session they are organizing.
Get on Board With Our Winning Strategy
Over the past decade, reliable, human-relevant non-animal approaches have revolutionized the field of research and testing. But there’s still work to do. If you’re in the U.S., please sign the petition to your members of Congress, urging them to introduce legislation enacting Research Modernization NOW!
No matter where you live, you can add your name to a letter that PETA scientists will share with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, urging the agency to stop pushing companies to conduct tests on animals for sunscreens that have been safely on the market for decades.
