I work for MARS. If you ONLY knew how they minimize testing compared to other research. Not even a fly can be harmed if not absolutely required. It gets to be excessive on how MARS limits animal tests. Since animal tests will never completely go away, you should support those who truely limit animal tests.?

Bob, the Mars insider

Dear Bob,

I’m sure you’re a real person who works for Mars. But — how do I verify that? And why should I believe you, a supposed insider at MARS, a candy company, over PETA, an outside organization well-known for its commitment to animals — about something involving animal abuse? PETA is far more believable to me. Maybe you’d like to find some outside organization to verify what you’re telling me about Mars being so great? I’d believe that more.

Also — you haven’t been reading my blog very carefully.  You claim that “animal testing will never completely go away?”  I strongly disagree.  I write about why I think some animal testing is not going to go away at present — i.e., testing for some medical purposes just doesn’t seem to have any non-animal-using alternatives just yet.  But one of my biggest themes is that animal testing WILL eventually go away. I’ve written a LOT about that.  Look at CAAT, look at all the wonderful people who are working on skin-equivalents that involve cosmetic testing WITHOUT the use of animals – CeeTox, In Vitro International, Institute for In Vitro Sciences, MatTek Corporation, SkinEthic Laboratories, etc., Look at all the advancements that have already been made in the field of reducing the numbers of animals used in experiments or eliminating them all together?  More humane science IS better science.  Just read this article.  There’s even some evidence that non-animal-testing is better than animal-testing.  

Non-animal tests have been shown to be far less horrific, and actually BETTER than animal-testing in many situations.  Non-animal-using tests (1) mimic human responses better than animal tissue — scientists take discarded bits of skin from surgeries and “grow” it in petri dishes and then run tests on it — for all intents and purposes it reacts much more like human skin than any live rat/rabbit skin would, and animal skin is far different from human skin — human skin is bound tightly to muscle underneath it, whereas most other mammal skin slides over the underlying muscle, as any dog or cat owner could tell you, human skin has a few hairs on it whereas most animals have a thick coat of fur, etc., (2) non-animal-tests are much cheaper — raising genetically mutated mice to have no immune system and then house and feed them costs a LOT more money than storing petri dishes, (3) allows scientists to run hundreds more tests, leading to better results — you can test skin irritancy on a thousand petri dishes in one day, whereas you’d have to have a really huge kennel to test skin irritancy on a thousand rats in one day, and (4) more environmentally friendly — disposing of dead rat/rabbit bodies infused with hazardous waste takes up a lot of landfill space.    

If you care about animals, instead of writing to me fallacies about how animal testing will never completely go away, I hope you will instead direct your attention to working towards the goal of ending animal testing in the food industry. And stop working for MARS — PETA calls it an Animal Abusing Place. And animal testing for foods?  How wasteful is that?  At least do animal testing for medical purposes. Sheesh.

Regards,

Emily

Click here to petition against Mars animal testing.

Categories : alternatives to animal testing, dear emily