The current system is broken.
The following problems must be addressed:
- Fewer than 10% of highly promising basic science discoveries enter routine clinical use within 20 years.
- The failure rate of new drugs developed using animals in specific disease research areas exceeds 95%. Here are a few examples:
- Alzheimer’s disease: 99.6%
- Cancer: 96.6%
- HIV/AIDS vaccine: 100%
- Strokes: 100% (based on 1,000 new animal-tested agents tested in 100 clinical trials)
Consider this: every year, 1.8 million people suffer from strokes in India. According to the Indian Stroke Association, the incidence of strokes in India has increased almost 100% in the past few decades. But although more than 1,000 experimental treatments aimed at protecting brain cells during acute strokes have been developed using rodents, none of them have been effective in humans.
Animal-based approaches to the safety assessment of chemicals are also fraught with problems –some test methods date back 50 to 60 years. A pivotal report from the US National Academy of Sciences notes that the current approach to assessing the safety of chemicals – which typically involves using animals – is time-consuming and costly, resulting in an overburdened system.
We need a better way – and scientists with PETA India and our affiliates have come up with it: The Research Modernisation Deal.
What's The Research Modernisation Deal About?
PETA India’s Research Modernisation Deal outlines a roadmap for replacing the use of animals in experiments with human-relevant methods.
It includes the following steps:
- Eliminating the use of animals immediately in areas in which they have already been shown to be poor surrogates for humans
- Critically reviewing additional areas of research to determine where animal use can be ended
- Implementing a robust ethical evaluation system as part of policies governing the use of animals, thereby increasing the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of the regulatory process
- Promoting the international harmonisation and acceptance of non-animal testing methods among national and international agencies and research bodies
- Redirecting funds from animal experiments to the development of non-animal methods
PETA India opposes all animal experiments and campaigns for an immediate end to all animal use. Regulatory and scientific authorities must acknowledge the failure of animal studies and, as a first step, immediately end all animal use in disease research areas in which it is known to fail to produce results that help humans. To do otherwise is unethical, impedes good science, wastes resources, and harms animals.
It’s time for The Research Modernisation Deal!
Support The Research Modernisation Deal for India – Help End Cruel and Wasteful Experiments on Animals
Join Our Call for a Strategy to Replace the Use of Animals in Experiments
With many studies not related to COVID-19 paused, now is the moment for India to reaffirm its commitment to being a world leader in biomedical research and regulatory testing, shift away from the failed animal experimentation paradigm, and embrace the change that will bring desperately needed treatments, cures, and vaccines.
Please sign our petition requesting that the prime minister work to establish a clear policy mandating an end to animal experimentation and provide a strategy and timeline for achieving this goal.
Sign to show your support of The Research Modernisation Deal.
