Chapter 4 - Systemic failures and suffering in animal-based research: Why a human-relevant paradigm is urgently needed

Animal experimentation is often portrayed as scientifically indispensable and ethically well policed; however, contemporary evidence indicates otherwise. This chapter identifies six systemic weaknesses within the current animal-research paradigm: (1) sustained high animal use and large “surplus” killings in breeding colonies; (2) routine under estimation and under treatment of pain; (3) selective transparency that omits≈95% of US laboratory animals and keeps harm–benefit and retrospective assessments confidential; (4) public-funding bias that allocates≤1% of health-research budgets to human-biology-based nonanimal methods (NAMs); (5) welfare and translational shortcomings driven by barren housing, chronic stress, and interspecies differences; and (6) fragmented regulatory oversight characterized by low refusal rates and limited accountability. Severe procedures now cluster in neuroscience, high-dose viral challenge, and fish ecotoxicity, while≈90% of drug candidates that appear promising in animals fail in human trials. A decisive pivot to human-relevant science is both an ethical imperative and a strategic investment in biomedical innovation.