14. Government-Sponsored Experiments on Animals
Using animals as test subjects is a pretty contentious issue today, and many people are becoming vegetarians and even vegans (people who do not use or consume any animal products, including dairy) in the effort to live in such a way that is ethical towards the animal kingdom. Today, two powerful, quasi-legislative government agencies – the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) require that many products be tested on animals before they can be sold to the general public.
For pesticides to be approved for public use, they must first be used on dogs, who are shoved into “inhalation chambers” that are then pumped full of the pesticide. The chemicals being tested are placed onto the eyes and shaved skin of rabbits. Fluoride products, like toothpaste and mouthwash, must be tested on rats’ teeth for two weeks. The rats are then decapitated to examine the effects of fluoride.
There are many challenges against the use of animal testing, one of the most common being that knowing how a product affects animals does not indicate how it will affect humans. Still, animals remain the government’s most popular guinea pigs (pun intended) for its experiments.