"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -Albert Einstein
Animal Testing 101
"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction."
-Professor Charles R. Magel
As many as 115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the U.S. every year. Much of the experimentation-including pumping chemicals into rats' stomachs, hacking muscle tissue from dogs' thighs, and putting baby monkeys in isolation chambers far from their mothers-is paid for by you, the American taxpayer and consumer, yet you can't visit a laboratory and see how the government has spent your money. You can't even get an accurate count on the number of animals killed every year because experimenters and the government have decided that mice and rats and certain other animals don't even have to be counted.
Animal experimentation is a multibillion-dollar industry fueled by massive public funding and involving a complex web of corporate, government, and university laboratories, cage and food manufacturers, and animal breeders, dealers, and transporters. The industry and its people profit because animals, who cannot defend themselves against abuse, are legally imprisoned and exploited.
Fortunately for animals in laboratories, there are people who care. Some of them work in labs, and when they witness abuse, they call PETA. Thanks to these courageous whistleblowers, PETA's undercover investigators and caseworkers, who sift through reams of scientific and government documents, have exposed what goes on behind laboratory doors.FACTORY FARMS
In just one year, ten billion land animals are slaughtered by the U.S. meat, egg, and dairy industries. Statistically, farm animals comprise more than 95% of all the animals in the country with whom we interact, and that staggering percentage does not even include the estimated ten billion aquatic animals killed for human consumption.
These farm animals—sentient, complex, and as capable of feeling pain and joy as those dogs and cats we welcome into our families—are viewed by industrialized agriculture as mere meat-, egg-, and milk-producing machines. They suffer immensely when profit outweighs their well-being. Yet, despite the routine abuses they endure, these animals aren’t afforded any legal protection while on the farm. More than 95% of them—birds—aren’t even included in the regulations implementing the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires other animals to be rendered insensible to pain before they are killed.
Overwhelmingly, farm animals’ lives and deaths are filled with abuses that would be illegal if inflicted on those animals we consider companions.
The vast majority of U.S. farm animals are confined inside barren warehouses, overcrowded cages, or restrictive pens or stalls on factory farms. With an unprecedented number of animals bred and slaughtered, farming practices have become increasingly industrialized, often sacrificing the animals’ well-being in favor of raising more productive or faster-growing animals with the least amount of space and attention that can sustain production.
