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| Gettyimagesbank |
By Jung Min-ho
More than 3.7 million animals were used for testing drugs and other research purposes in 2019, the government said Monday.
According to the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency, 3,712,000 animals were used in experiments, a drop from 3,737,000 in 2018.
Rodents such as mice accounted for 86.9 percent of the total, followed by fish (6.3 percent) and birds (5.1 percent).
Nearly 43 percent of the experiments were conducted by private companies, followed by universities (30.7 percent), public research institutes (17.8 percent) and medical institutions (8.5 percent).
Regulatory testing, such as drug safety experiments, accounted for 39.6 percent of the total, followed by basic research (30.5 percent) and applied research (20.1 percent).
According to the agency's pain category, 40.1 percent of the animals were used for E testing, in which they experience "intense pain or distress" ― the highest level in the B-E index.
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