Animal testing is defined as the use of non-human animals in tests and experiments (Wikipedia, 2014). Whether the experimentation encompasses actual tests that affect certain aspects of the animals or it encompasses simply the observation of an animal’s behavior, it is classified as animal testing. Animal testing can often be conducted in numerous locations, such as a university, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, farms, defense facilities, and commercial establishments that utilize animal testing for commerce such as a cosmetic company (Wikipedia, 2014). Tests that animals have been involved in include toxicology tests, cosmetic tests, behavioral studies, and developmental biology. In total, there is an estimated to be about 100 million animals used annually during animal treating and it is estimated that about 80 million animals were used in the US alone in 2001(Wikipedia, 2014). After being used in various experimentations, animals are euthanized (Wikipedia, 2014).
Humans have made use of animals as models for anatomy and physiology since the beginning of medicine. It was recorded that ancient Grecians dissected animals for certain anatomical studies (Franco, 2013). The dissection of the animals was and is called vivisection. The term vivisection can be viewed as the definition of animal testing for medical research since it is the practice of performing operations on living animals for experimentation and research (Franco, 2013). Some of the earliest physicians to perform vivisections include Alcmaeon during the 6th and 5th century BCE, Aristotle, Diocles and Praxagoras during the 4th century BCE, Erasistratus and Herophilus during the 3rd century BCE (Franco, 2013). Initially, Grecians did not believe that us...
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...ed on during clinical trials for drugs prior to their market rather than using an animal as it (Kehinde, 2013). The counterargument for this stated that the difficulties that would be encountered with this method primarily stem from the wide and various side effects that could appear after the product has been marketed (Kehinde, 2013).
This is because most initial clinical trials of a new drug in humans would typically require testing the new drug on about 3,000 human volunteers and patients. Consequently, if a side effect occurs in 1 in 10,000 patients, such side effects may not become apparent until after the product has been marketed. Furthermore, human clinical trials often involve a relatively homogeneous sample of patients in order to distinguish clearly between the effects of the therapy against the background of variation between different patient responses
Throughout all of human history, the pattern has remained the same—human technological and scientific progress has always involved testing on animals. Without that testing, modern medicine would be a shadow of what it is today. Many modern procedures stem directly from testing with animals. In addition, doctors and surgeons receive much of their training with the living tissues of animals. Computer simulations and other methods simply cannot compete with experience on a living being. For example, the United States Army formerly shot goats to train physician responses to gunshot wounds (Cole ...
Andreas Vesalius was well known for his dissections in the 1500’s. Growing up in Brussels he was captivated by the anatomy of animals. Throughout his childhood Andreas dissected many small animals trying to uncover life’s mystery. This curiosity regarding anatomy came very naturally, due to the fact that he was born into a family of physicians. Vesalius started his formal education at the University of Louvain; then traveled to Paris to continue his studies in medicine. During his life time, Vesalius was an accomplished physician, and professor of anatomy. He also received his degree as a doctor of medicine at the age of twenty-two. Vesalius writings and teachings set the foundation of anatomy we know today, hence why he received the title; founder of modern anatomy.
In the past, experiments done on animals were gruesome and clearly inhumane. In 1678, Robert Hook surgically opened the chest of a dog and kept it alive by giving it breaths artificially. This experiment helped Hook prove that chest movements are not the fundamentals of respiration (Goyal). In another experiment, Carl Koller applied cocaine crystals to the eyes of a dog and observed through pricking the eyes with a needle, that the crystals numbed the eyes of the dog. This experiment helped Koller discover an anesthetic used in eye surgery. In the past, scientific understanding of how animals perceive pain was not as advanced as it is today. Alan Carter wrote about the treatment of animals during animal experimentation and reported that experimenters in the seventeenth century “administered beatings to dogs… and made fun of those who pitied the animals as if they could feel pain.” Animal experimentation was once gruesome and brutal, and even though steps have been taken to make testing more humane to animals, most experiments still harm animals in some
and Europe, which include reduction of animal use, refine animal study techniques, and animal testing replacement. According to Dana ,Bidnall, “Animals are also used, and subsequently killed, every year in many other types of laboratory experiments, from military testing to simulated car crashes to deliberately introduced diseases such as AIDS and Alzheimer 's”(49). Bidnal also states that, “These experiments take place in labs at universities, pharmaceutical companies, and testing agencies, and on farms and military bases around the world”(49). The author suggest,”Researchers who conduct experiments on animals argue that it would be unethical to test substances with potentially adverse side effects on humans; animals are good surrogates because their responses are similar to humans”(49).Bidnal contends with ,”However, some animals are chosen for other reasons”(49). According to Bindal, “Animal testing is not the only option in toxicity testing”(50). Bidnal states, “Alternatives are widely available and include human clinical and epidemiological studies; experiments with cadavers, volunteers,and patients; computer simulation and mathematical models; and in vitro (test tube) tissue culture techniques, to name just a
The definition of animal testing is tests performed on animals that help to advance scientific research and medicinal development. What is animal testing, exactly? This definitely displays that animal tests are only carried out with good intent, as well as not to lead to haphazard harm on animals, some animal tests are performed to better researchers knowledge on the subjects of human and animal behavior, development, and biological functions; this is called basic or fundamental research. And some animal tests help scientists to understand diseases and enhance them to develop cures and treatments for them; this is called targeted or applied research. A few numbers of tests are undergone to test the safety of everyday products such as body lotion and deodorant.
The authors quote a vast amount of credible sources from prestigious universities such as Princeton and from well-known animal rights groups such as PETA. I will use this as my main source of information. George, Patricia and Geraldine Wagner. “Point: Medical Experiments on Animals Are an Important Element of Drug Development.” Animal Experimentation 2015: 7.
Animal testing has gone back as far as three hundred B.C.E with the Greek physician and philosopher, Aristotle (*). Then there was Galen, a Greek physician, who studied animals in Rome and learned more about medicine, made advancements in understanding anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. To modern society, Galen is referred to as being the father of vivisection. In the twelfth century in Spain, Ibn Zuhr, an Arab physician who made use of animal experimentation that led to testing the effectiveness of surgical procedures, first on animals, and then applying the information to human patients. Though most of his testings were on goats, much of his research went into postmortem autopsies and dissections. (Hajar) (Naik)
...f the product is given to a human through the skin. It is said that this could be a new and very effective alternative to Animal Experiments. Scientist have grown a small piece of human liver tissue from stem cells which might one may be possible to perform initial ‘human’ safety trails in a lab. I suppose that if the laws on the necessity for animal testing were relaxed, it would encourage the scientist to develop other methods of testing toxicity that were equally effective. There are alternatives, it is just whether or not the scientist will peruse them.
The history of animal experimentation and tests, and the argument surrounding it, has an expansive and somewhat extensive history. Some of the first medical research that was conducted on living animals was done by Aelius Galenus, better known as Galen, in the second century C.E. There have been examples of animal testing in earlier dates, but Galen devoted his life to understanding science and medicine, so he is attributed to being the father of vivisection. In the twelfth century, an Arabic physician named Avenzoar introduced animal testing dissections as a means to better understand surgery before preforming the operation on a human patient. Edmund O’Meara made one of the first opposing ar...
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 ...
Today, millions of animals are being tested on for the use of human products, causing them to fall ill and die, leaving them no choice but to be experimented on. Animal abuse can be more than what meets the eye. Specifically, animal testing is a form of animal abuse and usually ends in death of a harmless animal. Some might say that there is no other way to test products, but due to the harm that is done and our advancements in science, animal testing should not be tolerated.
Throughout centuries medical research has been conducted on animals. “Animals were used in early studies to discover how blood circulates through the body, the effect of anesthesia, and the relationship between bacteria and disease” (AMA 59). Experiments such as these seem to be outdated and actually are by today’s means, scientists now study commonly for three general purposes: (1) biomedical and behavioral research, (2) education, (3) drug and product testing (AMA 60). These three types of experiments allow scientists to gain vast amounts of knowledge about human b...
Millions of animals are used to test consumer products, but they also become victims to 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 i...
(Sub-Point # 1) According to The Humane Society International, animal testing is the process of using living animals for research purposes. Much of this research is done for common human use such as medicine, cosmetics, shampoos, cleaning products,pesticides, contact lenses, and diapers. Most of these research facilities will tell you that the pain the animals feel during testing is considered “mild”, but still have the potential to cause pain, suffering, and even death for the animals. Common procedures include forced exposures to chemicals which is done by injections. Animals are also inflicted pain with wounds so that either their healing or stress level can be studied. At the end animals are killed or are used in other experimentations. The number of animals that have been tested on should be reported, but 90% of the animals used in testing here in the United States are not represented on government statistics (Rowan,
The growth of the medical research field is a significant development for the human species. New treatments are established to treat many diseases. Although the expansion of the medical research field benefits the human society in many areas, the ethical issue of using animals as testing subjects is often neglected. During this procedure, animals are used to experiment on in the place of humans to ensure the effectiveness of the discoveries and treatments. These processes are not always successful and therefore will often cause excessive pain and distress to the animals. Many animals suffer greatly and may even result in death. It is morally wrong to cause pain or distress to animals in the course of medical research because animals should have the right for welfare and live a pleasurable life thus; we should not harm them during the research process. In this paper I will defend this argument and provide a discussion on this issue by providing arguments supporting my thesis and as well as addressing a counterargument.