Many animal activists are disappointed with the pace at which animal testing is being reduced, refined, and especially, replaced (the "Three Rs" of the alternatives approach). Considerable progress has been made, however, in the science of alternatives and in the attitudes among toxicologists and corporate decision-makers, as well as in developing government-based mechanisms for the regulatory acceptance of alternative methods.1
             While there are scientific, financial, and regulatory obstacles to replacing animal testing, a comprehensive review of the history of technical and policy developments suggests that there will come a time when animals no longer are used in harmful testing of any kind.
             The safety testing of chemicals and consumer products probably accounts for only about 10 to 20 percent of the use of animals in laboratories, or approximately 2 to 4 million animals in the United States. The remaining 80 to 90 percent, or 16 -to 18 million animals, are used in basic and applied research, education, and other arenas. Yet the use of animals in safety testing figures prominently in the animal research controversy. It raises issues such as the ethics and humaneness of deliberately poisoning animals, the propriety of harming animals for the sake of marketing a new cosmetic or household product, the applicability of animal data to humans, and the possibility of sparing millions of animals by developing alternatives to a handful of widely used procedures.
             The safety testing of chemicals and products is a relatively recent development in history. While prominent people in antiquity may have had food tasters at their side to protect them from being poisoned, and coal miners in the 19th century used canaries to warn them of pockets of dangerous gases, the widespread testing of drugs, chemicals, consumer products, and foods has been going on for less than seventy years, essentially a feature of industrialized
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