The number of dogs used is a little over 60,000 and they’re used because they predict human toxicity really well, with a median NPV of 94% (if it’s toxic to a dog, 94% of the time it’ll be toxic to humans. There aren’t any alternatives otherwise they’d be used because they’re 4 times cheaper than animal models. It gets quite complicated when looking at different uses, like lots of countries don’t test cosmetics on animals, but they also outlaw more than 2,000 chemicals from being in cosmetics, whereas the US doesn’t. Compared to cosmetics from the EU, US cosmetics can include lead, nerve agents and any number of potentially deadly compounds. ‘Natural’ brands like Lush aren’t much better either, containing naturally-produced chemicals that are used as pesticides in other settings. Fewer animals could be used for cosmetics if tighter restrictions were put on ingredients, but there aren’t alternatives for the medical stuff which changes the ethics because whatever you do there’s a victim. The answer is to invest in developing alternatives rather than blaming medical researchers for trying to tackle diseases they didn’t create using the only tools at their disposal. Pretending we already have alternatives is childish considering there are laws in the places like the UK which don’t allow animals to be used if there’s an alternative, but there are still 4 million experiments each year. Invest in alternatives. Ditch this simplistic tribalism.