Thursday, December 24, 2009

Insanity

I had some free time yesterday. It turned into a revelation time. It were the moments of stupid browsing of the Internet for no particular reason. But the result was shocking. I encountered on a documentary on lab tests performed on aminals; it is called vivisection meaning cutting something while it's alive. The movie is called "Behind the Mask" and tells a heartbreaking, outrageous story of people who risk their freedom and life to free animals from labs, where they are cut alive, tested with unknown chemicals to be used in beauty cosmetics and household stuff. To be honest, I had no guts to watch the video to the end, I had to stop in the middle because I was crying and shaking all over of the horrors that people do in those labs and fur factories, where they break animals' necks or kill them with electricity. This is insane, this is holocaust, genoside. People filmed in this movie under cover laugh while performing these actions, they make fun of their victims, they show no mercy or remorse. It's the highest level of cruelty, which is totally legal. People who fight agains this are called terrorists. The so-called Animal Liberation Front is named by FBI the first and major internal terrorist organization in the USA. WTF????? I am wondering who would work in a lab or a fur factory like that?! What a heartless, twisted-minded freak you need to be to be able to do stuff like that? How can you go home and hug your children and pet your dog or cat at home, when you're up to the ears in other animals' blood, when you have just split open their head to see how the brain works without using anaesthasia on a living creature. How???? How can this someone be called a human being, a homo sapiens after that?!

This is a video of Britches, a monkey babe saved from a lab in one of the UK universities, where they tortured him to learn on people's blindness, when it was so much easier to invite a blind and concuct humane researches which would be much closer to truth then testing on a monkey, which still very much differs from a human.


I have no words to discribe how disappointed I am with people. This disappointment will never go away unless humanity changes and understands that animals are no worse than us, they can feel hunger, thurst and pain just like us, at time much better and kinder and more loyal than humans. Beauty cosmetics, household stuff costs 41 to 100 million animals' lives a year. How can we live with that?! If Catholic church acknowledged its horros made in medieval times, when inquisition burned people alive, when will we acknowledge these horrors we make?! How many more must we torture and kill for a face cream, an eye liner, washing powder or soap?!


Here's a small list of world-famous brands that test their stuff on animals :
Here's a detail on how testing is conducted:
Hidden Ingredient: Animal Suffering
Since cosmetic and household products and ingredients are not required to be tested on animals and since non-animal alternatives exist, it is difficult to understand why companies continue to conduct these cruel tests. Institutional inertia seems to be at work, caused in part by technicians, researchers, and industry legal departments who blindly cling to the customary but outdated methods of the past.
It is important to understand that some companies make misleading claims about this complicated issue. A company that tests on animals may claim it no longer uses the Draize test, when in fact a very similar, equally cruel test is being performed under a different name. Also, some companies publicize that they have put large amounts of money into efforts to find alternatives to animal testing. However, viable humane alternatives already exist and are being used by hundreds of companies to make safe and effective cosmetic and household products.
Cosmetics and household product companies kill millions of animals every year in pursuit of profit. Product tests are performed on items from shampoo to laundry detergents. The animals who suffer and die in these laboratories range from rabbits to mice. According to companies that perform such tests, they are done to establish the safety of products and ingredients. However, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)--which regulates products such as detergents and cleaners--does not require animal testing, nor does the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require animal testing for cosmetics. In reality, many viable non-animal tests exist.
The Tests
The Draize Eye Irritancy Test is used to evaluate the ability of a test substance to cause damage to the tissues of the eye. Liquid, flake, granule and powdered substances are placed into the eyes of conscious rabbits. In a typical test, six to nine rabbits are held in stocks from which only their heads protrude so that they cannot dislodge the substance with a paw. Rabbits do not have tear ducts to clean the irritants away and they cannot blink their eyes for relief because clips are holding their eyes open. The rabbits often scream when the substance is applied and sometimes break their necks or backs in their efforts to escape the pain. They usually receive no anesthesia during the tests.
Reactions to the substances include swollen eyelids, inflamed irises, ulceration, bleeding, massive deterioration and blindness. When the test is done, the animals are killed or "recycled" into further tests, such as dermal toxicity tests.
Skin irritancy tests, such as the Draize 24-hour Patch Test and Dermal Toxicity tests, are conducted on rabbits, guinea pigs and other animals. The process involves placing chemicals on the animals' raw, shaved skin and covering the skin with adhesive plaster. The animals are immobilized in restraining devices to prevent them from struggling while laboratory workers apply the chemicals, which burn into the animals' skin.
Acute toxicity tests, commonly called Lethal Dose (LD) or poisoning tests, determine the amount of a substance that will kill part of a group of test animals. Animals are forced to ingest substances through stomach tubes, inhale substances as a vapor spray, have substances injected or have substances applied directly to exposed skin. Animals' reactions to toxicity tests include convulsions, vomiting, diarrhea, paralysis and bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth or rectum. Sub-acute tests can last 28-90 days or longer. In chronic tests, animals are dosed daily for up to two years. To avoid interference with results, no painkillers are used.
Animal tests do not predict antidotes for product toxicity and do not keep toxic substances off the market. The LD tests do not accurately measure human health hazards. They only determine that the product is toxic to the animal it was tested on. In 1986, the industry-funded Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing stated, "The Draize test does not adequately reflect the degree of irritancy in humans." Moreover, LD test results can be affected by the age and sex of animals tested, their housing and nutritional conditions, temperature, and the exact method used to administer the substance. Also, different species react differently to various substances.
Alternatives to Animal Testing Exist
Non-animal tests that are more reliable and less expensive do exist. Alternatives to animals include the following: use of cell cultures, corneal and skin tissue cultures, corneas from eye banks, and sophisticated computer and mathematical models.
Companies can also use ingredients or combinations of ingredients that have already been proven safe by the Cosmetics, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, or use natural ingredients that are already known to be safe.
Since cosmetic and household products and ingredients are not required to be tested on animals and since alternatives exist, it is difficult to understand why companies continue to conduct these cruel tests. Institutional inertia seems to be at work, caused in part by technicians, researchers and industry legal departments that blindly cling to the customary but outdated methods of the past.
It is important to understand that some companies make misleading claims about this complicated issue. A company that tests on animals may claim it no longer uses the Draize test, when in fact a very similar, equally cruel test is being performed under a different name. Also, some companies publicize they have put large amounts of money into efforts to find alternatives to animal testing. However, humane alternatives already exist and are being used by hundreds of companies to make safe and effective cosmetic household products.
I don't know where we are going if we don't stop this. Money rules the world and all these brands that use animal testing are the richest, the most powerful. If it is not done legally, then all these actions done by Animal Liberation Front seem pointless; they resque some part of animals, which will be replaced by others. It's tragic and so painful to think of.
Here's a petition to stop this madness:

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Странное ощущение...

Сегодня прочитала на одном сайте о намечающихся грандиозных мероприятиях и всеобщих гулянках, намеченных с 25-го декабря в Тбилиси. Расписывают про концерты каких-то непонятных групп, про ярмарки. Все это хорошо, отлично, дети, наверное будут радоваться... Все это собираются устроить прямо под окнами нашего офиса. Все бы ничего, но... Вчера выйдя из здания и направляясь к припаркованному авто на сразу поняла, что увидела. Это было как-то страшно, больно для глаз. Это была собака, вернее ее скелет, обтянутый ободраной кожей в ссадинах и болячках. Она быстро пробежала, я даже не успела достать из сумки пакет с остатками обеда. Первая мысль была о том, как она могла так быстро бежать, если она так истощена. Потом мысли кончились, стало как-то невыносимо странно и очень захотелось плакать.
Мы тратим миллионы на фонарики, гирлянды, тупые ярмарки, на которых 90% товаров останутся непродаными, но забываем про самое главное - про сострадание и про любовь. Вот такое странное ощущение преследует со вчерашнего вечера...