Delhi: After listening to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) about the plight of animals sickened and killed during repeat preclinical toxicity experiments in India prior to new drug registrations for drugs already approved abroad, India’s Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, was quick to share her concerns with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Upon reviewing the request from Gandhi and PETA, the Indian Investigation New Drugs Division recommended to the Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) that animals be spared cruel tests for new drug registrations when complete data from earlier toxicity experiments already exist for drugs approved abroad.
In a move that is expected to spare the lives of hundreds of thousands of animals in repeat experiments each year, the DTAB agreed on Tuesday to move towards a ban under The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1945.
“This ban means countless animals won’t have to face painful and often lethal poisoning during toxicity tests, as other animals have sadly already experienced”, said PETA India Science Policy Adviser Dr Chaitanya Koduri. “PETA India will continue to work to ensure that modern, animal-free methods become the norm everywhere.”
As noted by PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – because of the vast physiological differences between humans and the animals used in these tests, the results are often misleading, but regulators still typically require animal tests for drugs.
However, forward-thinking scientists are developing non-animal testing methods which can replace the use of animals, it is said.
