Shockingly in an age when people are more aware of the cruelty of animal testing and when there are more opportunities through technological development to avoid testing on animals, in Holland it is on the increase and substantially so.
NL Times reports that there was a 49 percent increase in cat and dog animal testing in 2017 over the previous year.
In 2017, 200 cats and 909 dogs were tested compared to 89 cats and 656 dogs in 2016 (source: NVWA).
The testing center spokesperson at Charles River in Den Bosh said that animal testing is essential in discovering new drugs and therapies. Yet we know that animal testing is inefficient and sometimes ineffective as the results cannot always be replicated in humans resulting in new drugs failing.
The Dutch government appears to be against animal testing but believe it cannot be replaced by machine testing.
PvdD parliamentarian Frank Wassenberg thinks the figures are unacceptable and he agrees that animal testing can be ineffective putting aside the obvious namely that it is also very cruel.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the vast majority of animal tests never lead to better medicines…The solution is not more animal testing, but better research methods.”
Frank Wassenberg
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