Most people don’t know that 95% of the animals that are used for animal testing are not backed by the Animal Welfare Act. The Animal Welfare Act (Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966, P.L. 89-544) was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 24, 1966. It is the only Federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibition. For the less than 10% of animals in labs covered by the AWA (dogs, cats, nonhuman primates—such as chimpanzees and monkeys—guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and other warm-blooded animals), the law sets minimal standards for housing, feeding, handling, veterinary care, and for some species like chimpanzees. Each year, more than 100 million animals—including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. …show more content…
The anatomic, metabolic, and cellular differences between animals and people make animals poor models for human beings. Because animal tests are so unreliable, they make those human trials all the more risky. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has noted that 95 percent of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don't work or are dangerous. Here are some of the top cosmetics brands whose products are still tested on animals—and some cruelty-free brands that you should support instead: Avon, Benefit, Clinique, Estée Lauder, Makeup Forever, Maybelline, OPI, Victoria's Secret. Because animals as distant from humans as mice and rats share many physiological and genetic similarities with humans, animal experimentation can be tremendously helpful for furthering medical science. However, there is an ongoing debate about the ethics of animal