PETA Urges Medicine Regulators to End Animal Testing Requirements Amid COVID-19

For Immediate Release:

19 May 2020

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

PETA URGES MEDICINES REGULATORS TO END ANIMAL TESTING REQUIREMENTS AMID COVID-19

Agencies Earn Praise for Skipping Animal Tests in Search for Coronavirus Therapies – and Are Urged to Make Non-Animal Research the New Normal 

London – In response to decisions by global medicines regulators – including the European Medicines Agency, UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board, and US Food and Drug Administration – to allow companies to skip certain required tests on animals and move straight to human trials in the search for COVID-19 therapies, PETA and its affiliates wrote to the agencies applauding the move and urging them to shift away from animal experiments completely.

“The novel coronavirus has thrown the inadequacy of cruel, costly, misleading, and time-consuming animal experiments into sharp relief,” says PETA Science Policy Adviser Dr Julia Baines. “PETA and its affiliates are urging medicines regulators worldwide not to revert to the wasteful status quo and to take this opportunity to prioritise human-relevant, non-animal research methods only.”

Of all new medications that test safe and effective in animals, 95% fail in human clinical trials. PETA’s  Research Modernisation Deal provides a detailed strategy for replacing the use of animals in experiments with superior, humane science, which would spare the lives of millions of animals every year and accelerate drug development for suffering humans.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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