Animal Testing: Cruel Or Inhumane?

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Every year in United States Laboratories over one hundred million animals are crippled, poisoned, and abused. Animals are used to determine the safety of many household products and medication. Although some proponents say there are no alternative methods for proper testing, animal testing is clearly cruel, inhumane, and does not accurately predict results in human beings. With today's advanced technology medical breakthroughs can still be made without testing animals.
Suffering is unreasonable, whether it be in animals or humans “the question is not, can they reason, nor, can they talk. But, can they suffer (Bentham)?” The ethics of animal testing is often disregarded. This discrimination is strictly because they do not have the ability to …show more content…

Animal testing does not readily predict the outcome that will occur on humans. According to neurologist Aysha Akhtar,” 94% of drugs that pass animal tests fail in human clinical trials” (Pycroft). Due to the different anatomies of humans and certain animals there are not many comparisons available Also, the animals that closely resemble humans, such as apes, are protected by certain laws, therefore many tests are inadequate. Animal testing is essentially a waste of time. According to the Director of Research Defense Society “Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies” (Bekoff) and over “30 HIV vaccines along with 700 treatments for stroke have been developed in animals. None work in humans” (Akhtar). The statistics show that it would have been faster to develop new medical technique without animals. Even when scientists think they have found a breakthrough, the human tests fail continuously. After hundreds of years and thousands of deaths, the tests are still …show more content…

Live organisms, such as humans, are extremely complex. Many supports say that studying cells in a petri dish does not provide the same data as studying on a live animal. They also claim that even the most powerful computers are unable to accurately mimic human anatomy. However, with today's advanced technology many new alternative methods are offered. Testing products in a petri dish “can produce more relevant results than animal testing because human cells can be used” (Akhtar). Testing actual human cells will give more accurate results than using mismatched animal cells. Also other products such as artificial skin and donated blood are available to use that will provide more exact results. “Computer models, such as virtual reconstructions of human molecular structures, can predict the toxicity of substances without invasive experiments on animals” (Bentham). Technological advances are also available to use. By taking advantage of the resources around, more exact results can be concluded that will save time, money, and

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