Executive Summary
Laboratory animals have been used for many years to determine whether chemicals in foods, pharmaceuticals, and other products might cause cancer and other health problems in human beings; and animal testing continues to play a role in determining the safety of products for human use. Yet an increasingly sophisticated understanding of cancer formation (carcinogenesis) along with growing doubts about how confidently we can infer human health effects from test results in quite different animal species has begun to change both scientific assessment practices and the legal and regulatory requirements based on them.
Animal Experiments
Branding a substance a human carcinogen solely because cancer has occurred in laboratory animals force-fed the substance at unrealistically high doses diverts both attention and resources from far more significant threats to human health. So states a panel of experts affiliated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).