Animal Testing And Its Morality

Imagine a life locked away in a cage with no form of control on your existence. It’s cold, dark, and you are scared. You don’t have a choice of what you eat, where you live, or how you are treated. You are unsure if it is day or night or what will happen to you next. You are locked away in a prison cell and you committed no crime. This is the life of a laboratory animal. Animal testing is the use of animals for scientific research purposes and experiments. It can be used for the findings of cures and medicines to testing new drugs, to understanding the behavioral psychology of the animals themselves. “Around fifty to one hundred million vertebrate animals, ranging from fish to primates, are used in experiments each year” (Lloyd). There are

“Lots of people talk to animals…Not very many listen, though…That’s the problem”(Ben Hoffman). The controversy of animal testing is phenomenal; it always has been. I remember dissecting animals throughout my years of school in the "name of science". It was only until recently that I started questioning the government 's methods to teach us. We dissected a dog shark in my oceanography class last year. There had to been at least 80 dead sharks in about four different buckets; that was when it crossed the line. I understood a lamb eye or something, but breeding sharks in captivity just so they can be killed? Animal testing is wrong in every way to me.

Animals are given high doses of these chemicals such as lab rats by force feeding them. They can experience diarrhea, severe abdominal pain, seizures, paralysis, and bleeding from the mouth, nose, and genitals before they die (peta.org:product testing). Rabbits are used mostly for eye and skin irritation research. They have products leaked into their eyes and put onto their skin. Scientists then

Gerhard Zbinden, a toxicologist described that “the testing of just one substance can involve using up to 800 animals.” The pain and suffering that the large amount of these animals go through is not worth the possible benefits to humans. When animals are used for product toxicity testing or laboratory research, they are forced to undergo painful and deadly experiments. The most common product safety tests are the Draize test and the LD50 test. Rats and mice are usually used for this experiment. Since both trials are the most painful and deadly of all, they are often avoided but still performed. During an LD50 test, tubes are attached to the esophagus of the stomach and force fed chemical products, causing the animals to then suffer with discomfort and pain throughout different parts of the body. The Draize test determines the consequences of getting a chemical into a human’s eyes. In order to determine the eye irritancy of a product, scientists place it into a rabbit’s eyes and look out for eye damage. Specifically, swelling, redness, bleeding, and blindness. After performing the Draize test, rabbits’ either often bleed or become blind. They experience these symptoms for up to 14 days until they are evaluated for further internal damage. When performing the Draize and LD50 test, animals are expected to fail. Though, some take days and even weeks to die. During their weeks of slowly dying, the animals’ experience vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding. Because so many animals are forced to go through these intensely painful test runs, animals experimentation ought to end to prevent wate of animals

Every year about 241,000 rabbits are tortured in United States laboratories to test for the effects that household products, such as cosmetics, dishwashing liquid, and drain cleaner will have on their eyes ("Rabbits in Laboratories | PETA.org." 1). Scientists will drip chemicals into the eyes of the animal to see how much irritation it will cause, a process known as the Draize eye irritancy test ("Rabbits in Laboratories | PETA.org." 1). The test is certainly not pain free; it often causes distress, such as redness, swelling, and sometimes blindness. After the rabbits are finished being toyed with, they are killed ("Rabbits in Laboratories | PETA.org." 1). The Draize eye irritancy test is just one of the thousands of examples of profuse

The controversy behind animals as research subjects is mainly one of morals and the ethical treatment of said animals. Many people believe we should use them in this way, so we aren 't actually harming people in the pursuit for better things for humans. Though animal testing was a viable resource for many years, it has proven to be extremely controversial and unethical, therefor the use of animals as research subjects should be outlawed.

The issue of animal testing is a widespread and very controversial topic. It entails carrying out torturous and harmful tests and experiments on animals (most commonly mice or rats, but also other animals like rabbits and guinea pigs) for scientific research, whether it be for medical causes, products or cosmetics. In many cases, animal testing is unavoidable – it is impossible to rid the world of something humans rely on so dearly; however, it is imperative that we recognize the moral impacts of our actions and stop relying on it as a major research tactic. It is quite odd that it continues to be commonly used, despite being largely ineffective, the abundance of alternatives available, and the moral issues it brings into light.

In the first place, the physical pain you cause to the animal goes above than a hundred. Most of these animals die because of the several damages they suffered when they are tested. According to The International Association for the Study of Painan pain is an “unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” that means that every time you feel something bothering your body and it gives you an unpleasant time is caused by pain. In other words, these poor animals suffer pain every time they are going to be testing by some product. More than a hundred animals are poisoned and getting

Furthermore, an animal’s biology is different from a human’s biology, therefore, the testing on humans is still going to be dangerous. (Animal testing is bad science). Over the years, we as humans have become more and more callous to the fact that over a million animals (mice, rabbits, frogs, monkeys, fish, guinea pigs, dogs, etc.) are killed every year for our own cosmetic reasons. These animals are forced to go through unbelievably inhumane conditions. Per Peta, before they are murdered, they may have their skulls drilled into, their spines crushed, their skin burned off, or even immobilized for hours. Rabbits are given shots to test for skin irritation levels, leaving them screaming and kicking until they eventually break their back or neck. (America 6) There are some chemicals tested on animals, that cause minimal discomfort of the animals. However, there are a number that will cause extreme, long lasting pain. To make things worse, animals are not given any type of pain relief. (Issues & Controversies) "They're scalded by chemicals on their skin and eyes, shoved into tubes no larger than their bodies and forced to breathe noxious fumes." (Issues & Controversies) It is

Animal testing remains a controversial subject and objections have been present virtually since its beginning. Over the past decades, medical and cosmetic companies have increased the number of animals in labs to test the effectiveness of their products. It is undeniable that animal testing has contributed to our advances in the fields of science; however, this method is not always requisite. Many times, animal data is unreliable because the anatomic, metabolic, and cellular differences between animals and people which may mislead researchers into disregard potential cures and treatments. Commonly animals used in experiments are forced to a prolonged periods of physical restraints, inhalation, and food and water deprivation. Large numbers of

Animals for animal testing are given life for a short time just to have it ripped out by a scientist in a lab coat. If it was a human child that was treated in the same way nobody would stand for it, why? Because animal testing is inhumane, cruel, and morally wrong. Animal testing started with “William Harvey 400 years ago to learn how blood circulated in the body” (FAQ). In a time before medical and technological advancements it was necessary to use animals to develop cures for horrible diseases such as smallpox and polio (Cook). However, in today’s society with a cure or vaccine for over 250 known diseases, Not to mention the 10 infectious diseases that have been 90% eradicated from the Western world (Lloyd). Animal testing is becoming obsolete with the modern advancements in today’s growing world.

For my paper I chose the topic of animal testing because I have always been very passionate for animals and against animal abuse. I have never believed in animal testing and that there were always other alternatives. I wanted to look further into and educate myself about what is being done about this and why it is an ethical issue. I have come up with an axiom to summarize this topic. Testing animals in research revolves around the relative or moral value of humans and animals, and many different viewpoints helped to contribute to the development of ethical principles of animal treatment.

Throughout history, animal testing has always been a controversial and sensitive topic. It can easily receive much hate as well as praise which could be accounted for by many different factors. Animal testing is such a broad idea that can be misconceived in multiple ways such as unethical animal breeding, mutations, or cruel product testing. Yet, that is not the case at all since animal testing could also have a positive and beneficial outcome to which helps people in society. While there are many controversial thoughts on the many different factors that apply to animal testing, I find it to be that many of the pros outweighs the costs that comes animal testing such as the ethical or moral reason. Although when including the ethical or

As horrifying as that mental picture may have been, I realize that there can be no solution without an alternative and luckily there are. EpiDerm testing uses reconstructed human epidermal to test how chemicals will react to actual human skin. According to mattek.com, “This procedure [EpiDerm] can be used as full replacement of the in vivo rabbit skin irritation test for hazard identification and labeling of chemicals.” Basically this test is just as effective as using rabbits and no one is harmed. Bovine Corneal Opacity can also replace the Draize eye test. For this test the eye of a slaughtered meat animal is used to assess how one might react if chemicals entered the eye. Many people question the validity of this alternative because of their skepticism on how the eye of a dead animal could provide accurate results, but fortunately it does. Tests to assess the legitimacy of this

In this test the chemical being tested if force fed to rats or mice in small amounts until the dosage is in excess. This is continued until at least 50% of the test subjects die. Although the test rodent may not die right away, it may experience seizures and internal damage. This test is considered to be the most cruel of the tests and can only determine how much of a chemical substance is needed to kill a small animal not a human being.