Image by Cornell Frühauf from Pixabay
1. Public Consultation: Urge Canada to Invest in Cruelty-Free Science
Our thanks to Animal Justice for this information and the option to send a quick, pre-written and modifiable letter. The groundbreaking Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods (CCAAM) is at risk!
Canada stands on the edge of a historic change for animals used for research: the end of toxicity testing on animals. These tests include some of the cruelest and most painful experiments imaginable.
Last year, Canada passed a groundbreaking bill to strengthen national environmental laws—made possible by relentless advocacy from Animal Justice, partner organizations, and passionate supporters like you. The law now requires a strategy to reduce and replace animal use in toxicity testing.
Health Canada has released its draft strategy on phasing out toxicity testing on animals—a key step forward for animals used in research. But there’s a huge problem. The government has failed to fund Canada’s only national centre dedicated to pioneering cruelty-free research methods, the Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods (CCAAM). Without public funding, the centre has been forced to close its doors at the University of Windsor. It is at risk of closing permanently, halting essential progress towards science without the use of animals.
The draft strategy is open for public comment until November 13, 2024. Progress on the strategy will be reported annually to Parliament, making it an important tool ensuring Canada stays on track to end toxicity testing on animals by its 2035 goal.
Toxicity testing causes immense suffering for countless rats, mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, and even dogs. These animals are subjected to unimaginable pain—exposed to chemicals that cause severe burns, organ failure, and more, without any pain relief. Each year, tens of thousands of animals endure this agony only to be killed once testing is over.
Fortunately, alternatives exist that are faster, more reliable, and often less costly than traditional animal testing. However, to replace these cruel methods, Canada needs to invest in modern science as other jurisdictions like the US, EU, Brazil, and the Netherlands have done.
Please act now to call for government support for the CCAAM, ensuring Canada’s place at the forefront of cruelty-free science.
Thank you for continuing to advocate for animals used in research. Together, we can create a future free from the horrors of animal testing.
2. Support the Phase-Out of Testing Chemicals on Animals in Canada
From Humane Society International – Canada
In June of 2023, with the support of HSI/Canada, other animal protection groups, and industry, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was revised, requiring the publication of a strategy with set timelines to phase-out the use of animals for safety assessment of chemicals.
The government followed through on its mandate and published a draft strategy to replace, reduce, or refine vertebrate animal testing for public comment. The draft strategy commits to identify and prioritize “new approach methods” for regulatory needs, advance research and data generation, and harmonize, collaborate and communicate with other governments and stakeholders toward replacing vertebrate testing.
Urge the government to follow our recommendations to accelerate the phase-out of animal testing.Use the button at the bottom of this post to send the following letter:
Dear Environmental and Radiation Health Sciences Directorate,
I am writing to support the Canadian Government’s draft strategy to replace, reduce or refine vertebrate animal testing published in September 2024, which commits to identify and prioritize nonanimal “new approach methods” for regulatory needs, advance research and data generation, and harmonize, collaborate and communicate with other governments and stakeholders toward replacing vertebrate testing.
While I largely support the draft strategy as currently written, I would like to make the following recommendations to strengthen the government’s roadmap:
- Formally recognize “Next Generation Risk Assessment” as the foundation for a new animal-free paradigm in safety assessment.
- Provide an ambitious timeline for identifying animal tests that are currently replaceable through scientific substantiation and ready for immediate regulatory uptake.
- Incorporate a roadmap with stated goals and timelines for the phase-out of animal tests that are not currently replaceable. Publish an annual progress report on these objectives to improve transparency and accountability.
- Commit sizeable funding and resourcing to the implementation of the draft strategy and toward the development, standardization and incorporation of new approach methods with the goal of replacing all vertebrate toxicity testing by 2035.
- Adapt and implement this strategy, in parallel across all relevant federal regulatory programs, including pesticides, foods, natural health and therapeutic products. With the rapid advancement of new approach methods that are faster and more relevant to human biology, Canada has the opportunity to become a leader on the global stage in ending outdated animal testing.
I, again, urge the Canadian government to safeguard the welfare of animals, while championing human and environmental safety, by committing sizeable funds and resources toward ending all vertebrate toxicity testing over the next decade.
3. It’s a Gamble U.S. Officials Won’t Take – But Canada Continues to Allow Monkey Imports
Our thanks to PETA for the information below and the option to send a quick pre-written letter on this issue. We have shared their posts about the Canadian import of endangered monkeys destined for research before and are pleased they are continuing to work on this issue. Let’s keep the pressure up!
Update (October 10, 2024): Two months ago, PETA and the Spanish animal protection group Abolición Vivisección exposed that Charles River Laboratories and Polish airline SkyTaxi had illegally imported—for the third time—hundreds of endangered monkeys into Canada for use in cruel and deadly experiments. The Canadian Transportation Agency seems to think that flouting international regulations is no big deal. It took action, a good step, but apparently only by doing the bare minimum: fining the airline a paltry $7,500, amounting to only $4 per monkey illegally transported.
The terrified monkeys endured more than 48 hours of misery stuffed inside tiny cargo crates on a flight to Canada after being sent around the globe from a squalid Cambodian monkey farm to an airport in Tbilisi, Georgia. The flight violated Canadian transport regulations because SkyTaxi is only approved to fly into Canada from Poland. The Canadian Transportation Agency initially and rightfully denied the August 8 flight entry, but that didn’t deter SkyTaxi from landing or Charles River from whisking the monkeys away to its facilities outside Montréal.
We’re urging Canadian authorities to stop allowing Charles River to twist their arms and to ban SkyTaxi from flying monkeys into the country. We’re also asking the Canadian CITES Management Authority and the CITES Secretariat in Geneva to investigate whether Charles River and SkyTaxi knowingly provided false information on documents that accompanied the shipments.
Please take action below to urge Canadian officials to immediately shut down all imports of monkeys to Canada.
4. Send a Quick Note re Animals Killed During a COVID Monitoring Study
Our thanks to Nicole Corrado for alerting us to the study below.
We suggest that after you read it, you send a quick note to Chelsea Himsworth who is the BC Deputy Chief Veterinarian and the BC Regional Director for the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative. She is also one of the researchers involved in the study we will be posting below. You can email her at: chelsea.himsworth@gov.bc.ca
Wondering what to write? Nicole’s note was short and to the point: “I think it is awful that animals were either coneybear trapped/snap trapped, or live trapped and then killed during a COVID monitoring study. Even domestic cats were killed. Please do not support any more animal research that involves killing healthy animals.”
The study:
SARS-CoV-2 Wildlife Surveillance Surrounding Mink Farms in British Columbia, Canada
5. Help Stop University of Pittsburg’s Bladder Burning Experiments on Cats
Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research and Experimentation have notified us of this cruel and unnecessary experimentation being done on cats by the University of Pittsburg. They have set up a letter writing action that we link to. It only takes a moment to send a pre-written note that you can opt to modify.
From CAARE:
CAARE has revealed that the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is using cats in horrific bladder burning experiments.
These abominable experiments are not just exceptionally cruel, they have failed to lead to any advancements in understanding or treating human bladder disorders that are more effectively researched through studying human biology.
CAARE has uncovered deeply disturbing, horrific experiments on cats at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt). According to federal documents obtained by CAARE from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Pitt researchers are filling cats’ bladders with acetic acid to damage the delicate lining of the bladder wall, and then implanting their spines with electrodes.
Pitt’s grant application submitted to the NIH is requesting to purchase and kill at least 90 cats for five years from July 2023 and continuing through June 2028.
The experiments are purportedly looking at how a certain nerve (hypogastric) is possibly related to several bladder disorders in humans, including interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) and overactive bladder (OAB).
According to federal documents acquired by CAARE, the experimenters plan to anesthetize cats, repeatedly irritate their bladders with acetic acid, and then shock the cats’ nerves through electrodes to study the brain’s control of bladder activity.
The documents detail continual, prolonged, and horrific abuse of the cats – filling their bladders with caustic acid in sessions lasting up to two hours. Ten of the cats will have already been subjected to 110 experimental trials involving bladder irritations with only a 10-minute “rest” period between repetitions.
Some of the cats will have their nerves cut, while others will have their spines severed. All the cats will be killed at the study’s end so the experimenter can “harvest” segments of their spines for additional testing.
These abominable experiments consumed nearly $400,000 of taxpayer-supported funding in 2023 alone, according to the NIH’s public records portal. This is money that could have been spent on valuable human research. Relevant and ethical human research is at the core of medical progress, because it delivers results that are truly applicable to patients.
he Pitt cat experiments are fundamentally flawed by combining research of overactive bladder and interstitial cystitis together. OAB and IC are distinctly different conditions, which by themselves have multiple different subtypes requiring independent research.
Astoundingly, new research presented at the American Urological Association in 2024 found that that 34% of IC patients had neuropathy that was unrelated to bladder disease, therefore IC is no longer considered a bladder disorder. This underscores how experiments that damage cats’ bladders to find underlying causes of IC are exceedingly off-target.
Innovative science is being conducted to deliver vital results that cannot come from inapplicable animal experiments. Human cellular models, genomic analyses, 3D bioprinted models and biomodelling are contributing to advances in urology the can lead to new treatments.
Want to help stop this?
6. Help Call for a Suspension on the Import of Endangered Monkeys in Canada
Our thanks to the Animal Party of Canada for the information below along with the opportunity to take action by sending a quick, pre-written letter. It only takes a moment.
The Issue:
In November 2022, after a five-year investigation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service into the sourcing of monkeys used in research, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Cambodia government officials and nationals for an alleged monkey smuggling ring, and suspended the import of all monkeys from the country. The monkeys – long-tailed macaques – which are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, were captured from the wild but misrepresented as bred in captivity.
Since the U.S. suspension, Canadian imports of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia have increased, and over the past 19 months, thousands of the monkeys have been brought into the country.
On Friday, August 9, 2024 the Canadian Transportation Agency denied a landing permit to a cargo plane loaded with long-tailed macaques from Cambodia for apparently being in violation of International Air Transport Association guidelines. The following day, on August 10, the plane landed at the Montreal-Mirabel airport — 48 hours after the animals had been loaded. CITES Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Enforcement Directorate have been contacted to determine what enforcement action will be taken.
Canada is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and should be ordering an immediate suspension of all monkey imports from Cambodia until the issue of illegal trade has been resolved.
How You Can Help:
Please join us in asking the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to follow the lead of the U.S. government and suspend the importation of endangered monkeys from Cambodia.
7. Sign the No Animal Labs at the New St. Paul’s Hospital Petition
Every year, millions of animals in Canada experience excruciating pain and die in the name of research that does not reliably predict human outcomes. Live animals are used for burn research, psychological and physical pain research, given cancer, blinded, subjected to broken bones or strokes, swim tests in icy water, forced to inhale smoke and more. All when alternative ways of conducting research exist and it has been shown time and time again that, in research, animal models produce misleading results. Animal physiology is different to human physiology. For example, 96% of drugs that have tested successfully in animals have failed in human clinical trials.
HELP US TO END ANIMAL RESEARCH: PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION CALLING FOR NO ANIMAL LABS AT THE NEW ST. PAUL’S HOSPITAL IN VANCOUVER...
8. ADAV Petition: Ask Health Canada to Modernize Drug Testing in Canada
Canada has now banned the use of animals in cosmetic testing, and is phasing out toxicological testing of products bought by Canadian consumers. And in the US, the Food and Drug Administration has dropped the regulatory testing of new drugs on animals. Yet the development and approval of new pharmaceuticals in Canada still require animal testing be conducted.
We are urging Health Canada to implement changes to Canada’s drug testing regulations such as the United States has recently adopted through its FDA Modernization Act 2.0. This Act ends the requirement for the testing of new drugs on animals in favour of sophisticated, human-relevant and reliable evidence methods.
Technical advances in human-relevant testing and research have successfully demonstrated increased efficiency, reliability, cost-effectiveness and environmental sustainability. And with an over 90% failure rate of drugs that pass the initial animal testing phase, human health would only benefit by a complete revamping of our current drug review process.
Institutions such as the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods at the University of Windsor stand as an example of academic excellence and broader progress in Canadian medical research. Yet such centres remain underfunded while Canada’s animal use numbers stay high, at over 3,692,479 per year according to the latest reporting from the Canadian Council on Animal Care.
We urge the Canadian Government, Health Canada and our major funding agencies to enact policies that promote health research and testing innovation and which will save millions of animal – and many human – lives each year in Canada. It is essential that we reallocate funding from repetitive animal-testing-based science to the development, validation and implementation of scientifically and morally superior methods. As a signee of the International Cooperation on Alternative Test Methods (ICATM) in 2009, Health Canada must become proactive in this arena. Ask Canada to uphold our responsibility to reduce and replace the use of animals in biomedical research, training and testing.
9. African Airline with Ties to a Monkey-Smuggling Ring Ships Animals to their Deaths
PETA has uncovered evidence that Africa’s largest airline, Ethiopian Airlines, has just shipped hundreds of endangered monkeys halfway around the world for use in cruel and deadly experiments.
The airline, which appears to have ties to an alleged illegal international monkey smuggling ring, reportedly recently flew 250 endangered long-tailed macaques from Ethiopia to the U.S. on a grueling journey, even though the company previously told PETA that shipping monkeys was against company policy. The monkeys were first shipped to Ethiopia from the East African nation of Mauritius on a different airline.
Please take action below to urge Ethiopian Airlines to join nearly every other major airline in the world by refusing to ship sensitive beings to laboratories.
7,000-Plus Miles of Misery
Monkeys transported to laboratories are packed into tiny wooden shipping crates and forced to sit in their own feces, urine, and blood for hours-long journeys. The terrified and likely sick animals are ultimately trucked to laboratories, where they’re deprived of food and water, mutilated, poisoned, forcibly immobilized in restraint devices, infected with painful and deadly diseases, psychologically tormented, used in a battery of other excruciating experiments, and ultimately killed.
Frequent Flyer Violator
In July 2023, Ethiopian Airlines was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for giving a ground crew improper feeding and watering instruction for 336 monkeys crammed inside crates in a cargo hold for the 10,000 miles from Mauritius to Georgia. After the monkeys were finally unloaded from the plane, they spent 95 minutes on the tarmac without shade in 85-degree heat. The crates of monkeys were then roughly handled as workers packed them into trailers for transport to laboratories, causing further distress and likely physical harm.
The USDA also cited the airline in January 2023 for bringing 584 monkeys into the U.S. without mandatory health certificates, which made it impossible to track whether the monkeys carried one or several of a plethora of pathogens that can infect humans.
Numerous Ethiopian Airlines shipments have included monkeys taken from Mauritius, a small island where tuberculosis outbreaks on monkey-breeding farms are well documented. These shipments pose an imminent threat to public health because tuberculosis is highly infectious and can easily be transmitted from monkeys to humans.
Fleet of Frauds
Ethiopian Airlines has ties to a Southeast Asian black market monkey-smuggling ring, which allegedly abducts wild-caught monkeys from their natural habitat and falsely labels them as “captive-bred” before they’re flown to the U.S.
A recent federal trial revealed that Ethiopian Airlines flew hundreds of these allegedly laundered monkeys from Cambodia into the hands of U.S. laboratory supplier Worldwide Primates.
Help Ground All Monkey Shipments
Ethiopian Airlines’ monkey shipments drain forests of endangered monkeys, threaten public health and safety, and fuel the insatiable animal experimentation industry.
Please take action today to urge it to stop shipping monkeys to laboratories for use in cruel and deadly experiments.
After you do that, you’ll see an easy way to share this information. Please ask five friends or relatives to support this campaign!
10. Let’s End Animal Suffering in Cosmetic Testing Across the U.S.
Imagine being a tiny rabbit, guinea pig, mouse, or rat, experiencing unbearable pain for the sake of beauty products like shampoo or mascara. Last week, Washington State made a huge leap forward for compassion by banning the sale of cosmetics tested on these innocent animals. It’s a call to action for the rest of the country: it’s time to stop this unnecessary cruelty.
Sign the petition to urge all U.S. states to follow Washington’s lead!
Animals in labs go through hell — forced to swallow harmful substances, with chemicals burning their eyes or skin, only to be killed in the most inhumane ways. But Washington finally said, “enough,” and became the 12th state to ban such cruelty, joining hands with others who’ve already taken this noble stand.
The truth is, animal testing for cosmetics is outdated and unnecessary. We have better, kinder ways to ensure product safety. Technology now offers us alternatives that spare animal lives and often give us quicker, cheaper, and more accurate results.
Companies big and small are already on board, supporting Washington’s compassionate law. They prove that beauty doesn’t have to come at the cost of animal suffering. And with the majority of the cosmetics industry pushing for change, it’s clear: the time for action is now.
Sign this petition to tell our leaders we want a future where no animal is harmed for the sake of cosmetics. It’s time for every state to ban the sale of cosmetics tested on animals and embrace a kinder, more ethical approach to beauty.
11. Harvard Funding Cruel Monkey Research
We are sad to share the information below from PETA but pleased they offer an opportunity to take action. You can send a pre-written letter with just a few clicks. It only takes a moment.
| PETA’s 18-month investigation blew the lid off the Caucaseco Scientific Research Center, the Colombian scam organization that had been propped up with U.S. taxpayer money. But the more we dig, the worse it gets. Here’s the latest twist: PETA has found that Harvard University is among Caucaseco’s financial backers, and the school refuses to distance itself publicly from the sham operation, despite having every opportunity to do so. Astonishingly, this comes after Colombian officials found fraud in the organization’s science, shuttered its facilities, and rescued the animals—and even after the U.S. National Institutes of Health finally yanked its funding. Harvard has also been silent about Harvard Medical School experimenter Margaret Livingstone, who has sewn baby monkeys’ eyelids shut and left the animals in complete darkness for up to a year in gruesome sensory deprivation experiments. |
12. Help End Cruelty to Piglets Used in Military Medical Training
Text from the petition, now closed, captures the issue well. You can still take action on this issue by clicking the “send letter” button below. It only takes a moment.
- Young pigs are poisoned with chemical weapons, irradiated, stabbed, dismembered, disemboweled and killed for Canadian military trauma training;
- The Department of National Defence (DND) continues to use pigs despite acknowledging that they are poor models for human anatomy and may actually interfere with effective training;
- The continued use of piglets for military trauma training puts Canadian soldiers’ lives at risk by using obsolete teaching methods and inapplicable animal models;
- Twenty-three of 30 NATO member nations no longer use animals for military trauma training;
- In the past 10 years, the DND spent over $1 million in tax-payer funds by purchasing pigs for military trauma training; and
- Human patient simulators which accurately mimic human anatomy and physiology are more applicable and cost-effective training tools for military trauma training.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Minister of National Defence to bring an end to the use of animals in military trauma training and replace them with more advanced, human-relevant and less expensive human patient simulators.
13. Stop the Funding of Cruel & Outdated Burn Research on Animals
The BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Burn Fund directly funds burn research on live rabbits and mice in its Wound Healing Research Laboratory led by Dr. Aziz Ghahary.
The BC Fire Fighters have been exposed for cruel animal research before. In the 1990s, animal advocacy organization Lifeforce exposed BC Fire Fighters for funding research which involved burning rats with boiling water. As a result, the BC Fire Fighters promised to pull funding for animal research. However, with the establishment of Dr. Ghahary’s lab in 2005, research on animals has resumed...
14. Only Donate to Medical Charities that do NOT do Research on Animals.
Visit our Humane Charities site to see a list of medical charities that do and do not use animal models. Direct your dollars to those that don’t and if asked for a donation by those that do, let them know why you are not donating. Click the image below to go to the site:
15. Educate Yourself about the Environmental Impacts of Animal Testing
The Progressive Non-Animal Research Society (PNARS) has produced a report about the environmental impact of animal research. Use the button below to see the executive summary and full report.
16. Blow the Whistle: Have You Witnessed Cruelty in an Animal Laboratory?
Email whistleblower@adavsociety.org if you have.