TIANMUN 2018 Environment Commission – 1 FORUM: Environment Commission ISSUE: Measures to Protect Animals Abused in Animal Testing STUDENT OFFICER: Yu Na Kim POSITION: Deputy President of Environment Commission Introduction Animal testing, refers to procedures performed on living animals to benefit man. They are designed for researching in many areas including diseases, medical products, and consumer products such as household cleaners, food additives and cosmetics. The number of animal testing taken for a single product is unimaginable. According to Humane Society, roughly 50 experiments and the use of 2,000 animals are required for the registration of a single pesticide. Not only the number of experiments taken place and the number of animals used in those experiments are hard to comprehend, the procedures of animal testing itself are also abysmal. ‘All procedures, even those classified as “mild”, have the potential to cause the animals physical as well as psychological distress and suffering.’ One case of a severe result of animal testing Human Society International (HSI) elaborates, common procedures of animal testing include such as but not limited to: food/water deprivation, short/prolonged physical restraint, genetic manipulation, forced exposure to drugs, chemicals, diseases, and toxic materials through feeding, inhalation, and injection. With the rapid development of technology, the scale of animal testing and its various forms develops correspondingly, resulting in more animals abused during animal testing. While 100milion animals are killed yearly only in the United States during animal testing, people’s ambivalent feelings towards this issue is delaying the process of curing the agony faced by the animals. Nonetheless, effective measures must be implemented in full capacity to protect the animals abused in animal testing. TIANMUN 2018 Environment Commission – 2 Background Animal testing, began to take shape since the Greeks, Arabs and Romans were simply interested in anatomical research of animals. Then, the curiosity of anatomy rose and people began to perform surgeries on animals to test whether it will save man in the future. Contemporarily, animal testing is prevalent among scientists, psychologists, and developers - in researching and A cat is physically restrained by a machine during animal testing experimenting cosmetics, diseases, psychological/physiological development, food additives, industrial/household products, drugs, on animals - as they are becoming more stoic about the issue of animal abused during animal testing. Not only the apathy towards animal testing is bringing more difficulty in protecting the animals, the lack of knowledge towards certain experiments is prompting in the increase in the number of animals abused during animal testing. For instance, Japan’s ministry of agriculture announced recently to end its year-long pesticide poisoning tests on beagle dogs after a study found them to be futile. In these poisoning tests, as many as 32 dogs are fed with pesticide-laced food every single day for a full year, then they are killed so that their organs could be examined and conduct toxicity assessment. The decision to end these tests was prompted by a two-year study by Japan’s Food Safety Commission which they proved that poisoning tests on dogs aren’t effective and therefore these poisoning tests isn’t helpful to determine the safety of pesticides. This finding is consistent with the results of similar past analysis by other countries, which led to changes in national regulatory test requirements since 2007 in the United States, followed by India, the European Union, Brazil and Canada. If effective communication were taken place and the necessary information were shared among countries, deaths of many animals could have been easily prevented without wasting time, energy, and lives. This ‘information bank’ should be settled promptly on a global scale to prevent situations similar to aforementioned ones. Problems Raised Infringement on Animal Rights Animal rights is defined as a social and moral movement that challenges the view of having all nonhuman living things are created for man. It is also a “moral movement that extends moral TIANMUN 2018 Environment Commission – 3 consideration for conscious beings.” In ‘Animal Liberation’ written by Peter Singer, he states that the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires consideration. His statement applies to this issue of animals abused in animal testing, a situation where a countless number of animals are not considered as a living, conscious being, yet are viewed solely White Rats undergo a shock experiment in a laboratory in as a ‘tool’ of man for different purposes. This Chongqing, China on February of 2008 lack of consideration is equivalent to the infringement of animal rights during animal testing especially when animals are severely abused. Ineffectiveness Many opposers to animal testing criticizes the ineffectiveness of animal testing used in preclinical testing to select drugs for human uses. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the pharmaceutical industry all acknowledge the fact that a large percentage of drugs approved through animal testing method fail to receive approval for human use. To elaborate, this failure rate has increased from 86 percent in 1985 to 92 percent, in spite of all the “advances and refinements” intended to make animal tests more accurate. Additionally, more than many International progress revealed in 2015 on the fight against animal testing drugs approved during animal for cosmetics testing are later withdrawn or relabeled due to severe damage and adverse effects in humans. An example is the arthritis drug TIANMUN 2018 Environment Commission – 4 Vioxx, one that was approved in animal studies, was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after causing over 60,000 deaths in the United States alone. International Actions European Union’s Consensus “A complete ban on the sale of cosmetics developed through animal testing has taken effect in the EU. The ban applies to all new cosmetics and their ingredients sold in the EU, regardless of where in the world testing on animals was carried out”, BBC reports on 2013 of March. This was a moment where many activists of animal rights and animal protection vied for a long period. The 27 countries (at the time since Croatia joined later in July, becoming the 28th member) of the European Union came to an agreement with a new legislation to ban animal testing for cosmetics. The movement of going against animal testing began few years prior to 2013 in EU; the finished products that were tested on animals were banned in 2004, then the use of ingredients of products tested in animals were banned in 2008, and finally a full ban on both sale and import of cosmetics that are tested on animal or contain ingredients tested on animals took shape in 2013 of March. Japan The Law for the Humane Treatment and Management of Animals, The Standards Relating to the Care and Management, and Alleviation of Pain and Distress of Experimental Animals are several documents where Japan regulates its animal experimentation upon. However, even though these guidelines exist, many laboratories in national universities don’t comply with them especially with choosing particular kinds of animals and management of animals. Australia Animal Ethics Committees (AECs) determines whether the use of an animal is valid or not. They follow the established Code to ensure the wellbeing of animals that are used for research purposes. For researchers to test on animals, they must submit a written proposal to convince an AEC to approve the use of animal testing. New Zealand TIANMUN 2018 Environment Commission – 5 Similar to Australia, every research project that associates with animal testing must be approved and monitored by an animal ethics committee. This was initiated thanks to the Animal Welfare Act of 1999 which requires people in charge of animals to ensure that the fundamental needs of animals are met, and their pain and distress are alleviated. Key Players European Union (EU) As mentioned previously, the 28 states of the EU were the first initiators to ban animal testing of cosmetic products, which laid a foundation for other countries to also participate in the fight against animal testing but to research on more effective alternatives of animal testing. Humane Society International (HSI) It is one of the few global animal protection organizations that functions to help all animals, animals in laboratories, animals on farms, companion animals and wildlife. Their animal research experts team strive to draft scientific arguments that go against cruelty on animals, to end animal testing on a global scale. In a recent accomplishment achieved by Humane Society International office located in South Korea, the policy makers revised its chemical law to require prioritization of “vertebrate animal alternative testing”. This policy fundamentally prioritizes non-animal testing when producing risk and hazard information for chemicals. Borami Seo, HSI’s senior policy manager of Korea claimed “this is significant in that policy makers and chemical regulatory bodies recognized, for the first time in the law, the importance of replacing cruel and outdated practice of animal testing. This (policy) will support more research into non-animal testing methods that will better predict human safety while saving tens of thousands