Stop cruel animal experiments now

WORLD Cancer Day was yesterday February 4, and this year, more people than ever will be in desperate need of life-saving treatment.

But the only way that scientists can truly look to cure this devastating illness is to replace cruel experiments on animals with human-relevant research.

Cancer has been cured in mice for decades, but experiments on animals are a poor predictor of clinical outcomes in humans. Oncology drugs are among the least likely to be approved for human use: they have only a 3.4% success rate.

Focusing on animal tests delays progress towards effective human treatments and cures, as animals have crucial genetic, molecular, immunologic and cellular differences to humans.

Yet hundreds of millions of them continue to be subjected to horrific experiments, genetically modified to induce tumour growth, and infected with disease – enduring short, miserable lives in fear and pain.

They’re treated like disposable laboratory equipment, which is immoral and financially irresponsible.

Funds should be diverted to human-relevant research, where recent developments in cancer therapies include using a tumour microenvironment–on-a-chip, three-dimensional printing to replicate tumours precisely using patients’ own cells, and humantissue cultures to treat deadly glioblastomas.

PETA’s Research Modernisation Deal calls for an immediate end to oncology tests on animals to spare them any further suffering and speed up our search for muchneeded treatments and cures for humans.

Julia Baines Science Policy Manager PETA Foundation