Alternatives to Animal Testing
Animal testing has become a controversial issue among many people in the world today. Some of these people involved in this controversial debate believe that animal testing is unethical and should be replaced by other methods. The other group of people in this debate believe that animal testing is necessary in order to research new products that cannot be tested on humans. Traditional animal testing forces animals to undergo numerous experiments for different forms of research. Medical, cosmetic, and many other types of research experiments use animals to provide the results on how the new product may affect humans. There are many people that support the use of alternative methods to animal research and then
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Even if the chemical is shown promising for helping the animals it does not automatically mean that it would be safe for humans.
Using animals for research is not reliable in predicting the outcome of new chemicals on the human body system. According to American Anti-Vivisection Society, “Nine out of ten drugs that appear promising in animals studies go on to fail in human clinical trials.” That indicates that almost ninety percent of traditional animal experiments fail in human trials. Although humans are similar to animals, they still do not have the exact genetic make up as animals. American Anti-Vivisection Society claims that, “Even the same species have similar differences that can be found among different genders, breeds, ages and weight ranges, and ethnic backgrounds.” For example, humans react to new products differently because nobody is genetically the same. Some people experience the therapeutic effect of a drug and then others may have an allergic reaction to the drug. Even in the human species researchers see that not all drugs or products produce the same ideal results that are expected. If there were such wide variations of results between the same species why would it be logical to test products intended for human use on animals? This is a question that most advocates for alternative methods to animal testing would ask.
Alternatives to
According to Cruelty Free International, 95% of drugs fail in human trials despite promising results in animal tests, because they do not work. Using dogs, rats, mice and rabbits to test whether or not a drug will be harmless for humans offers slight statistically useful understanding.
due to cruel chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics tests as well as in medical training exercises and curiosity-driven medical experiments at universities. Even though modern non-animal tests have been repeatedly shown to have more educational value, save teachers time, and save schools money, animals still suffer and die in classroom biology experiments and dissection. Examples of these horrid tests include forcing mice and rats to inhale toxic fumes, force-feeding dogs pesticides, and dripping corrosive chemicals into rabbits’ sensitive eyes. Even if a product harms animals, it can still be marketed to consumers. Contrarily, just because a product was shown to be safe in animals does not guarantee that it will be safe to use in humans. An exact number isn’t available because mice, rats, birds, and cold-blooded animals, who make up more than 99 percent of animals used in experiments, are not covered by even the minimal protections of the Animal Welfare Act and therefore go uncounted.
95% of drugs fail in human trials despite promising results in animal tests. This is because of the different genes between a human and an animal. The failure of the drugs can also be caused due to the fact that out of 93 dangerous drug side effects, only 19% could have been predicated by animal tests. Another piece of evidence that has been brought to the attention of many is that the testing of animals is a waste. Only 6% of 4,300 international companies involved in drug development have registered a new drug with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1950. Even those drugs that are approved are not universally effective due to individual reactions, the top ten highest-grossing drugs in the U.S. only help between 1 in 4 and 1 in 25 people who take them. The last reason why animal testing should be reconsidered is common sense but overlooked. Animals are much more different from humans than imagined. Animals are incapable of being diagnosed of the same diseases that humans are. Their bodies do not allow them to have illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease, major types of heart disease, many types of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV or schizophrenia. A simple drug like aspirin is toxic to many animals, including cats, mice and rats and would not be on our pharmacy shelves if it had been tested according to current animal testing
Animal experimentation has become very a controversial topic in the United States of America today. In many countries it is still legal to poison, blind, and kill animals for cosmetic uses. While many of the experiments conducted on animals today is required by law, most of it is not. In fact, many countries have placed bans on the testing of certain products on animals. Thousands of animals every day are euthanized owed to animal testing. Due to of the care that animals are enduring, people debate whether animal testing should be implemented at all. Some people believe that animal testing is beneficial in many ways. The people that see animal testing as beneficial say that without animals, medical developments and the military would not be
“Over 100 million animals are burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused in US labs every year.” “Also in Canada, 3.02 million animals were used in experiments in 2013 and 78,294 animals were subjected to severe pain near, at, or above the pain tolerance threshold of unanesthetized conscious animals.” Animal testing is frequently used for developing beauty products and medicines and in a lot more areas. Many people believe that the animal testing is necessary for humans. New vaccines and medicines are being developed continuously as humans are exposed to the pollution and lots of diseases. However, it is hazardous and fearful for people to use a new medicine without knowing its effect. People want to be guaranteed to the least safety and the virtue of the medicine.
Animals are very different than humans and therefore they make poor test subjects. They make poor test subjects because of the cellular, metabolic, and anatomic differences. Animals act, look, and are made very differently compared to humans. How will you be sure the product will not be harmful just because it didn’t hurt an animal? Approximately 92% of experimental drugs are dangerous of humans even though it did not affect the animal. [Cruelty]
In today’s world, people always try to have the best, and this makes safety an important issue. Both medical and non-medical products need to be approved in terms of safety before it is put on the market (Galson, 2005). That’s why products such as cosmetics and drugs need to be tested on animals. However, researchers showed that there are many physiological differences between animals and human beings (“The Pharmaceutical Racket,” n.d.). For example, sweet almond which is healthy for human beings is deadly for foxes, and drugs which have the label of safety such as Pronap & Plaxin, which is a tranquilizer, killed many babies (“The Pharmaceutical Racket,” n.d.). Due to these false results, it is being questioned that what the drawbacks of using animal on scientific experiments are.
The FDA’s “Animal Rule” establishes certain guidelines for drugs that are tested on animals before their approval be cause testing these drugs on humans would be unethical. The Animal Rule “Drugs intended to ameliorate or prevent serious or life-threatening conditions due to other toxic chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear substances… may be eligible for development under the Animal Rule when… field trials to study effectiveness are not feasible.” The Animal Rule establishes what processes are recommended to make sure that the animals used and the experiments conducted are accurate and safe.
Many controversies are going on in the world on a variety of topics, and one that many dispute on is whether animal testing should be used for specific purposes or for all purposes. Animals take a large part on Earth, since they help the world and the human race with its desire of advancement. Commercial purposes of animal testing uses its subjects to find the safety level of certain products for humans. Scientific purposes of animal testing uses its animals for improvements in medicine and treatments for humans, and research for animals. Many concern over the wellness of the animals as well, which is why they argue on some cases involving the testing. Animal testing should only be in use for scientific purposes, because it improves animal
Each year there are millions of animals abused in laboratory settings to the humans advantage to test the toxicity of chemicals. It has been proven that even though we put these animals through immense amount of pain and cause them to live short and tragic lives, these are not real life situations. The testing we do on these animals will never be able to benefit us because we cannot base their reactions on humans reactions to the toxins in the chemicals. Animal testing is not beneficial to us humans or the animals because we are putting them through pain they do not deserve for information we do not need.
Nowadays, many cosmetic companies are beginning to reduce the amount of testing done on animals before producing the product on stock. The non-animal approach researchers conducted was the genotoxicity. In vitro tests was a big part of genotoxicity and provides information on three genetic endpoints; mutagenicity at a gene level, chromosomes breakage or rearrangements, and numerical chromosome aberrations. Before this, in vivo genotoxicity studies were used to evaluate the importance of positive in vitro discovery for cosmetic ingredients. However, conducting in vivo genotoxicity procedures were banned due to the Seventh Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive. Four years following, the repeated dose toxicity test was banned also. The article then transitions into discussing the basic test for testing cosmetic ingredients. The test is as follows: first, the test for gene mutation and then a test for clastogenicity and aneugenicity. If these test results come out negative, further testing is not required. To conclude, researchers are always trying to discover new ways to test for cosmetics based on a non-animal approach.
Picture yourself applying your favorite make-up or taking medicine prescribed to you by your doctor, and ask yourself, how do you know its safe? Have you ever wondered what goes in to make sure that makeup or medicine isn’t lethal? A majority of making sure if things like drugs and make-up are safe is done by testing the drugs and cosmetics on different kinds of animals (Abbott 1). Animal testing once saved many lives (“Animal”, par.7) but as science progressed new methods, much like in vitro which uses human cells cultivated in a lab, were found that had the potential to replace animal testing (Abbott 1). Whether or not one is more effective than the other has been a hot topic for years, and multiple studies have been done to compare the two to each other. I believe that animal testing is a method that is no longer needed, because there are alternatives to animal testing that can achieve the same results without causing harm to animals.
compatible, animals do not respond to drugs the same way that humans do. In, Canada animals
Normally the research such as biomedical researches, drug tests and toxicology tests are conducted in universities, medical schools, and pharmaceutical companies. Scientists use many types of animals in their experiments such as guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, monkeys, chimpanzees, rats, mice, dogs and cats. Around 50-100 millions vertebrates are used in experiments annually and in United States, the number of rats and mice used are 20 million annually. The articles that are going to be discussed in this piece of writing are, “Animal Testing A Necessary Research Tool, for Now” written by Dr. George Poste and “Of Mice Or Men, The Problems With Animal Testing”
Observation and experimentation are how we as humans have been able to learn more about ourselves and the world and universe we live in. One of the most common methods of experimentation is animal testing. However, there are controversies surrounding animal testing. There are some that believe animal testing to be cruel and overdone, advocating for the eradication of the practice and further reliance alternative research methods. Groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other animal rights advocates fall in this category. There are some that believe animal testing to be an invaluable resource and should continue, such as some scientists and research groups. However, there appears to me to be a consensus that is closer to the middle: the belief and understanding that while there are benefits to animal testing, there are flaws in the practice and there should be changes to increase its efficacy while we simultaneously explore alternate testing methods. Many scientists and the National Institute of Health (NIH) subscribe to this idea. I aim to explore the benefits, problems, and implications of animal testing in order to reach a more informed conclusion about a position that is most validated by the information I have used.