By Yoremaily Maldonado, age 10 and IndyKids staff
Pharmaceutical companies will no longer be required to test new drugs on animals, thanks to a new law passed earlier this year.
Animal rights advocates have been petitioning for years to overturn the 85-year-old law that required companies to test new drugs on animals to see if the drugs are safe for humans. However, animal testing isn’t very effective, as 90% of drugs that are safe for animals don’t work like they should work on humans, according to USA Today.
One possible alternative to animal testing is for scientists to make organ-like chips that will react like the organs that are affected by a disease in the human body.
A new $5 million Food and Drug Administration (FDA) program will encourage pharmaceutical companies to use other methods instead of animal testing. It is even possible that 100 years from now, there will be no animal testing at all!
