The Cambridge City Council voted May 18 to ban the Classical LD-50 Acute Toxicity Test and the Draize Eye-Irritancy Test. The move is the latest step in a heated local debate on the use of laboratory animals. (A survey by city officials found that at least 50,000 research animals, mostly rats, were killed last year.)
Only three private laboratories in the city, the largest of which is the well-known consulting firm of Arthur D. Little Inc., are known to use one or both of the banned tests. But the new order is seen as an indication of city council support for two pending ordinances that would more closely regulate animal experimentation by commercial and university laboratories.
Biologist David Baltimore, chief executive officer of MIT's White-head Institute, expressed the fears of many opponents of the two bills by noting that passage could be the first step toward a total ban on ...
