Animal Cruelty Essay, Research Paper

Animal Cruelty

The topic of animal cruelty is one of great importance to the wold today. Why

we humans have the right reserved to treat animals as lesser individuals is

beyond me. Animals are fulfilling their part in the ecosystems and communities

of the earth, and to the best extent that they are able. For example, a spider

is being the best possible spider that it can be, spinning webs and working

diligently at what it knows best, not bothering any creatures of the earth

besides the ones which it needs to capture for food. We, as humans, decided that

we are a much advanced life form and can basically treat anything else in this

world in ways which we cannot imagine being treated. As a result the threads

holding our earth together tightly in the balance are being slowly unraveled to

lead into ultimate self-destruction.

In 1988, 16, 989 animals died in laboratories in the United Kingdom. This was

due to such tests as acute and chronic toxicity experiments, where the animals

are forced to consume substances such as perfume, make-up and other beauty

products and are often literally poisoned, their systems literally overloaded by

the substance in question. Another testing method is the Lethal Dose 50 percent

test or LD50. In this procedure at least half of the animals must die in order

for the government to figure out how much a human can ingest without dying.

In one such test some animals were fed 4. lb. of lipstick and one ended up

dying of intestinal obstruction. In another, 7 pints of melted eye shadow was

fed to rats. In yet another, mice were wrapped in tin foil and grilled in

ultraviolet light to test a sun block cream for a total of 96 hours. The results

of the test were that the longer the mice stayed in the rays, the more sunburnt

they got.

But that is not all. A wax product used in many cosmetics was dosed into

animals by a stomach tube. The amount that they used is equivalent to feeding 1 ?

lb of the stuff to humans. The animals involved soon began salivating, bleeding

from the nose and mouth, and had extreme diarrhoea. As the test progressed some

more, the animals became emaciated and unkempt, had congestion in the lungs and

kidneys and solid wax in the stomach.

The infamous Draize eye test cannot be forgotten either. Chemicals are

instilled into the eyes of rabbits in stocks, often for up to seven days. And

because their eyes are physiologically different from ours, they cannot produce

enough tears to wash the substance away and it remains there for long periods of

time. Unfortunately for them, rabbits are cheap and simple to maintain, and they

also have large eyes.

In the acute inhalation test the animals are subjected to intense amounts of a

certain substance or toxin in a small caged environment for four days to test

the effects of chemical inhalants used in aerosol spray cans and other gaseous

materials. The animals which actually survive the test are then killed to be

examined. This is also done with tobacco products and alcohol.

Another instance included the removal of infant rhesus monkeys from their

mothers at birth and isolated or given cheap substitutes to study the need for a

maternal figure early on in life. After 4 months some of the babies were able to

integrate back into a normal monkey society, the ones isolated for a year or

more had definite social problems.

To attempt to find more out about our sexuality we of course turn to cats.

After some nerve surgery, the cats involved became disoriented and lost interest

in sexual activity.

There was also the dastardly one in which some silly scientist removed a cat’s

brain to see if it could still walk afterwards.

Vivisection is of course the live dissection of animals for scientific

research, and is quite widespread in use today. Most of these are performed

without the use of anaesthetics.

The ironic thing regarding this entire situation is the fact that animals, for

the most part, have a very different body chemistry than us, and, as a whole,

are very different than us. So basically none of these tests has any relevancy

for us today. As well, there is a widespread range of natural products already

available to us which most scientists and doctors refuse to acknowledge because

there is more money in animal research. This is sadistic and wrong. Some

governments are pushing for mandatory animal testing on all products, even

completely safe products like honey. This is quite unnecessary for the survival

of humans. Not to mention the countless numbers of animals which have been

injected with infectious diseases so that they can be researched.

There have been some breakthroughs in the use of human tissue culture in

various experiments, but of course it is not as good as the real thing.

The destruction of so many animals with such harmful products is not exactly

healthy for our earth either. There is really no safe to dispose of a noxious

dead body. How unsafe and unreal.

As well there are more frightening prospects. All a company has to do to sell

a “cruelty- free” product is to not have tested it within the past 5 years. This

means that in reality products could be tested now and be on the market in 5

years. How frightening!

Once again, this is unusual and unnecessary with all of what the earth has

already provided for us, the healing plants, most of which we are destroying

with the clear cut and pollution problems experienced within the past century or

so. What a huge power trip these scientists must be on to have thousands of

animals lives hanging in the balance at their command every day. What a complete

act of superiority. With so many other options, don’t you think that the

situation would lessen or differ somewhat? No, of course not. Humans are always

looking for the easy way out of situations, and if that means torturing innocent

and helpless animals, then so be it. I am personally against this mode of action.

Bibliography:

Lorraine Kay,”Living without cruelty,” Sidgwick and Jackson press, London, 1990.

J. J. McCoy,”Animals in research; Issues in conflict,” Impact press, U.S.A.,

1993.

Lynda Dickinson,”Victims of vanity,” Summerhill press, Canada, 1989.

B.P. Robert Stephen Silverman,”Defending animals’ rights is the right thing to

do,” S.p.i. books, U.S.A.,1992.

Kathy Snow Guillermo,”Monkey business,” National press books, U.S.A., 1993.