TAKE ACTION with NEAVS

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Did you know that helping animals in labs also helps the environment? In addition to the suffering and bad science resulting from animal use, NEAVS asks you give thought to the tons of dead bodies disposed every year by biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. Labeled “biological waste,” let’s never forget they were all once living, thinking, and feeling animals whose short lives were cruelly sacrificed to ineffective science and indefensible ethics. To help the Earth, her animals, and humans, here are three things you can do.

• Support alternatives to animal testing: Toxicity and product testing uses living animals to test hazardous substances. Tests such as those for acute toxicity slowly poisons them with more and more doses of a substance – all without any relief for their pain and suffering. Those who do not die are killed at the end. Millions of bodies, many of which are considered pathogenic or hazardous waste, must be disposed – ending up in our water, soil, and air. Call 1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332) or email the U.S. Federal Drug Administration and ask them to require alternatives and stop permitting archaic animal-based testing.

SAMPLE LETTER

To Whom It Concerns,

I am shocked to learn that companies continue to support animal experimentation. Considered archaic and fundamentally flawed, product testing on animals lacks corporate legitimacy and social validation. Indeed, despite using deceptive statements and misleading assertions fabricated by clever marketing and publicity departments, companies that subject animals to product testing are NOT legally mandated to do so, and knowledgeable consumers are demanding discontinuation of such unnecessary and vicious tests. Furthermore, it is imperative to recognize the existence of ingredients that already have an established, proven safety record for human use. These products, such as those found on the FDA GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) list, can be utilized and manufactured in the absence of deliberately cruel and unwarranted animal experimentation. The blatant disregard for animals and decisions to not use GRAS ingredients exclusively is irresponsible and negligent.  Please use your authority to demand that companies discontinue using animals.

Furthermore, an attempt to foster an idea that consumers continually support animal experimentation due to some inaccurate notion that it will prevent them from being harmed is unprincipled. Product misuse and abuse can lead to harm regardless of how many animals are wrongfully killed during the product testing phase. In fact, corporate manipulation and exploitation of consumer fear by using deceptive advertising is not only unethical but it is also illegal. As such, as long as certain companies continue to unnecessarily and selfishly capitalize on the mutilation, torture, and death of animals, I will not financially support them; furthermore, I will share this information with family, friends, colleagues, and members of online communities as well.

Please make both the ethical and financially-responsible decision to demand a discontinuation of animal experimentation immediately and requiring ethical alternatives instead: join an increasing body of corporations, companies, and entities that are listening to a concerned and attentive consumer population who refuse to be complicit in the inherently malicious industry of animal experimentation.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent appeal.

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• Go cruelty-free product shopping: Cruelty-free products – as well as the processes by which they are produced – are more environmentally friendly than those tested on animals, less likely to contain harmful chemicals, more likely to use natural substances, and safer for you, the Earth, and the animals. Email or visit NEAVS for free Leaping Bunny cruelty-free shopping guides and apps.

• Support alternatives in education: Many animals are taken from natural habitats and used for dissection, contributing to the depletion of species diversity and ecosystem imbalance. Preserving and discarding specimens carries environmental risks. Toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde, identified as a carcinogen and designated a hazardous air and water pollutant, are used to preserve. The toxic waste generated by specimen dissection is dangerous for students, teachers, the public, and the Earth (read more). Call your schools to make certain students can choose cruelty-free alternatives to specimen dissection.

why upon us do you test,
rob us of our lives,
our chances to nest.
lock us in cold labs,
where we can only
anticipate,
the most painful,
and tragic,
cruelties of fate.
stop this madness,
stop it today.
another moment we
cannot bear
to live this way.

signed,
all the animals in labs

Karen Lyons Kalmenson