Despite commitments by government agencies in North America to embrace the Three R's in regulatory toxicology, there continues to be 1) a relative dearth of government-financed research to develop and validate non-animal testing methods, 2) a protracted delay in the regulatory acceptance of replacement methods that have been validated and/or adopted in other jurisdictions, and 3) a failure to delete in vivo test guidelines and data requirements in a timely manner following the validation of replacement methods. Regulatory agencies' ambivalence or outright resistance to replacement methods results in a significant amount of unnecessary animal testing, as is evident from numerous test plans proposed under the US Environmental Protection Agency's High-Production Volume chemical-testing program. Opportunities for the immediate replacement and/or deletion of animal tests are discussed, as are priority targets for research funding to accelerate the development and/or validation of promising non-animal tests and testing strategies.
See details at: Testing Times