Last year when the world was struggling to find a solution to the global COVID-19 pandemic, researchers who were testing on animals moved quickly to human trials and conducted some of the fastest ever research using human trials. The vaccines were ready for rollout 6 months later.

This is not a normal timeline. Usually, animals are tested on and suffer for years in clinical trials before drugs and treatments are deemed safe to test on humans. Yet in 2020, somehow it was possible to speed up development and cut out years of animal suffering.

Also in 2020, animal testing dragged on even though the vaccines were showing promising results in humans. There was a “monkey shortage,” as labs rushed to perform unnecessary tests on rhesus macaques who were imported over great distances to suffer in labs and then be euthanized.

Over 100 million animals die during animal tests every year according to PETA. One reason so many animals are killed in the US is that animal testing is simply a bureaucratic requirement to receive drug approval, according to this blog.

And of course, animal testing is also big business. The demand for animals in research is subject to predictions and betting about how much money it’s worth, just like any other market. The so-called “monkey shortage” is yet another way humans reveal the value they place on animal life. Animals are a commodity to serve humans, not living beings.

PETA has an informative list of reasons why animal tests are unnecessary and cruel. One of the reasons is the abject failure of many treatments and drugs tested on animals when they are tested on humans. It is an inexact science to compare human and animal biological systems, and some of these tests even harm humans. The thinking seems to be to just throw any research at the problem and see if it sticks. The excuse for being able to do things this way is the underlying belief that animals are disposable.

Please check out this PETA list of reasons why animal testing isn’t necessary and why other testing methods are becoming the norm: https://headlines.peta.org/end-experiments-on-animals-for-covid-19/

Read More:

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/268699398/animal-model-market-driven-by-developments-in-pharmaceutical-and-crispr-genetic-research-opines-factmr

https://insidesources.com/there-is-no-monkey-shortage-for-covid-19-research-because-no-monkeys-are-needed/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/10/covid-vaccine-treatment-trials-create-monkey-shortage-science/5714115002/