HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 281 
ment funds. It is our understanding that the scientists so licensed would sub- 
mit plans or details of said proposed animal experiment to either the Secretary 
of Health, Education, and Welfare or other designated authority for approval. 
Under the provisions of the proposed legislation this would not deter nor hamper 
said investigation. 
This federation was formed by concerned housewives who attended public 
hearings on the food additives legislation conducted by this committee. Since 
its formation, federation members have maintained an interest in legislation 
being considered by this committee which has dealt with the wholesomeness and 
safety of food, cosmetics, and drugs. At the color additives hearings, this fed- 
eration first publicly expressed misgivings of the validity of animal tests which 
did not consider the total impact of the environment upon said animals — poten- 
tialism. It was pointed out then by the federation that animal tests of food dyes 
and food chemicals were usually performed on mature animals in good health 
who were fed a bland diet with only the chemical or dye to be tested added 
to its balanced diet. However, humans, sick and well, young and old, and even 
pregnant, ingested the item being tested under vastly more complicated condi- 
tions. Later, at a public hearing on the value and need of the Delaney antican- 
cer clause in our recent food and color additives laws, a scientist with NIH 
pointed out that animal tests of food chemicals should be conducted under 
conditions which simulate those of man’s environment. Such recommended 
tests would no doubt require larger animals since they have been found to react 
to many chemicals in the same way as man and the testing time would be much 
longer than now expended. 
After the thalidomide tragedy became known to the public — it was brought out 
at the special public hearing, conducted by Senator Hubert Humphrey, that a 
wider variety of animals must be used in the testing of new drugs (different 
species) and that many drugs must be tested on pregnant animals before used 
by the public. 
The enforcement of the Miller Pesticide Act of 1954 has necessitated the use 
of many test animals in the evaluation of the safety of insecticides when used 
exactly as directed. However, tests for genetic damage to human cells still must 
be carried out. Then the Food and Color Additives Acts and the Chemical 
Preservatives Act (postharvest treatment of fruits and produce) all require 
experiments on animals to demonstrate the safety of the chemicals in the amounts 
permitted as residues. The new drug act, when enacted, will require the use 
of more animals than previously used by the manufacturers of new drugs to 
reduce risks of unknown and unrevealed side effects on patients. 
So it is appropriate that homemakers who have studied the aforementioned 
legislation and appeared before this committee previously in support of legisla- 
tion to protect the health of the public should now endorse and support legisla- 
tion which will provide humane treatment for the animals used to test the safety 
of pesticides, chemical preservatives, food dyes, food additives, and drugs. 
It is the responsibility of informed, mature citizens to see that the animals 
used to prove or disprove the safety of chemicals are not abused by those con- 
ducting said experiments or their helpers and that said animals are comfortably 
housed and cared for and humanely destroyed when discovered to be suffering 
severe and prolonged pain. Humanity owes a debt to these animal martyrs 
which it can in some part repay by seeing that in the future laboratory animals 
are humanely treated ; especially when the research is conducted partly or wholly 
with tax funds. 
Federation members recall that the late Sir Edward Mellanby proved through 
his experiments that agene fed in bread to dogs caused them to have convulsive 
fits and die. As a result of this experiment, this chemical is no longer used to 
mature flour. Dr. Wilhelm C. Hueper, of NIH’s Environmental Cancer Section, 
a recognized authority on the causes of environmental cancers and recipient of a 
World Health Organization award for his cancer research, proved conclusively 
through experiments on dogs that beta naphthylamine could cause bladded can- 
cers when ingested. In this particular experiment only dogs reacted like humans 
to this chemical. As a result of this experiment, the Food and Drug Administra- 
tion banned the use of certain oil-soluble yellow and orange food dyes long used 
to color butter, margarine, cheese, cake mixes, icings, popcorn oil, potato chips, 
and other food items. In the all-too-recent past, rats and mice were used to test 
the presumed harmlessness of food dyes. FDA scientists, in testing certain re- 
actions of humans to red No. 32, used for many years to dye oranges and color 
confections, discovered these reactions were not experienced by rats and mice. 
