Beatles legend Paul McCartney just dropped a new music video—an animated PETA video for his 1993 protest song and anti–animal experimentation anthem, “Looking for Changes.”
The tune was donated to PETA's campaign to end cruel experiments on animals funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which wastes $18 billion in taxpayer funds each year.
“I’m looking for changes that will continue the momentum of getting animals out of laboratories,” says McCartney. “Experiments on animals are unethical—they’re a colossal failure and a waste of time and money. We can and must do better.”
Last month, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who sits on the congressional committee that decides funding for NIH, asked agency director Francis Collins to provide a plan for reducing the use of animals in experiments. After working with PETA scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency, announced its plan to end all tests on mammals. Dozens of private companies, including Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies, have also banned certain animal tests.
Studies show that 90% of basic research — most of which involves experiments on animals — doesn’t lead to treatments for humans. Government officials also admit that 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective on animals fail in human trials, either because they simply don’t work or because they cause adverse effects.
Despite this, researchers still receive grants to test on animals, so across the U.S., millions of animals are locked inside barren laboratory cages, poisoned, burned, cut into, emotionally traumatized, and infected with diseases while they suffer from extreme frustration and loneliness. No experiment is prohibited by law — no matter how painful or irrelevant — and almost all animals used in tests are later killed.
