Eliminating Animal Testing Requires “All Hands on Deck”

The exciting progress in replacing animals and shifting the safety-testing paradigm toward more human-relevant approaches is outlined in a new paper by the Physicians Committee’s Kristie Sullivan, M.P.H., in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals.

Sullivan discusses the essential role advocacy organizations, such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, have played in this progress by providing financial, scientific, and political support to ensure that new nonanimal test methods are developed and used by industry and governments throughout the world. 

The paper also calls for inspired action by publicly supported organizations to build on the progress made in toxicology and apply it to medical research fields. True progress in developing safe treatments for our most challenging diseases—Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, cancer, and others—requires we replace animals as quickly as possible. The support, training, and advocacy public organizations provide to government agencies and universities are an essential element of this success.