Resources & Archives Bypassing common sense to kill more than one hundred million animals (Summer 2000) — Bypassing the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), its own advisory committee, and basic common sense, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing a massive chemical testing program that could kill more than one hundred million animals. The plan, "The Endocrine (Hormone) Disrupter Screening Program," is the largest proposed animal-testing program of all time. Many international scientists have denounced the EPA's plan as "blindly stupid." Even the EPA's own advisory board is recommending that a non-animal screen be developed as a first stage in the testing. The Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) has not validated the proposed tests. And NAS has recommended that biomonitoring and epidemiological studies first be conducted on humans to determine the nature and scope of the toxicity/exposure problem. Further, opponents argue, any test results will be of questionable relevance to humans since it is ludicrous to attempt to determine the effects of industrial chemicals on the human endocrine (hormonal) system by looking at the reproductive organs of non-human animals.' Animal and health advocates everywhere are demanding that the EPA halt its false, misleading and deadly animal testing. Instead, they are requesting that the EPA develop a program that reduces emissions and exposures to chemicals already recognized as hazardous. The EPA's plan is totally nonsensical. NEAVS-funded researchers such as Bjorn Ekwall, MD, PhD, of the Cytotoxicology Laboratory in Sweden, and Rodger Curren, PhD, of the Institute for In Vitro Sciences in Maryland, are clearly demonstrating the ethical and scientific benefits of ending animal experimentation as the route to human health. (See NEAVS Update, Fall/Winter 1999.) There have been major victories and breakthroughs to ending animal testing. The growing list of cruelty-free companies is one such reminder. Back to UPDATE 2000 Series, Vol. 1, No. 2 Summer mainpage.