What is the Lethal Dosage 50 Test? [Peter Singer says] "the aim of the LD50 test is to determine the dosage level at which 50% of the test animals will die. This usually means that all of the animals will become very sick before half finally succumb (and die) while the other half survive...Consequently enormous quantities [of various substances] will be force-fed to the animals and death may be caused merely by the high volume or large concentration given to the animals...It is also normal to let the process of poisoning take its full course, until death occurs. To put dying animals out of their misery may give a slightly inaccurate result."
Each year American doctors inject more than 3 million doses of Botox to temporarily smooth-out their patients' wrinkles and frown lines. But before each batch is shipped, the manufacturer puts it through one of the oldest and most controversial animal tests available.
To check the potency of its product, Allergen Inc. injects mice with Botox until it finds a dose at which half of the animals die - a rough gage of potential harm to humans.
Animal protection organizations consider "lethal dosage 50," as the test is known, to be the "poster child of everything that's wrong with animal testing...It's as bad as it gets, poisoning animals to death."
Allergen officials say that they have no choice. Without a federally approved safety test that does not use animals..."lethal dosage 50" is by default the required test.
This controversy highlights the slow pace of government efforts to replace or reduce the large number of animals used in testing. A decade after Congress created a panel to spur the development of non-animal tests, only four tests have been approved out of 185 reviews. Scientists in the U.S. say they have delayed or abandoned their proposals for non-animal tests because panel reviews are protracted and expensive.
...critics point to Europe, where a similar panel has approved 34 alternatives with another 170 in its pipeline. Critics say the U.S. panel is slow and favors older animal tests that have never gone through the same rigorous scientific review...
Others argue that members of the panel have a bias in favor of animal testing. An email exchange between panel members and government scientists suggests that the bias in favor of animal testing has engendered resistance to alternatives. According to the Washington Post, "Copies of an email exchange between scientists discussing two recent papers by a prominent European researcher who has found evidence proving the viability of non-animal test alternatives, were uncovered. In this email exchange one scientist asked, "What could we do to combat these papers." The Chair of the panel responded, "What I see is them trying to build a case not to use animals in testing."
As a result, critics argue, hundreds of thousands of mice, rabbits, hamsters and dogs continue to suffer and die needlessly in tests for pesticides, household cleaners, sunscreens and other products. Some contend that millions of animals are used for these tests, however, there are no federal reporting requirements covering mice and rats, who make up the majority of the animals used in product testing, so "official" numbers are at best low-ball estimates.
This defense is immoral, as will be discussed below, however, the argument assumes that there are only two available options for these companies: one, allow pre-tested (and safe) products on the market, or two, allow untested (and unsafe) products on the market. This is erroneous as there is a third, fourth, and fifth option: three, no product pre-tested on animals should (morally) be allowed on the market as a matter of justice; four, scientists should take the scientific challenge and create new alternatives to product testing that do not torture animals; and fifth, until alternative tests are available, no new products should be created.
To go a little further though, this moral defense in question should be challenged in at least two ways, according to Tom Regan:
- First, the argument assumes the morality of shifting the potential harm an individual freely chooses to accept when attempting to enhance their beauty by having a Botox injection, onto another sentient being who was forced to assume the risk [and harm] for you. Take another example: it would be rational for me to wear a helmet while I freely choose to participate in rock climbing; however, it would be immoral for me to force you to test the helmets durability and efficiency - and thus shift the harm from me onto you (an unwilling participant who gains nothing from the harm you will suffer). Morality does not work this way! You cannot willingly participate in an activity that may cause you harm (of course I could choose not to rock climb) and then force another unwilling participant to be harmed in your stead.
- Second, this defense of animal testing fails to recognize that there are already plenty of these products on the market; as such, it seems unreasonable to argue that I would be harmed, if at all, more significantly than the animals tortured to death if I was not allowed access to yet another hand soap or laundry detergent. The case of Botox is even less morally justifiable as there is no demonstrable human need to have my frown lines removed. The end of a Botox treatment is to enhance beauty, beauty of course is an appeal to mere vanity, vanity is perhaps the most useless of all human goods as its practical use is almost non-existent in a world properly governed by a so-called "advanced species" like human beings. If this works as a justification for you, why not simply test on Black people, or every person born mentally retarded? If this harm (limitless and unnecessary suffering) can be trumped by an appeal to vanity, how advanced is our species really?
To smooth out your wrinkles, 50% of the animals will die a torturous death by poisoning, while the other 50% will suffer the poisoning (and all its terrible effects) only to be a) again used for testing, or b) murdered.
The decision to create another product that requires testing on animals is a moral decision that must be made by each respective company; however, it should be clear that one's moral responsibility is not absolved because the government has decided to drag its feet in the approval of alternative tests - the company is immoral because it necessitates the need for further animal testing when it decides to create another Christmas tree spray.
Another moral decision is at play here: you have the moral responsibility to first question the validity of the argument being forwarded by these companies, and then to make a personal decision not to purchase these products if the argument is invalid. Your money is an explicit approval of these tests; do not delude yourself into thinking that you are above moral criticism.
If these animals are enough like us to make the results of these tests generalizable to the human species it is incomprehensible that we would stand idly by as this occurs while we would destroy the very system that allowed this harm to be suffered on even the most vile human beings (e.g., the scientists who perform these tests). That is Speciesism. If, on the contrary, these animals are that different from human animals, what is the point of these tests in the first place?
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