IT’S gone completely unnoticed, but it is undoubtedly a victory for animal
rights. A notorious toxicity test, called LD50, will soon be abandoned by the
leading industrialised nations. LD50 stands for “lethal dose to 50 per cent”. In
each test, at least 20 animals receive escalating doses of a chemical until half
are dead.
The test, which was invented 50 years ago, will no longer be used in any of
the OECD’s 29 member nations. The regulatory bodies that approve pesticides and
other potentially hazardous chemicals in these countries have agreed to accept
the results of less drastic tests
(see…
