The Irrelevance of Animal Testing

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The Irrelevance of Animal Testing

The practice of animal experimentation began when religious leaders condemned the dissection of human corpses. Human experimentation and dissection is not opposed anymore but animal experimentation still continues. Almost all new products, from drugs to cosmetic products go through an animal experimentation phase, but they are not required to. Though it may seem to be a good option as opposed to human experimentation, it is not. Animal experimentation uses billions of taxpayer dollars every year, hardly has any scientific relevance, and animal experimentation causes a huge deal of pain, suffering and death to animals.

Animal experimentation spends 5 billion dollars of tax payer dollars per year. The amount of results seen from animal experimentation does not compare with the amount of money and lives of animals spent on research. Animal experimentation has not shown any huge or relevant results, as is widely thought. Dr. Charles Mayo, of the Mayo Clinic states "I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil."(PETA 1). The reason for this is that all animals, from humans to rats, vary and react differently to different things.

In an experiment conducted with fluoride, 520 rats and mice were given the substance, and though it did not affect the mice, but it made the rats sick, and gave them cancer among other things. If a substance can have such widely varying results from a rat to a mouse, any animal to a human cannot be much different. Also, if penicillin were tested on guinea pigs, it would not be used today as it kills guinea pigs, aspirin kills cats, and morphine is a stimulant to cats goats and horses. Though it is thought that polio’s vaccine was discovered by experimentation through animals, this is not true. Dr. Albert Sabin, the developer of the oral vaccine to polio, stated that "paralytic polio could be dealt with only by preventing the irreversible destruction of the large number of motor nerve cells, and the work on prevention was delayed by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys."(PETA 1). Not only does animal experimentation have low scientific credibility, it causes great pain and discomfort to animals.

Pros of Animal Experimentation
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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.
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The Pros of Animal Testing
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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.
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animal experimentation
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Animals are getting experimented on for products. Animals are getting affected everyday by this problem. They are getting experimented on to see if a product is safe for human beings to use. Medical schools in the United States have stopped using animals for their needs in training.(Driscoll and Finley) In 1983, 150 baboons had to be removed from the University of Pennsylvania Head Injury Clinic for brain damage. (Driscoll and Finley) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Animal Liberation Front removed the baboons from the clinic. (Driscoll and Finley) The results of the experiments are not even that accurate. Nutrition experiments on animals are very inaccurate. PCRM published the article “An Examination of Animal Experiments” that stated “Nutrition is another area where animal experiments have raised repeated problems. While it is easy to feed vitamins, fat, or fiber to animals and to check whether their disease rates rise or fall, the relevance to humans is limited at best, due to major physiological differences between species.” People and organizations, such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States(HSUS), have been...
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The Necessities of Animal Experimentation
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Putting aside the countless claims that animal experimentation is unethical and should be banned, it is incredibly necessary and useful for mankind. Experimenting on humans is inhumane and completely immoral, while animals that do not function in the same way humans do should be used in medical research and to test the safety of various products. If animal testing were illegal, how would worldly corporations determine the safety of products? Surely the valuable lives of human beings are not essential to risk, hence the reason that animal experimenting is necessary. In addition, medical research would be in great jeopardy if were animals were not permitted to be experimented on. Medical industries have already come so far in treating multiple ailments due to the tests performed on animals. Alas, it is safe to say that for the continued thriving of our society, forbidding animal experimentation would be detrimental.
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Animal Testing
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The ethics behind using animals for experiments and tests has been questioned and debated for years. Many people believe that animal experimentations can be crucial towards medical breakthroughs such as the cure for cancer, HIV/AIDS or asthma. Meanwhile others argue that animals that are used to test cosmetics such as make-up and perfumes are inhuman because is not going to help improve the human race. Animals suffer through multiple types of torture such as being forced to ingest poisonous chemicals, blinded, burned, stapled, and infected with disease viruses. Even though animal experimentation may be considered inhumane to many, animal experimentation is crucial to advancements in medical research and can lead to a better quality of life; on the other hand, animal experimentation should not be used to develop cosmetics because such experimentation is cruel and unnecessary.
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The Necessity of Animal Testing
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The roots of animal experimentation began in the early 1600s when the world expressed in interests on the functions of animals and their uses in human life. However, it wasn’t until the incident regarding the drug thalidomide in 1960 did the government make it a requirement for drugs be tested on animals. During the incident, millions of women took the medication believing that it would be a source of relieve from morning sickness, not knowing however that it would cause irrevocable effects on their unborn children (Watson 4). Although the ruling seemed to provide a sigh of relief to some, the very idea of placing animals in strange uncomfortable environments and experiencing pain and euthanasia angered many. According to the American Anti-Vivisection Society, commonly known as AAVS, It is wrong to treat animals as objects for the purpose of scientific research, and to cause them pain and suffering (“Animal Research Is Unethical and Scientifically Unnecessary”). Although the arguments against animal experimentation seem credible, animal testing on medicines and products are necessary in order to insure the safety of human beings.
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animal experimentation: pros and cons
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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.
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The Unseen Cruelty: A Critique on Animal Testing
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Throughout history, beginning as early as 500 BC, animals have been used to test products that will later be utilized by humans (“Animal Testing” 4), what isn’t publicly discussed is the way it will leave the animals after the process is done. Many innocent rabbits, monkeys, mice, and even popular pets such as dogs are harmed during the testing application of cosmetics, medicine, perfumes, and many other consumer products (Donaldson 2). Nevertheless, there are many people whom support the scandal because "it is a legal requirement to carry out animal testing to ensure they are safe and effective” for human benefit (Drayson). The overall question here is should it even be an authorized form of experimentation in the United States, or anywhere else? The fact of the matter is that there are alternatives to remove animals out of the equation for good (“Alternatives” 1). They are cheaper, and less invasive than the maltreatment of the 26 million innocent animals that are subjected to the heartlessness of testing each year (“Animal Testing” 4). All in all, due to the harsh effects of animal testing, it should be treated as animal cruelty in today’s society.
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The Controversy Over Animal Testing
1885 Words | 4 Pages
Animal testing was started in the 1800’s for creating vaccines for children, the animals they started testing on were monkeys, mice, and guinea pigs. Based off Charles Darwin’s idea that humans are closely linked to primates we based the idea that animal testing would benefit us. (Animal Testing) Animal testing has caused pain and relief alike. On one hand innocent animals are dying on the other we are creating vaccines to save animals and humans alike.
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The Cons of Animal Testing
1354 Words | 3 Pages
Millions of animals are used to test consumer products, but they also become victims of experiments for medical research. In The Ethics of Animal Research (2007) both authors state that there have been many medical advances with the development of medicines and treatments as a result of research conducted on animals (para 1). These medical improvements have helped many people be able to enjoy life, but some people still believe that animal research is mean and avoidable .... ... middle of paper ... ...
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Animal Experimentation
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There are billions of other species on our planet. And every single one of those species is, in fact, different in their own way. It is absurd to believe that human diseases or aliments can be cured with the information garnered while experimenting on animals. We as humans are all unique and highly complicated. Information gathered from animal testing would not be accurate for a human in need of a cure. “The tests would not cooperate with the human body as it does with the animal tested upon. A good number of scientists both agree that methodology is invalid and counterproductive from the biomedical research today. There are only two ways to deal with human health problems. And that is, is to practice prevention and elimination of environmental toxins.” (Burgos) This fact stated shows that not everyone believes that animal testing is not appropriate in a...
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Animal Testing is Cruel and Flawed
1229 Words | 3 Pages
Animal testing is the use of non-human animals for scientific experimentation. There are estimates that 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals worldwide from zebra fish to on-human primates are used annually. Much larger numbers of invertebrates are used even flies and worms are used has model organisms are very important, experiments on invertebrates are largely unregulated and not included in statistics. Animals are euthanized after being used in a experiment. Some of these animals are purpose-bred and others are caught in the wild or they are supplied by dealers who obtain them from auctions and pounds. The testing on the animals are conducted inside universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, farms, defense establishments and commercial facilities that provide animal-testing services to industry. Some of the tests that researchers do on the animals are biomedical research transplantation, drug testing and toxicology test, cosmetics and other animals are used for directional research, breeding and defense research. Organizations like PETA and BUVA thinks it it not a necessity for this testings. They think is is cruel, poor scientific practice, poorly regulated and that animals used for experimentations have an intrinsic right not be be used for experimentation. Many Americans don’t agree with testing on animals. Testing animals is wrong and they are just poor helpless animals and they die every day. They are testing animals with products such has soap, household cleaners, drugs, cosmetics, pesticides and other chemicals. Drug tests that are done on animals that pass the test end up harming or killing humans. Lists of animals that get tested daily are cats, dogs, monkeys, mice, and rabbits. The researchers test these ...
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Animal Testing Is Bad Science
605 Words | 2 Pages
Experiments on animal test subjects including rats and chimpanzees has shown little to no results. This research has shown how many medical “achievements” such as vaccines developed using animal testing failed to improve human health. Not only is animal research ineffective, but PETA shows us that most of the recent medical advancements, like research against a variety of diseases, were achieved without animal testing. Overall, we can conclude that the majority of our medical advancements are attributed to other forms of research. Not animal
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The Unethical Treatment of Animals
1775 Words | 4 Pages
Experimentation has been performed on animals such as rats, mice, and primates in testing various products from cosmetics to drugs. The experimentation of animals usually involves pumping a substance into the animal’s stomach or applying it to the skin and eyes; they are confined to cages and not allowed the freedom of their natural way of life. According to a report by PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals),” this causes great stress and discomfort to the animals (2011).” The animals may not die, but they are scared and maimed for the rest of their lives. Practices such as this are still used today even though there are cheaper and more conclusive ways of conducting this testing; in vitro (test tube), genomic, computer modeling technique, and human volunteering. These research methods are more humane, cost effective alternatives to animal testing. “The harms to the animal conflict with perceived societal benefits that will result if ...
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Ineffective And Outdated Animal Testing
271 Words | 1 Pages
90% of animal tested approved drugs are ineffective and or harmful to humans. Our taxpayers spend millions of dollars a year for animal testing thats ineffective when Adult stem cell research is the answer. Adult stem cell research is the modern alternative to animal testing. Human research whether it be genome mapping or an autopsy has proven to be effective. Drugs tested on animals have led to massive delays in medical advancements. “A well known delay was the polio vaccine, which was held up for over three decades before humans could use it”. Taxpayers pay millions for ineffective and outdated animal testing. Americans should be using their tax dollars to pay for modern technology and methodology. “Wasting our precious healthcare
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The Irrelevance of Animal Testing

Pros of Animal Experimentation

The Pros of Animal Testing

animal experimentation

The Necessities of Animal Experimentation

Animal Testing

The Necessity of Animal Testing

animal experimentation: pros and cons

The Unseen Cruelty: A Critique on Animal Testing

The Controversy Over Animal Testing

The Cons of Animal Testing

Animal Experimentation

Animal Testing is Cruel and Flawed

Animal Testing Is Bad Science

The Unethical Treatment of Animals

Ineffective And Outdated Animal Testing

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