Animal Testing Research Paper

Animal testing for cosmetic and medical purposes has been fundamentally necessary in American manufacturing since the early 1900s. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or more commonly known as, PETA, estimates that each year, over 100 million animals are murdered in the testing process of new drugs, cosmetics, and antibiotics. In 1938, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) passed the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which forces companies to test products extensively before they are available for mass consumption. This act has saved hundreds of lives from potentially fatal allergic reactions, but most consumers are unaware of the horrific trials that animals endure to manufacture a profitable product. One million

According to The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS), “Species differences in anatomy, organ structure and function...among myriad other differences...can give us inadequate or erroneous information when we attempt to apply animal data to...drug responses”. Although the animals being tested upon, are typically mammals, the genetic similarities are slim from animal to human. This leaves a large margin for error to occur during testing, so when human trials begin, it is typical for reactions to occur. The FDA reports that 92% of the products that pass through the animal testing stage onto human trials end up being deemed unsafe for consumers. Animal testing for American Taxpayers is an extreme waste of money. Private companies pay for the testing themselves, but drug companies that have financial aid from the government are wasting the taxpayer’s money. America is in desperate need of an updated method of testing cosmetics and

Harvard’s Wyss laboratory has created “organs-on-chips”. This technology artfully creates cells that can exactly mimic the behavior of different organs within the human body. These cells are used in place of living human organ tissue as it functions the same. Some consumers dislike this method as it does not actually involve an unconsenting life. According to PETA, these “organs-on-chips” can replicate human structure, human response to diseases, and human response to drugs more accurately than experiments done on animals. Similarly, CeeTox has utilized a human tissue model, specifically Marek's EpiDermTM Tissue Model, in order to test skin irritancy without using a living subject’s skin. This model artificially replicates multiple key traits of healthy human skin cells. This test could eliminate the cosmetic industry’s dependence on animals for skin irritancy testing. Both of these methods are highly accurate and are suitable alternatives for animal testing. The likelihood of these testing methods being adopted are slim due to the expense of introducing new technology into an industry. This is just another example where the American people value profit over life. Also the many plausible fixes to the animal testing problem are not likely to be supported by the FDA, as the United States government has a past of disregarding foreign life. Animal testing