PETA Calls for an End to Rodent Cancer Tests

As REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), the EU's flagship new chemicals policy, which will cause the deaths of millions of animals in laboratories, approached its final adoption, PETA Europe launched an expert report declaring the rodent cancer test ? one of the tests to be used in REACH ? invalid according to internationally accepted criteria. Aside from REACH, the test also consumes tens of thousands of animals in the testing of drugs and pesticides despite its fatal problems of inaccuracy and unreliability, failings the report makes shockingly clear.

UK law requires the licensing of any experiment on animals which may cause them pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm. An integral part of the licensing process is the “cost-benefit assessment”, in which the Home Office is required to weigh the likely costs of an experiment (in terms of harm inflicted upon animals) against its anticipated benefits. Central to the assessment of a study’s likely benefits is the question of the study’s scientific validity, because as the government’s Animal Procedures Committee has stated, “If a project has dubious scientific validity, it should not be undertaken, no matter how small the cost to animals”.

Rodent cancer studies are amongst the most objectionable toxicity tests from an animal welfare perspective; they use upwards of 800 rats and mice per chemical tested, subjecting these animals to a lifetime of misery and suffering. Every day for up to two years, the animals are dosed with a test chemical, which may be administered through their food or drinking water, by force-feeding or forced inhalation or by painful injections into the animals’ abdomens. These animals endure extended suffering from chemical poisoning as their bodies are overcome by tumours and cancerous growths which can be so severe that as many as 70 per cent may die before the end of a two-year study.

Although the costs of these cancer studies are obvious, their benefits are unclear. PETA recently undertook a comprehensive review of more than 30 years of scientific literature, including more than 500 individual rodent cancer studies, to assess the scientific validity of rodent cancer studies according to current, internationally accepted criteria. Our findings include the following:

At least 15 types of tumours which are commonly seen in rodent cancer studies are now recognised as having little or no relevance in predicting human cancer risk because of species-specific physiological mechanisms and/or organs which are found in rodents but not in humans.
Critical public-health and worker-protection measures related to cigarette smoke, asbestos, benzene and other cancer-causing substances were delayed for many years because of misplaced trust in animal tests, which could not easily replicate cancerous effects which had already been documented in people. If animal tests failed to readily identify these well-known human carcinogens, how many other dangerous chemicals are we being exposed to today as a result of misleading animal data?
About one in every seven rodent cancer studies is judged to be inadequate or to have produced ambiguous results, which cannot be used and are therefore disregarded by health authorities.
Even scientists who routinely conduct rodent cancer studies have admitted that they “don’t know what the findings really mean”.

PETA has compiled its complete analysis of the costs and benefits of rodent cancer studies in a report, “Creative Accounting – (Mis)judging the Costs and Benefits of Rodent Cancer Studies by the UK Home Office”, which concludes that the cost of such studies vastly exceeds their purported benefits and calls on the Home Office to permanently stop licensing rodent cancer studies and the European Union to replace animal tests with non-animal alternatives with complete abandonment of the rodent cancer test. Also view PETA's new report, "Chemicals and Cancer ? What the Regulators Won't Tell You About Carcinogenity Testing", which will be provided to EU decision-makers?MEPs, the Commission and member states.

You Can Help!

By endorsing the following message to the Secretary of State for the Home Office, you can add your name to the growing list of UK citizens calling for an end to rodent cancer studies. Just fill in your name and address and hit "Submit" and your message will be delivered directly to the Home Office.

Dear Home Secretary Smith,

Home Office criteria for the licensing of animal experiments require the following:

“In assessing the likely benefit [of a procedure], the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the programme is scientifically valid and likely to meet the stated objectives. . . . The Secretary of State will not license any procedure likely to cause severe pain or distress that cannot be alleviated.”

Rodent cancer studies fail to satisfy both of these Home Office requirements because they have never been scientifically validated and because they inflict immense and chronic suffering upon hundreds of animals for every chemical which is tested. The relative costs and benefits of rodent cancer studies have been carefully documented and evaluated by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has issued a report documenting that the costs of such studies vastly exceeds their purported benefits.

On the basis of these findings, I respectfully request that the Home Office stop licensing rodent cancer testing.

Sincerely yours,
[Your Name]

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