Yesterday I saw a Suburban with a “Rats have Right” bumpersticker. What a great cruelty free bumpersticker! Where can I buy one of those? A lot of people don’t know, but rats are clean, adorable, and inquisitive little creatures that, when raised by people, are very people-friendly and sweet. They also have highly complex nervous systems.

One of the reasons I’m against animal testing is that standard toxicology procedures (which I’ve gathered from attempting to read toxicology textbooks) are incredibly horrible for rats. They involve buying 30 specially-bred rats that have no immune system (which are very expensive to buy), injecting 10 of them with a small dose of some chemical, say a shampoo ingredient, injecting 10 with a 100% dose of that chemical, and injecting the other 10 with a 500% dose of that chemical. This is done every day for a week, then the rats are slaughtered (”sacrificed” is the usual euphemism) and autopsied (the rats that are still alive despite having huge amounts of chemicals injected into their bloodstreams, that is). It’s so cruel and yet so pointless — toxicity levels are never really identical between people and rats. Does the fact that a rat develops problems from some level of a chemical mean that a person will? No. Rats and human beings are different species. It’s just not a good method of determining toxicity to humans. Not to mention it’s cruel.

Not to mention I’ve heard of plenty of people I wish would have 500% doses of toxic chemicals (serial murderers, anyone?) injected into their bloodstreams, but I’ve never met a rat I felt that way about. Especially to determine whether a shampoo chemical is toxic or not. I mean, for cancer research, maybe that sort of infliction of pain and suffering might be a situation in which the ends justify the means (though I think there are many excellent alternatives to animal testing that should be used instead). I mean, look at these adorable rats from Cute Overload — why would anyone want to hurt and then kill rats like them (by the way, whoever took them, those are beautiful photographs!)? I just don’t understand it. It seems amazing to me that this kind of behavior is what has made Nazi medical doctors so reviled — they performed randomized experiments like this on people — yet it is what has given prestige to so many researchers. Do that sort of thing to people, become a worldwide symbol of cruelty and death. Do that sort of thing to rats, become a lauded researcher at a prestigious think tank.

Categories : against animal testing, cruelty free