M
Morrissey the 23rd
Guest
Your letter is needed by October 19, 2004!
Each year, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) spends millions of tax dollars to poison animals in crude and outdated tests of chemical toxicity. What’s worse is that the NTP actively encourages people to nominate chemicals that they would like to see tested on animals. This has led to a veritable laundry list of ill-conceived NTP testing recommendations, including proposals to conduct extensive animal testing of plant extracts that have been used without harm for generations as dietary supplements (e.g., grapeseed and pine bark extracts), as well as proposals to retest such well-known hazardous substances as turpentine and antifreeze.
True to form, the NTP’s latest testing recommendations spell suffering and death to many thousands of animals:
• The Food and Drug Administration nominated Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (a chemical used in plastic IV bags) for studies of reproductive, immune, and other effects that would involve injection of the substance into newborn male rats and nonhuman primates.
• The Environmental Protection Agency nominated “perfluorinated compounds” for extensive study, including cancer and reproduction testing, on the basis of “presumed” widespread human exposure, despite the fact that large amounts of human and animal toxicity data are already available for these chemicals.
• A “private individual” recommended that the dietary supplement “bitter orange extract” undergo “subchronic” toxicity studies (which means force-feeding the substance to animals every day for three to six months), as well as testing for metabolic and cardiovascular responses and birth defects in animals.
Your voice can make a difference for animals! Please take a few moments today to politely remind the NTP that animals are not test tubes with whiskers, and demand that it pull the plug on the animal tests recommended in June by the NTP Interagency Committee for Chemical Evaluation and Coordination:
Dr. Kenneth Olden, Director
National Toxicology Program
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
P.O. Box 12233, MD B2-01
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-541-2260 (fax)
[email protected]
Dr. Scott Masten
Office of Chemical Nomination and Selection
National Toxicology Program
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
P.O. Box 12233, MD A3-07
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-541-3647 (fax)
[email protected]
Thank you for helping animals,
Troy Seidle
Biological Science Advisor
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
StopAnimalTests.com
"I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t. ... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further." –Mark Twain
Animals are routinely cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years, although studies show that because of vast physiological variations between species, human reactions to illnesses and drugs are completely different from those of other animals. Today's non-animal research methods are humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments, yet change comes slowly and many researchers are unwilling to switch to superior technological advances. Animal experimentation not only is preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year.
Each year, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) spends millions of tax dollars to poison animals in crude and outdated tests of chemical toxicity. What’s worse is that the NTP actively encourages people to nominate chemicals that they would like to see tested on animals. This has led to a veritable laundry list of ill-conceived NTP testing recommendations, including proposals to conduct extensive animal testing of plant extracts that have been used without harm for generations as dietary supplements (e.g., grapeseed and pine bark extracts), as well as proposals to retest such well-known hazardous substances as turpentine and antifreeze.
True to form, the NTP’s latest testing recommendations spell suffering and death to many thousands of animals:
• The Food and Drug Administration nominated Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (a chemical used in plastic IV bags) for studies of reproductive, immune, and other effects that would involve injection of the substance into newborn male rats and nonhuman primates.
• The Environmental Protection Agency nominated “perfluorinated compounds” for extensive study, including cancer and reproduction testing, on the basis of “presumed” widespread human exposure, despite the fact that large amounts of human and animal toxicity data are already available for these chemicals.
• A “private individual” recommended that the dietary supplement “bitter orange extract” undergo “subchronic” toxicity studies (which means force-feeding the substance to animals every day for three to six months), as well as testing for metabolic and cardiovascular responses and birth defects in animals.
Your voice can make a difference for animals! Please take a few moments today to politely remind the NTP that animals are not test tubes with whiskers, and demand that it pull the plug on the animal tests recommended in June by the NTP Interagency Committee for Chemical Evaluation and Coordination:
Dr. Kenneth Olden, Director
National Toxicology Program
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
P.O. Box 12233, MD B2-01
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-541-2260 (fax)
[email protected]
Dr. Scott Masten
Office of Chemical Nomination and Selection
National Toxicology Program
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
P.O. Box 12233, MD A3-07
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-541-3647 (fax)
[email protected]
Thank you for helping animals,
Troy Seidle
Biological Science Advisor
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
StopAnimalTests.com
"I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t. ... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further." –Mark Twain
Animals are routinely cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years, although studies show that because of vast physiological variations between species, human reactions to illnesses and drugs are completely different from those of other animals. Today's non-animal research methods are humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments, yet change comes slowly and many researchers are unwilling to switch to superior technological advances. Animal experimentation not only is preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year.
