AR-News: ask Greenpeace to look at non-animal methods of testing chemicals

Sun May 9 23:27:56 EDT 2004

>From Mark Richards

Courtesy of http://www.dlrm.org/

Please write to one of the leading environmental organisations, Greenpeace, 
asking them to look at non-animal methods of testing chemicals, such as 
those proposed by Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine, to safeguard 
the environment, people and animals.

To find your the Greenpeace office in your country, please go to "Websites 
worldwide"  on the left of the web link and find their email address or 
paste a message:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/

If there is not a Greenpeace contact in your country, please leave your 
message on their international contact message page.

++sample letter++

Dear Greenpeace,

There is a significant rise in cancer starting shortly after World War 2 and 
persisting into the 1990s.
The death rate due to all cancer, except lung cancer, in people between ages 
40 and 45 years, increased six-fold between 1950 and 1980, lung cancer 
ten-fold.

Trends as impressive as these are found, for example, in allergies (asthma) 
especially in children, and dementia (Alzheimer¹s, Parkinson¹s, multiple 
sclerosis), which is increasingly afflicting people below their fifties. 
Autism in children soars at a breath-taking rate: according to official US 
data, the number of affected children increased ten-fold over the past 10 
years and amounts to 120,000 in 2002 in this country (UK).

Since World War 2, some 80,000 man-made chemical substances, for various 
purposes, were brought on the market in varying quantities of up to 100,000 
tonnes a year. These chemicals are used for outdoor and domestic purposes, 
even finding their way onto our tables in the form of food additives and 
pesticides. This suggests a link between the adverse health trends and the 
concomitant introduction of chemicals.

According to the European Commission (EC), only 2% of these chemicals have 
been assessed for the risk they may cause to rodents! In 2003, the EC issued 
the REACH project (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation of Chemicals) in 
which we should know by 2020 the risk of the 100,000 chemicals in rodents. 
Ninety two million animals would be involved.

Non-animal testing is reliable and very fast. They provide definitive 
results within hours, or days at most, valid for humans, while animal 
experimentation lasts for months and years and yield results valid for 
animals only.

Industrial parties seem uninterested in correctly testing chemicals. If they 
have their way we will have dangerous products infiltrating our homes and 
our food just because they were declared safe by flawed (animal) tests.

The board of Alliance for Responsible Science (AFRS), in which the doctors 
and lawyers organisation called Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine 
(DLRM) participates, has worked out a Science Based Toxicology programme 
(SBT) for reliable toxic risk assessment which is valid for humans and 
enable us to forecast long term effects.

The methods proposed are derived from those of modern biology (DNA,chips, 
'reporter' genes etc). They are fast, allowing high throughput of screening 
of chemicals, can be easily robotized, and are cost-effective compared with 
traditional toxicology.

DLRM is campaigning for the adoption of this programme by the EC and EU. 
DLRM believe it could halve the cancer mortality rate over the next five 
years, and would address the wide variety of side effects which have been 
tested by invalid methods.

As Greenpeace is a dedicated international environmental organisation, I 
would be grateful if you contact DLRM ( http://www.dlrm.org ) to see how you 
could combine your work to help produce a cruelty-free and toxic-free 
planet.

Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing from you in 
due course.

Yours sincerely,

(Name and address)

3. Information courtesy of http://www.dlrm.org

Please also inform Friends of the Earth about non-animal testing methods.

To find your the F.O.E office in your country, please visit their web link:

http://www.foei.org/groups/index.html

++sample letter++

Dear F.O.E,

There is a significant rise in cancer starting shortly after World War 2 and 
persisting into the 1990s.
The death rate due to all cancer, except lung cancer, in people between ages 
40 and 45 years, increased six-fold between 1950 and 1980, lung cancer 
ten-fold.

Trends as impressive as these are found, for example, in allergies (asthma) 
especially in children, and dementia (Alzheimer¹s, Parkinson¹s, multiple 
sclerosis), which is increasingly afflicting people below their fifties. 
Autism in children soars at a breath-taking rate: according to official US 
data, the number of affected children increased ten-fold over the past 10 
years and amounts to 120,000 in 2002 in this country (UK).

Since World War 2, some 80,000 man-made chemical substances, for various 
purposes, were brought on the market in varying quantities of up to 100,000 
tonnes a year. These chemicals are used for outdoor and domestic purposes, 
even finding their way onto our tables in the form of food additives and 
pesticides. This suggests a link between the adverse health trends and the 
concomitant introduction of chemicals.

According to the European Commission (EC), only 2% of these chemicals have 
been assessed for the risk they may cause¹ to rodents! In 2003, the EC 
issued the REACH project (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation of 
Chemicals) in which we should know by 2020 the risk of the 100,000 
chemicals¹ in rodents. Ninety two million animals would be involved.

Non-animal testing is reliable and very fast. They provide definitive 
results within hours, or days at most, valid for humans, while animal 
experimentation lasts for months and years and yield results valid for 
animals only.

Industrial parties seem uninterested in correctly testing chemicals. If they 
have their way we will have dangerous products infiltrating our homes and 
our food just because they were declared safe by flawed (animal) tests.

The board of Alliance for Responsible Science (AFRS), in which the doctors 
and lawyers organisation called Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine 
(DLRM) participates, has worked out a Science Based Toxicology programme 
(SBT) for reliable toxic risk assessment which is valid for humans and 
enable us to forecast long term effects.

The methods proposed are derived from those of modern biology (DNA,chips, 
'reporter' genes etc). They are fast, allowing high throughput of screening 
of chemicals, can be easily robotized, and are cost-effective compared with 
traditional toxicology.

DLRM is campaigning for the adoption of this programme by the EC and EU. 
DLRM believe it could halve the cancer mortality rate over the next five 
years, and would address the wide variety of side effects which have been 
tested by invalid methods.

As F.O.E is a dedicated international environmental organisation, I would be 
grateful if could contact DLRM ( http://www.dlrm.org ) to see how you could 
combine your work to help produce a cruelty-free and toxic-free planet.

Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing from you in 
due course.

Yours sincerely,

(Name and address)

Animal experiments have:
a 63% failure rate when detecting human carcinogens
a 75-95% failure rate for detecting drug side effects
a 70% failure rate for detecting drugs which cause birth defects
Success rates lower than those achieved by uneducated guesswork.

This is not science!!

Recommended website: The Absurdity of vivisection
http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/

Information on animal research available free by EMail from 
vivisectionkills at hotmail.com

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the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. 
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead
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