Washington — Following three years of repeated requests by PETA, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has at last announced that it will no longer promote the use of live rabbits in painful and archaic skin corrosion tests. Determination of corrosivity is required for transporting any hazardous materials.
PETA filed a complaint with the U.S. inspector general after the DOT agreed to allow the use of several non-animal methods in a new rule in January 2011 but failed to update its website and guidance to transportation companies to reflect this change. In a recent letter to PETA, Magdy El-Sibaie, the associate administrator for hazardous materials safety at the DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, wrote, "We … have updated our website by removing the previously-issued letters of interpretation and replacing them with our current position which promotes to the extent practicable the use of the in vitro [test tube] skin corrosion test methods."
"Before this change, transporters who turned to the DOT for guidance would see that deadly tests on animals were required, when in fact they weren't," says Jessica Sandler, senior director of PETA's Regulatory Testing Division. "Now, transporters will see that they can and should use superior, modern testing methods that better protect humans and don't harm animals."
In animal corrosion tests, rabbits' backs are shaved and chemicals are applied to their raw skin and left there for up to two weeks. These chemicals often burn the skin, but the rabbits are given no pain relief. After the test is finished, the animals are killed. Twenty years ago, also following a vigorous PETA campaign, the DOT approved the use of a non-animal method that can spare rabbits this excruciating pain yet continued to promote the use of rabbits, even though the agency also acknowledged that the non-animal method "may be more stringent than the skin necrosis [rabbit] test." Newer non-animal methods that use reconstructed human-skin models allow for more accurate and complete assessments of potential skin damage than are obtained by using rabbits. Besides the pain and distress inflicted on the rabbits who are used in such tests, evidence shows that the animal tests do not accurately measure whether a substance is likely to damage to human skin.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.