While there are scientific, financial, and regulatory obstacles to replacing animal testing, a comprehensive review of the history of technical and policy developments suggests that there will come a time when animals no longer are used in harmful testing of any kind.

The safety testing of chemicals and consumer products probably accounts for only about 10 to 20 percent of the use of animals in laboratories, or approximately 2 to 4 million animals in the United States. The remaining 80 to 90 percent, or 16 -to 18 million animals, are used in basic and applied research, education, and other arenas. Yet the use of animals in safety testing figures prominently in the animal research controversy. It raises issues such as the ethics and humaneness of deliberately poisoning animals, the propriety of harming

Potency testing and safety testing are not the only forms of testing. In 1962, following the thalidomide tragedy in which many infants were born with deformed or missing arms and legs, Congress required that, prior to marketing new drugs, companies should test not only for safety but also for efficacy, i.e., that drugs do what they claim to do.

The safety testing of chemicals and products is a relatively recent development in history. While prominent people in antiquity may have had food tasters at their side to protect them from being poisoned, and coal miners in the 19th century used canaries to warn them of pockets of dangerous gases, the widespread testing of drugs, chemicals, consumer products, and foods has been going on for less than seventy years, essentially a feature of industrialized, consumer-driven society.

Safety testing is a multifaceted process. It includes testing chemicals to see if they do or do not have adverse effects; for example, can a chemical cause birth defects, cancer, organ failure, or some other problem? This is known as "hazard identification" or "hazard assessment." There is also the nuanced issue of whether a chemical is likely to be a problem in the real world given practical issues such as

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