Ellya Arrumaisa A1B213105

Is Animal Testing Necessary?

         The relationship between humans and animals has been symbiotic for almost a century. Humans have relied on animals for food, clothing, or even companionship. Moreover, advancements in medical and scientific fields have made it possible for researchers to use animals for scientific exploration, testing, and also teaching. Animal testing is used in many different industries, mainly medical and cosmetic. Animals are used in order to ensure the products are safe for the use of humans. Some people say that animal testing has aided in the saving of millions lives and contributed to most of the medical advances since its inception and continues to do so today. However, I strongly disagree because it is cruel and inhumane to experiment on animals.

            People argue that animals do not have rights, and it is acceptable to experiment on them. But I do not agree because animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research. According to Tom Regan (1993), a philosophy professor at North Carolina State University, states: "Animals have a basic moral right to respectful treatment. . . .This inherent value is not respected when animals are reduced to being mere tools in a scientific experiment" (qtd. in Orlans 26). Animals and people are alike in many ways; they both feel, think, behave, and experience pain. Risks are not morally transferable to those who do not choose to take them" (qtd. in Orlans 26). Animals do not willingly sacrifice themselves for the advancement of human welfare and new technology. Their decisions are made for them because they cannot vocalize their own preferences and choices. From this statement, animals should be treated with the same respect as humans. When humans decide the fate of animals in research environments, the animals’ rights are taken away without any thought of their well-being or the quality of their lives. Therefore, animal testing should be stopped because it violates the rights of animals.

            People may say that animal research is highly regulated, with laws in place to protect animals from mistreatment. But according to Animal Welfare Act (2002) 95% of animals used in experiments are not protected and does not cover rats, mice, fish, pigs and birds which comprise around 95% of the animals that are used in research. In this case, animals go through pain and suffering at the hands of researchers during the experimentation. The animal allows be burning, poking, poisoning, addicting to drugs, blindness, scarring, and death are generally the end of results. The pain and suffering those experimental animals are subjects to be not worth possible benefits to human. In his article entitled "Time to Reform Toxic Tests," Michael Balls, a professor of medial cell biology at the University of Nottingham, states that the use of the animal test such as Draize test and the LD50 test to examine product toxicity has decreased over the past few years, but these tests have not been eliminated completely. Thus, because animals are subjected to agonizing pain, suffering and death when they are used in laboratory or cosmetics testing, so animal research should be stopped to prevent more waste of animal life.            

            Some people think that animals are appropriate research subjects because they are similar to human beings in many ways. Despite the similarities between the human DNA and that of some animals, there are acute differences that cannot be ignored. Ninety eight percent of diseases seen in human beings are not seen in other animals. Animals react differently to drugs compared to human beings; 92% of the drugs approved through animal testing are found to be useless or dangerous to humans. Additionally, the use of animal experiments on lifestyle diseases such as lung cancer and heart diseases are useless because these conditions cannot be reproduced in the laboratory. Richard Klausner, former head of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), has observed, “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in humans.” Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization, cancer is largely preventable, yet most health organizations that focus on cancer spend a pittance on prevention programs, such as public education. So we can fight the diseases without using an animal as the experiment.

            Others say that animal experiments and studies are not very expensive. In fact, animal testing is costly in order to providing shelter, food and care for the animals. All medical researchers want the numbers of animals needed for research to continue to decrease and to use as few animals as possible. Currently, however, their role is still crucial. As we know, advances in technology have brought along many other effective alternatives to animal testing. Moreover, today's medical students are taught using new and emerging technologies which are more effective and do not involve using animals such as the technologies that include clinical experience, interactive computer programs, human-patient simulators, studying case reports, and safe human-based teaching methods. There are also alternative methods that should be used instead of animal experimentation. For example, in some experiments in-vitro methods can be used as an alternative to using live animals. In such occasions, it is certainly much better and right to employ these alternatives and not distracted with the possibility of potentially killing an innocent animal.

           In conclusion, animal testing should be eliminated because it violates animals' rights , it causes pain and suffering to the experimental animals, animal research is not regulated to the law, and also animal experiments and studies are very expensive. Humans cannot justify making life better for themselves by randomly torturing and executing thousands of animals per year to perform laboratory experiments or to test products. I strongly disagree with animal testing, because animals should be treated with respect and it is not ideal to cause harm to animals and there are a lot of alternatives that is safer to test new products compared to testing them on humans. 

REFERENCES:

California Biomedical Research Association. Retrieved from http://www.cabiomed.org/pdf/media-kit/fact-sheets/FS-FAQs.pdf.

Laws and Regulations. Retrieved from http://www.neavs.org/research/laws.

Courtney G. L, (2002). The Animal Welfare Act at Fifty: Problems and

Possibilities in Animal Testing Regulation.

Orlans, F. Barbara. (1993)  In the Name of Science: Issues in Responsible Animal Experimentation. New York: Oxford UP.

Jacques, J. (2011) The Fundamental Fair Pact. US: Author house.

Problems Associated with Animal Experimentation. Retrieved from http://www.pcrm.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/research/research/Problems-Associated-with-Animal-Experimentation.pdf