Animal Testing Is Cruel And Inhumane

Throughout history animals have been used for biomedical research and commercial testing, but animal testing has recently become severely criticized and banned in multiple countries. Millions of animals are locked inside cages worldwide waiting in fear of what next painful procedure they must go through. Determining whether the act is morally acceptable or not has been up for debate since 500 BC when philosophers Aristotle and Bentham shared their viewpoints on animal testing. Aristotle believed that animals were below humans and therefore could be used for human sake, while Bentham believed that both animals and humans have rights that shall be considered. The topic of animal testing typically arouses emotion and is two sided. While analyzing

More than 100 million animals suffer and die in the U.S. every year in cruel chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics tests as well as in medical training exercises and curiosity-driven medical experiments at universities (Peta 2). Animals used in testing are commonly subject to force feeding, physical restraint, and burns. They develop neurological and behavioral issues due to the lack of nutrition and deprivation, and are disease prone. Animals are infected with diseases that they would never normally contract, tiny mice grow tumors as large as their own bodies, kittens are purposely blinded, rats are made to suffer seizures, and primates’ skulls are cut open and electrodes are implanted in them (Peta1). Not all products tested on animals are necessarily safe. The 1950s sleeping pill thalidomide, which caused 10,000 babies to be born with severe deformities, was tested on animals prior to its commercial release (Procon 1). They’re various non-animal test methods that can be used in place of animal testing. Todays scientists have developed testing methods to study diseases and products that replace animals to reduce cost, cruelty, and produce more accurate results. The alternative testing methods they use are human cells and tissues, computer-modeling, and human volunteers. While the American Welfare Act covers around 5% of animals used in testing the other 95% aren’t, making them more vulnerable to being

“Animal research and testing has played a part in almost every medical breakthrough of the last century. It has saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide...” – Former UK Home Office minister Joan Ryan (qtd. in Understanding Animal Research 1). Animal testing has contributed to many life saving cures, treatments, and understanding conditions such as leukemia, breast cancer, brain injury, malaria and tuberculosis. The polio vaccine, tested on animals, reduced the global occurrence of the disease from 350,000 cases in 1988 to 27 cases in 2016 (Procon 1). Many argue that animals have benefitted from animal testing. If vaccines were not tested on animals, millions of animals would have died from rabies, distemper, feline leukemia, infectious hepatitis virus, tetanus, anthrax, and canine parvo virus (Procon 3). While some debate that they’re alternatives to animal testing, human cells in petri dishes are not always accurate because to evalute a drugs sideeffects there must be a circulatory system to carry the medication throughout the body. Those in favor of animal testing also argue that it would be unethical to perform invasive experimental procedures that could potentially endanger the lives of humans. Humans have a higher chance of being harmed from a substance that has not first been tested on animals, emphosizing the importance of animal