The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in 2010 that 97,123 animals suffered pain during experiments while being given no anesthesia for relief
The 1950s sleeping pillthalidomide, which caused 10,000 babies to be born with severe deformities, was tested on animals prior to its commercial release.
Chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans.
The United States andGabon are the only two countries that allowexperimentation onchimpanzees.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends $14 billion of its $31 billion annual budget on
animal research.
Researchers Joseph and Charles Vacanti grew a human "ear" seeded from implanted cow cartilage cells on the back of a living mouse to explore the possibility of fabricating body parts for plastic and reconstructive surgery.
A 2011 poll of nearly 1,000 biomedical scientists conducted by the science journal Nature found that more than 90% agreed that the use of animals in research is essential.
People in the United States eat 9 billion chickens and 150 million cattle, pigs and sheep annually, and we use around 26 million animals for research, 95% of which are rodents, birds and fish.
In 2010, Minnesota used more cats for testing than any other state (2,703), New Jersey used the most dogs (6,077), and Massachusetts used the most primates (7,458).
95% of animals used in experiments are not protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which excludes birds, rats and mice bred for research, and cold-blooded animals such as reptiles and most fish.
The California Biomedical Research Association states that nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly fromresearch using animals.
The US Food and Drug Administration endorses the use of animal tests on cosmetics to "assure the safety of a product or ingredient." American women use an