Hour: 3 Animal Experimentation Pros and Cons By: Yousef Medhat The first pro to animal testing is that it has helped us create lifesaving cures and treatments. The California Biomedical Research Association released a statement saying almost every single medical breakthrough has resulted in the direct use of animals in the last 100 years. Can you believe this? Taking out dogs pancreases helped us discover insulin, chimpanzees helped us get a vaccine for Hepatitis B, and even the polio vaccine was tested on animals. Animal testing has also helped us treat and understand conditions like brain injury, breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, childhood leukemia, tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, malaria, and many others. It even helped us develop anesthetics, pacemakers, and cardiac value substitutes. Almost every cure for any condition is due to animal testing. Without animal testing, we may not have been able to find many of these cures and find cures for other conditions in the future. The second pro to animal testing is that there is not an alternative to a whole-body system in humans and animals. The systems of humans and animals are very advanced and studying something like a petri dish will not give the same effect as studying the whole systems in the body of an animal or human. You can’t find side effects for drugs if there is no circulatory system to have the medicine end up at different organs. Also blindness, high blood pressure, and other conditions have to be studied in actual tissue. Computer models can’t be accurate unless there is animal research anyway. Even supercomputers can’t make accurate models of complex organs. The third pro is that animals are great to research on becaus... ... middle of paper ... ...uld not be morally correct. Also, not just we humans benefit from animal testing, but the animals benefit from it too. Millions of animals would have died if it were not for vaccines for diseases like rabies and the hepatitis virus. Animals at times, make better research subjects than humans. An example is that mice only live two or three years so researchers can observe effects of genetic manipulation over the whole life of the mouse while they would not be able to do that with a human. If you are scared that an animal might get hurt while being used in animal research, do not be. There are two reasons why they will not be hurt. The first reason is that there are laws in place to protect animals from mistreatment. The second reason is that researchers do not want the animal hurt so they will end up with accurate test results when doing their research on the animal.
One must remember that scientists who carry out animal testing are human to and most definitely do feel some sense of guilt using these animals for the sole reason to benefit mankind. However, “if there were good alternatives to animals that worked better or as well, for less money and hassle, scientists would use them” (Source D). Many believe that animals testing is wrong, but they must understand that at the current time there is no other option. It is difficult to find a different practice has been so substantial and has improved millions of lives and society as a whole. Animal testing, though the testing on animals may not be the best option, the after effects of testing has been successful over the past decades and will continue on this path as scientists and researchers gain more knowledge. There may be a point in time that society becomes so better off that there would be no more need to test
There is a moral blind spot in the treatment of animals that enable us to justify the cruelties for the perceived benefits of humans. Animals are living things. They have lungs which breathe, hearts which beat, and blood that flows. In fact, animals sense of smell, sight, and sound is much more acute than our own. Therefore, we can assume that their sensitivity to pain is at least equal to ours. According to Hippocrates, “The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.” This can go with the Duty Theory that states that every individual gets treated the same. The intentions of animal testing is not to harm the animals, but that is exactly what it does.
Albert Sabin, the developer of the polio vaccine once said, “Without animal research, polio would still be claiming thousands of lives each year.” Polio is a deadly disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person. This infectious disease renders the brain and spinal cord helpless while also ensuring a permanent case of paralysis to the victim. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “…13,000 to 20,000 para-lytic cases were reported annually,” before the 18th century. After the introduction of the polio vaccine, “…a total of 2,525 paralytic cases were reported, compared with 61 in 1965.” This dramatic decrease in the prominence of the polio disease can only be attributed to the success of animal testing. Animal experimentation is used in the research of genetics, drug testing, biology, toxicity testing, cosmetic testing, and many other fields. Despite all of its beneficial traits, animal testing has been wildly controversial over the past decades because of its perceived unethical treatment towards animals. Although animal testing may be deemed unethical by many, it is a form of medical testing that has not only saved lives but has also greatly revolutionized the medical world.
...Because people see animal testing procedures as unethical and immoral, it’s important for them to consider what their health would be like without the process—potentially afflicted with incurable illnesses. Continuing the animal experimenting process can only prove beneficial in promoting fewer ailments and cures to existing and future diseases.
Alternative testing can be done on things such as cells or plants. “In vitro (in glass) testing, such as studying cell cultures in a petri dish, can produce more relevant results than animal testing because human cells can be used” (Animal-Testing). Testing on animals is also very expensive so why not take advantage of the cheaper and less harmful option. Millions of animals are harmed or killed each day from a non-accurate test, is it really worth
In my opinion, I think that if there is an alternative way in getting the same test results, then animal testing should be avoided. If the use of animals is required in order to obtain more knowledge of medicine then I believe that the welfare of the animals should be a priority of the researchers and if the well-being of the subjects is compromised then measures should be taken to correct these mistakes. I am not an advocate of abusing animals in order to advance research, but I do believe that the use of animals in research studies is extremely beneficial. Without the use of animal testing researchers would not have as many answers and solutions to problems that we have, such as sickness.
One word comes to mind when I think of animal testing: cruel. Animal testing has been a subject of debate for many years. While most people think that using animals to test products is a reasonable approach, in reality the outcome does not always show how the products will react on humans, and the animals suffer unnecessarily. The United States needs to ban all animal testing like the European Union did because testing on animals is cruel and animals should not be dying from it.
Animal experimentation is not as good as it may seem to humans because we are not feeling it. It is cruel to animals to experience this. Many experts say is the only way to make new medicine, but you have to think about the animal. Many people don't even know what happens during experimentation on animals.
Animal testing began when William Harvey used animals 400 years ago to find out how blood circulated through the body. The "modern" era of animal research however started about 150 years ago with the rise of physiology as a science. It was very different back then. There were no anesthetics or effective painkillers, so the animals suffered a great deal, as did patients. Scientists learned that putting animals, or humans through that type of torture was inhumane. Consider having to have a leg amputated, which was not uncommon in those days due to the fact that infections got very severe without the use of antibiotics, without even so much as an anesthetic to control the pain. Now the treatment is there to help the pain, so neither human nor animal has to go through the excess undue strain. Through all the new medical technology still there will be people who disagree with animal testing. Animal testing provides many benefits that looked over most of the time. One of the most common questions is, “why are animals used in research?” The answer to that question can be broken down into three separate categories.
In modern society, animal experimentation has triggered a controversy; consequently, vast amount of protests have been initiated by the animal rights community. Although these organizations have successfully broadcasted their concerns toward animal experimentation, its application continues to survive. Sally Driscoll and Laura Finley inform that there remain fifty million to one-hundred million animals that experience testing or experimentation throughout the world on a yearly basis. But despite opposition, animal experimentation, the use of experiments on animals in order to observe the effects an unknown substance has on living creatures, serves multiple purposes. Those particular purposes are: research of the living body, the testing of
Although not as strictly addressed, there is still a schism when it comes to the matters of experimentation involving animals. Those in opposition of it see it as being against the will of the animal, because animals have no say in the matter. However, through animal experimentation there has been vast medical advances in hospitals and veterinarians , research has led to cures for various diseases that would normally take many more years to cure, and the use of animals is highly ethical considering what could be the alternative, although there is progress being made to change these measures. This is how animal experimentation is of use to society for humans and animals.
Is the use of animals in research justified? Should animal experimentation be permitted? Should these animals be liberated? A logical person would say the benefits justify the research. Without animal testing, products would be based on theory. No one would want to use something, which may damage eyes, be poisonous, cancerous, and cause birth defects. Animals used in testing are not from the endangered species list; also many of the types of animals used are killed each year by rat or mouse traps, animal control, exterminators, and animal shelters. Animal testing reaps great benefits such as finding effective drugs to combat disease, improve surgical procedures, and make products safe.
At this moment, millions of animals know cold cages in laboratories as home, but why? Some of these animals are subjects for medical research purposes, while others are used out of pure curiosity and to test different products. Majority of these animals are used in painful experiments and are left in agony. While many of them die, a few animals survive, but these unfortunate ones wish they could be put out of their misery as well. Although scientists have resources they could use to lower the pain each animal endures and even alternatives of their test subjects, millions of innocent creatures are still suffering. The fact that animals are still used when animal experimentation is avoidable and not necessary makes animal testing unethical.
Imagine your sweet cat locked in a cage inside a laboratory with other various animals. Millions of animals every year are locked up in labs for testing. Animals are used to test medications, cosmetics, biology lessons, and for medical training. Thousands of mice, rats, primates, cats, dogs, and other animals are used for testing. Most of these animals will die in cruel testing experiments. Animal testing is tortures to the animals, an unreliable option for medication, and there are better safer options for testing.
Animal testing hasn’t been beneficiary towards any scientific breakthrough or discovery. Elias Zourhini says, “Animal testing has been useless” he is one of the main people who are strongly making a push to try and stop animal testing as a whole. “There have been thousands of dead and injured animals in the past years or so and there has been any reward or safety ensured because of these animals. Animals have been being used for testing for many years now, and especially now, the number of animals that are being used to be experimented on are extremely high. However, you may not know that laboratories aren’t required to publish how many animals they used or how many experiments conducted. Maybe that would help to find out especially what animals need to be strongly protected against testing. “Every laboratory should publish an annual statement setting forth plainly the number and kind of experiments and the methods of conducting them” (Gould qd. in Leffingwell 211). This would help many things and especially organizations that are protesting, to give reasons and facts about testing. Animals are used and then unaccounted for. Truly, you may never know h...