Animal testing

ANIMAL TESTING

Animal testing is the use of “non-human animals” to test variables that affect the behavior or biology of a subject. People have different feelings for animals; many look upon animals as companions while others view animals as a means for advancing medical techniques or furthering experimental research. However individuals perceive animals, the fact remains that animals are being exploited by research facilities and cosmetics companies all across the country and all around the world. Although humans often benefit from successful animal research, the pain, the suffering, and the deaths of animals are not worth the possible human benefits. Therefore, animals should not be used in research or to test the safety of products. Animal testing is cruel, inhumane and unreliable at best. In fact, according to Understanding Animal Research, neurologist Aysha Akhtar, MD, MPH states,

“94% of drugs that pass animal tests fail in human clinical trials…over 100 stroke drugs that were effective when tested on animals have failed in humans, and over 85 HIV vaccines failed in humans after working well in non-human primates.”

There are some people who claim that the effects of drugs tested on animals may not be the same to humans. Arthritis drug Vioxx, which caused 140 000 heart attacks and strokes in United States of America, was withdrawn from the global market even though it appeared to be safe when tested in animals (Archibald, 2004). However, scientists have proven that animals are extremely alike to humans and experiments done on them would produce similar results obtained through future human experiments (About Animal Testing, n.d.). Hence, carrying out animal testing on drugs would improve the quality of human life indirectly. Through cell cultures, almost every type of human and animal cell can be grown in the laboratory. These include; Human tissues, Computer models, Volunteer studies, Human medical breakthroughs etc.

Positive outcomes of animal testing includes the development of new medicine and treatments. Derbyshire (2004) mentioned that many medical advances used animal testing; dogs were used to develop the production of insulin, whereas primates were utilized in the manufacture of a powerful anti-rejection drug, cyclosporine. Besides this, discoveries of various vaccines have evolved through animal experimentation. From here, it can be seen that animal testing can guide us to discoveries of new knowledge about living organisms. it assists researchers in medical treatments besides drugs discovery, improves health and medicine and is able to test the safety of drugs. Alternatives of animal testing are not as plausible as they are not as accurate as the results obtained from tests conducted upon animals.

It is mentioned that all living things are morally equivalent. However, the lives of humans are superior over the lives of animals (Garner, 2005). Authorities have to make a choice between the welfare of humans and the welfare of animals. Which one is more important, the life of a human or the life of an animal? As Archibald (2004) points out, most people are willing to sacrifice the lives of animal in animal testing to save human lives. minimizing the suffering of animals when conducting animal experimentations. As long as the animal is experimented upon without pain, the welfare of the animal is not violated. Therefore, it is acceptable to legalize the activity of animal testing as human life should be prioritized. Animals lack the sense of judgment, thus human lives always come first before animal lives. Animals are considered to be protected as long as animals receive minimum amount of suffering. So animal testing should be legalized in order to save more human lives. primates offer the best experimental models as they have 99% similarity in genes with humans. Animal testing can be carried out on primates to ensure the safety of some drugs before being tested on humans. The chance for both organisms exhibiting the same effect is high due to the similarity of their genes. This in turn can reduce the risks faced by humans when commencing the trials. Hence, animals are good tools for learning the effects of various substances. most of the major vaccines against disease like polio, rubella and hepatitis B used today would not exist (Derbyshire, 2004). New drugs undergo in vitro research, computer modeling and animal testing before being tested on humans. Thus, every step is vital in this process of studying the effects before a drug is introduced into the market.

Many people believe that animal testing is justified because the animals are sacrificed to make products safer for human use and consumption. The problem with this reasoning is that the animals’ safety, well-being, and quality of life is generally not a consideration. Experimental animals are virtually tortured to death, and all of these tests are done in the interest of human welfare, without any thought to how the animals are treated. Making human’s lives better should not be justification for torturing and exploiting animals. The value that humans place on their own lives should be extended to the lives of animals as well.

Still other people think that animal testing is acceptable because animals are lower species than humans and therefore have no rights. These individuals feel that animals have no rights because they lack the capacity to understand or to knowingly exercise these rights. However, animal experimentation in medical research and cosmetics testing cannot be justified on the basis that animals are lower on the evolutionary chart than humans since animals resemble humans in so many ways. Many animals, especially the higher mammalian species, possess internal systems and organs that are identical to the structures and functions of human internal organs. Also, animals have feelings, thoughts, goals, needs, and desires that are similar to human functions and capacities, and these similarities should be respected, not exploited, because of the selfishness of humans.

Animal testing is completely unnecessary, irresponsible and
expensive. Not only do safe and humane alternative tests and
experimental methods exist, but they are also often much less
expensive and more reliable than their counterparts.

These tests often include:

• Injections and force feedings of potentially harmful substances

• Lethal exposure to radiation

• Vivisection and the surgical removal of animals organs and tissues to deliberately cause damage

• Forced inhalation of toxic gases

• Frightening animals and subjecting them to situations that induce anxiety and depression

It’s unethical to sentence 100 million thinking and living animals to live in a laboratory cage and intentionally cause them pain, loneliness, and fear. The National Institutes of Health reports that 95 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans. A novel drug can take 10 to 15 years and more than 12$ billion dollars to develop, and failure rates occur in 95% of human studies (National Centre for Advancing Translational Sciences). Animal experiments prolong the suffering of humans waiting for effective cures because the results mislead experimenters and squander precious money, time, and other resources that could be spent on human-relevant research. Animal experiments are so worthless that up to half of them are never even published. Forward-thinking scientists have developed humane, modern, and effective non-animal research methods — including organs-on-chips, organoids, human-based microdosing, in vitro technology, human-patient simulators, and sophisticated computer modeling — that are cheaper, faster, and more accurate than animal tests.

Animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research because they are not given a choice. Animals are subjected to tests that are often painful or cause permanent damage or death, and they are never given the option of not participating in the experiment. Regan says, for example, that “animal [experimentation] is morally wrong no matter how much humans may benefit because the animal’s basic right has been infringed. 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. 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 experimentation should be stopped because it violates the rights of animals.

Two of the most commonly used toxicity tests are the Draize test and the LD50 test, both of which are infamous for the intense pain and suffering they inflect upon experimental animals. In the Draize test the substance or product being tested is placed in the eyes of an animal (generally a rabbit is used for this test); then the animal is monitored for damage to the cornea and other tissues in and near the eye. This test is intensely painful for the animal, and blindness, scarring, and death are generally the end results. The Draize test has been criticized for being unreliable and a needless waste of animal life. The LD50 test is used to test the dosage of a substance that is necessary to cause death in fifty percent of the animal subjects within a certain amount of time. To perform this test, the researchers hook the animals up to tubes that pump huge amounts of the test product into their stomachs until they die. This test is extremely painful to the animals because death can take days or even weeks.

Because animals are subjected to agonizing pain, suffering and death when they are used in laboratory and cosmetics testing, animal research must be stopped to prevent more waste of animal life.

The testing of products on animals is completely unnecessary because viable alternatives are available. Use natural ingredients, like bananas and Basil nut oil, as well as others with a long history of safe human usage” is advocated instead of testing on animals. Furthermore, the Draize test has become practically obsolete because of the development of a synthetic cellular tissue that closely resembles human skin. Researchers can test the potential damage that a product can do to the skin by using this artificial “skin” instead of testing on animals. Another alternative to this test is a product called Eyetex. This synthetic material turns opaque when a product damages it, closely resembling the way that a real eye reacts to harmful substances. Computers have also been used to simulate and estimate the potential damage that a product or chemical can cause, and human tissues and cells have been used to examine the effects of harmful substances. In another method, in vitro testing, cellular tests are done inside a test tube. All of these tests have been proven to be useful and reliable alternatives to testing products on live animals. Therefore, because effective means of product toxicity testing are available without the use of live animal specimens, testing potentially deadly substances on animals is unnecessary.

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, animal testing should be eliminated because it violates animals’ rights, it causes pain and suffering to the experimental animals, and other means of testing product toxicity are available. 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. Animals should be treated with respect and dignity, and this right to decent treatment is not upheld when animals are exploited for selfish human gain. After all, humans are animals too. However, it is impossible to ban the practice of animal experimentation due to the benefits brought by animal research towards mankind. Animal testing is a noble action to sustain the welfare of humans, according to many people in the case of medical research. What can be done is that the number of animals used when performing a research is reduced. To use the least number of resources to obtain the fastest results, researchers have the tendency of using a smaller number of animals during their research. This is an act that can show the willingness of mankind to reduce the cruelty towards the animals. Besides this, scientists can be asked to lessen the degree of suffering of the animal. This can be attained by exclude some needless harmful actions involving the animals. Lastly, alternative methods should be used whenever possible to replace the usage of animal testing.

References:

· https://www.nationalhumanesociety.org/blog/2018/09/12/the-truth-about-animal-testing/

· https://www.peta.org/blog/top-five-reasons-stop-animal-testing/

· https://www.ieltsbuddy.com/animal-testing-essay.html

· https://www.lonestar.edu/stopanimaltesting.htm

· https://www.ukessays.com/essays/sociology/animal-testing.php