Prodded by the animal welfare movement, major
manufacturersofpharmaceuticals,pesticides andhousehold
products have made significant advances in recent years
towardthegoalofreducingthenumberofanimalsusedin
toxicitytesting.Alternativemethods,suchascellandtissue
cultureandcomputer modeling,areincreasinglybeingseen
not just
asgoodpublicrelationsbutasdesirable botheconomically
and scientifically.^72
ThereportwentontoquoteGaryFlamm,directoroftheFood
andDrugAdministrationOfficeofToxicologySciences,as
saying that the LD50 “should be replaceable in the vast
majorityofcases.”ANewYorkTimesarticlequotedasenior
toxicologistatG.D.Searleand Companyasadmittingthat
“an awful lot of the points made by the animal welfare
movement are extreme but right.”^73
Thereseems to be littledoubt that asa resultofall these
developments, an immense amount of needless pain and
sufferinghasbeenavoided.^74 Preciselyhowmuchishardto
say,butmillionsofanimalswouldhavesufferedeachyearin
teststhatwillnownotbeperformed.Thetragedyisthatif
only thetoxicologists, thecorporations, and theregulatory
agencieshadcaredmoreabouttheanimalstheywereusing,
millionsofanimalscouldhavebeensparedacutepain.Itwas
not until the AnimalLiberation movement beganto make
peopleawareoftheissuethatthoseinchargeofthetesting
business really thought about animal suffering. The most
callous, stupid things were done just because regulations
required them; and no one bothered to try to change the
regulations. It was not until 1983, for example, that U.S.
federalagencies statedthatsubstances knownto becaustic