{"id":357822,"date":"2018-04-21T17:05:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T16:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/epa-recommends-transitioning-away-from-animal-testing\/"},"modified":"2018-04-21T17:05:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T16:05:05","slug":"epa-recommends-transitioning-away-from-animal-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/epa-recommends-transitioning-away-from-animal-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA Recommends Transitioning Away From Animal Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Good news\u00a0from federal agencies\u00a0can feel\u00a0like a rarity these days, but this dispatch from the Environmental Protection Agency is an excellent reminder that staffers deep in the government are hard at work\u00a0to build a better world. In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.regulations.gov\/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0093-0090\" target=\"_blank\">draft guidance on skin allergy testing<\/a>\u00a0for pesticides and industrial chemicals, the\u00a0EPA is encouraging\u00a0researchers to move away from the use of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.care2.com\/causes\/how-effective-is-animal-testing.html\" target=\"_blank\">animal models<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Such testing is legally required to\u00a0determine the level of hazard\u00a0that various industrial products pose.\u00a0Scientists aim to determine if chemicals cause skin irritation and, if so,\u00a0the severity of their effects. This allows agencies to determine whether a product is safe enough to be sold to consumers, or if it needs to come with special warning labels.<\/p>\n<p>Historically, this process has\u00a0involved\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.care2.com\/causes\/how-effective-is-animal-testing.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"How Effective Is Animal Testing?\">exposing animals<\/a>\u00a0to the chemicals in question, relying primarily on guinea pigs and mice. As part of the research, the animals are killed and autopsied to examine the effects.<\/p>\n<div>The Humane Society of the United States\u00a0maintains that these methods really should be consigned to history &#8212; and not just because they are cruel. Alternatives to animal testing actually\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.humanesociety.org\/news\/press_releases\/2018\/04\/animal-advocates-praise-epa.html?credit=web_id93480558\" target=\"_blank\">appear to be more effective<\/a>, which is a good reason to abandon these outdated practices.<\/div>\n<p>The EPA estimates that about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/sites\/production\/files\/2017-10\/documents\/session-5-acute-animal-testiing-alternatives.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">10,000 animals<\/a>\u00a0are used in testing these products annually, thanks to stringent requirements. In order to validate results, researchers have to repeat tests multiple times in a controlled setting. This process doesn&#8217;t just involve the use of many animals; it&#8217;s also time consuming, with some testing taking several years and multiple generations of animals to complete. That, in turn, can make\u00a0research\u00a0very costly, presenting problems for the bottom lines of companies that want to control costs.<\/p>\n<p>This move has been in the works for a while; federal agencies are notorious for taking a long time to develop and implement draft policies. It&#8217;s a step in the right direction, though &#8212; and one that may encourage people in&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.truth-out.org\/news\/item\/44239-epa-recommends-transitioning-away-from-animal-testing\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good news\u00a0from federal agencies\u00a0can feel\u00a0like a rarity these days, but this dispatch from the Environmental Protection Agency is an excellent reminder that staffers deep in the government are hard at work\u00a0to build a better world. In\u00a0draft guidance on skin allergy testing\u00a0for pesticides and industrial chemicals, the\u00a0EPA is encouraging\u00a0researchers to move away from the use of\u00a0animal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-357822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}