PETA Calls For End To Tobacco Studies On Animals

For years, tobacco companies used cartoon characters like Joe Camel to help seduce kids into smoking. Well, some animals still smoke. Only these are not in cartoons, they’re in laboratories, helping scientists explore smoking’s harmful effects. That, too, will end if People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) gets its way. The animal rights group is calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to mandate that Big Tobacco cease testing its carcinogenic products on animals.

On Tuesday, PETA submitted official comments to the FDA regarding the agency’s Draft Guidance for Industry: Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP) Applications, which outline the processes used for determining the health risks associated with tobacco products. Current FDA procedures require animal studies to support MRTP applications.

The animal rights group (along with hundreds of individuals who submitted comments to the FDA through an action alert on PETA’s website) is calling on the FDA to amend its guidelines to recommend using only modern, effective non-animal testing methods — including computer simulation, tests using human cells and clinical studies with human smokers — to research the debilitating effects of smoking. Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries have already banned the testing of tobacco products on animals.

“Everyone knows that tobacco products are inherently hazardous, addictive, and deadly and that decades of animal tests did not predict the link between smoking and cancer,” says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on the FDA to make it clear, once and for all, that no more animals should suffer and die in tests for new tobacco products, ‘less harmful’ or not.”