The word vivisection literally means cutting apart living animals. At the turn of the century, the meaning of the term was widely known. Over the years, most people have come to know vivisection refers to animal experimentation or animal research. Now, vivisection can refer to any experimentation on animals including non-invasive psychology research and dissection.Between 25 and 50 million animals are killed in American laboratories each year. Hundreds of species are used includingmice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets, cats, dogs, monkeys, chimpanzees, and many more. These animals can be subjected to a myriad of painful procedures. They are burned, starved, irradiated, shocked, mutilated, kept in isolation, poisoned, drugged, electrocuted, and the list goes on and on. Researchers do these things to animals because they say it will make our lives better. However, the scientific benefits of animal experimentation are highly questionable. Over 95% of the increase of our life expectancy is due to sanitation and lifestyle improvements as well as medical discoveries made through non-animal techniques. In fact, animal experiments have had some tragic consequences in the past. Many drugs that have been shown to be safe in animal models have gone on to seriously injure or kill people. Recently, the drug Fialuridine killed a number of people in a clinical trial after it had been deemed safe in a variety of animal species.