Animal Testing Essay, Research Paper

For centuries, animals have been used in medical research. Since 1875, animal

experimentation has been an on going heated debate on whether experiments on

animals are ethical. At the very start, the movement against animal testing

focused mainly on the "inhumanity of hurting and killing living beings for

experimental discovery" (Achor 95). However, in these few decades,

scientific invalidity was one of the focusing claims to object to vivisection,

which is an "injurious use of animals in laboratories and classrooms,

whether for experimentation, product testing, training, or demonstration" (Achor

94-95). Animals are innocent and they are not able to fight back for any means

of suffering. Therefore, animal testing should be banned due to the fact that

animal experimentation does not benefit human health and it diverts attention

away from reliable research methods. The abolition of vivisection is supported

not only by animal activists but also by "scientists, medical doctors,

psychiatrists, nurses, veterinarians, and other medical professionals" (Achor

95), who discredit the scientific merits of animal experimentation. In contrast,

some conservative physicians advocate the use of animal research because they

believe that "accidental discoveries will lead us [them] to the

advances" (qtd. in Achor 95) and "they are reluctant to adopt

alternative methodologies, such as tissue cultures, which would require

extensive re-training" (Bender 75). They believe that science cannot

advance without animal experimentation. Other than some

"old-fashioned" physicians, animal breeders, animal dealers, and

animal food suppliers also oppose the termination of animal research because

they will lose millions of dollars, which is supposed to be their profits.

Animal research cannot guarantee the effects of drugs on human beings. Every

living system differs from each other. Predicting the reaction of one species by

studying another species is not accurate at all. LaFoullette and Shanks depicted

the truth that "even the most common drug given to humans does not have

uniform effects in non-human animals" (26). Although mice and rats look

very similar, their reaction upon certain drugs can be totally distinctive (Achor

104). Roy Kupsinel, M.D. once announced that "animal experimentation

produces [produced] a lot of misleading and confusing data which poses [posed]

hazards to human health. For example, 4 million patients per year are

hospitalized for side effects caused by ЎҐthoroughly tested’ drugs,

and of those 50,000 die of the ЎҐcures,’ not the disease" (Achor

104). According to Davis, "aspirin causes birth defects in rats and mice,

poisons cats, but does not affect horses" (qtd. in LaFoullette and Shanks

26). A well-known example of the misleading animal testing which harms human

health is the thalidomide disaster. The box accompanying the thalidomide stated

that after substantial animal tests, this drug was confirmed to be safe.

However, birth defects were eventually caused if pregnant women had prescribed.

This resulted in missing limbs in thousands of babies (Achor 104). In addition,

there are many factors affecting the results obtained by animal experimentation,

such as stress, age, diet, gender, isolation, and crowding (Dickinson 32). Thus,

cases can be false positive or false negative. Some drugs are toxic for humans

but healthy for animals; some are useful for human health but not in terms of

animals (LaFoullette and Shanks 26). As a result, animal experimentation does

not totally benefit for human health. Instead, they may harm human beings. Focus

on animal research eliminates choices on other reliable research methods. With

the recent objection of animal testing, more scientists started to pursue other

research methods. As we expected, the non-animal researches are superior to

animal research (Achor 102). One significant example is the Ames test, which

examines if materials are to be carcinogens or not. This test is performed by

"introducing a suspected carcinogen to salmonella bacteria. If the

substance causes genetic changes in salmonella bacteria, then the substance is

very likely carcinogenic" (Achor 102). This test takes a few days to

complete. Mobil Oil Company adopted the Ames test to examine petroleum-based

products, and this only took them 48 hours and cost $600. Comparing with animal

tests that they previously used, Mobil Oil Company has saved up to $50,000, two

and a half years of time, and 30,000 animals which are supposed to be using in

animal testing (Achor 102). Instead of animal experimentation, some other

successful alternatives without killing animals include In-vitro studies,

Mathematical models which predict novel results, and Physio-chemical studies

which analyze the properties of drugs (Achor 102). As a result, scientists

should adopt other reliable research methods rather than animal experimentation.

Although a number of medical doctors and scientists do not support the use of

animals in laboratories, animal experimentations are still taking place. Animal

research does not benefit human health in some ways, but they contribute an

important role in medical science. For example, the polio vaccine, kidney

transplants, and heart surgery techniques have all been developed with the aid

of animal research (Bender 60). In spite of the fact that in a recent count, 60

to 75 percent of animal experimentations are duplicating the previous studies,

such as the effect of pain in combination with cocaine and other drugs, and the

drug dependence and "noxious" stimuli (qtd. in Achor 102). In other

words, animal research does not provide as much fresh information as before.

Therefore, scientists should spend more time on other research methods rather

than sticking with this old method ЎV animal testing. As a result, the

medical science field can obtain a new face and perhaps, may flourish in a

larger extent. Day by day, animals are suffering in laboratories by electric

shock and ravages of syphilis. Nevertheless, they can do nothing to escape from

mistreatment in laboratories because they are not able to fight back. Therefore,

being humane, we should help them get rid of the useless suffering because the

animal tests they are involved in are not beneficial to human health and are

driving away attention to other research methods.