Over the holiday weekend, The Buffalo News published an opinion article authored by Americans for Medical Progress. It highlights the many ways animal research “saved our skins” throughout the COVID-19 pandemic:

Here’s an excerpt:

Animal studies helped scientists develop safe and effective vaccines in record time. However, it may surprise many to learn that much of the research that laid the groundwork for these lifesaving shots did not take place in 2020.

Some of the biggest breakthroughs occurred several decades ago, in the 1990s. That’s when critical proof-of-concept studies in rodents demonstrated how snippets of messenger RNA (or mRNA) could be used to teach the body how to fight off infectious diseases. Why is this so exciting? Because one of the major benefits of mRNA-based vaccines is that they can be very quickly adapted to fight viruses, even emerging ones, like SARS-CoV-2. This is one of the reasons why the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were developed so rapidly. Shots are going into arms and countless lives are being saved daily thanks in great part to research in mice and rats three decades ago.

But that’s not all.

The full opinion article can be found at this link.