September 26, 2007
PETA donated $120,000 to the Duluth-based International QSAR Foundation yesterday to reduce animal testing to further its important work aimed at improving toxicity testing and saving the lives of millions of animals who are routinely maimed and killed in laboratory experiments.
A PETA news release applaus the foundation's work thus,"Under the direction of founder Dr. Gilman Veith - a pioneer of a technology known as quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) - the foundation's work holds promise for greatly reducing the number of animals used in chemical safety testing by developing databases and computer modeling tools that increase the accuracy of QSAR models. QSAR methodology uses mathematical modeling of the structure of chemicals to determine their levels of toxicity. This "virtual testing" will also improve the development of in vitro methods--producing results that are faster, more accurate, less expensive, and far more humane than animal tests.
The foundation’s work is being applied to major testing methods required by the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Service, and international regulatory testing agencies and include acute and chronic oral, dermal, and inhalation toxicity, all of which cause extreme pain and suffering to the animals used. This work is fundamental to enacting the vision for a more intelligent and humane toxicity testing strategy that was set forth recently in a landmark report by the National Academy of Sciences."
The International QSAR Foundation is a non-profit research organization devoted solely to creating alternative methods for identifying chemical hazards without further laboratory testing. It develops, implements and supports new QSAR technologies for use in regulation, research and education or where testing animals with chemicals is required.
|
