ANIMAL TESTS DON'T PROTECT CONSUMERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 5, 1992                   TAG: 9201060204
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: D-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
ANIMAL TESTS DON'T PROTECT CONSUMERS
ANIMAL experimenters and other advocates of animal testing allow their feelings about animal-rights activists to cloud their perspective ("Animal testing not profitable," letter, Dec. 2). They repeat old claims that force-feeding rats and guinea pigs, or covering their shaved skin with lipsticks and hair sprays, is necessary to protect consumers; but the facts prove them wrong.
In 1989, hospital emergency rooms treated 35,000 individuals with product-related injuries - those caused by cosmetics, household cleansers and other items that had been tested on animals. Many beauticians, cosmetology students, and others who use hair- and skin-care products for several hours day after day report breathing difficulties, memory loss, headaches and other symptoms.
Countless patients who take animal-tested medications have suffered every kind of side effect from dizziness to deafness, and even death. Experimenters spend billions of our tax dollars afflicting other-than-human animals with disease instead of studying its spontaneous development in humans, but many medical professionals denounce animal testing. CHRISTINE JACKSON People for Ethical Treatment of Animals WASHINGTON, D.C.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB