Animal Testing Case

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

All drugs have dangers due to certain chemicals and substances. Because of animal testing, researchers have found another alternative to testing on humans.

In the first place, over one hundred million animals are used and killed each year in animal testing. These animals include mice, rats,

Experts who have studied this issue have found that each year, more than 100 million animals such as mice, rats, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, and birds are killed in U.S. labs for medical training, curiosity for experimentation, and drug, food, chemical, and cosmetics testing. The issue has remained for hundreds to thousands of years (estimated since 500 BC), and although it is a huge issue, it still hasn't been dealt with.

There is much debate over whether animal testing should be allowed or not. Some people think that it is not essential to sacrifice animals for human benefits because they are being abused and tortured severely during experiments. Some others who stand against animal testing claim that humans eliminate many lives on earth in order to safe humans’ lives, so there is no justice because even animals have the right to live on earth, yet these people do not consider the truth that animals are being used in the food industry or in the laboratories. Thus, if someone asks how many animals are being used in the laboratory experiments around the world every year, who can give an accurate answer? It can be one, ten, or fifty million. It is difficult to find the exact figure on this question because people only read news through mass media such as having a new vaccine which can help human avoid uterus cancer or a new medicine help humans cure strokes, but they also need to know how many lives of the animals would have to take in order to get theses vaccines. Therefore, some organizes think that animal testing is one of the most disturbing experiments ever, and it should be banned. Despite many controversies with opposing opinions, a compromise can be made in order to reduce the use of animals in the laboratory experiments.

Animal testing is remarkably cruel and inhumane. Animals that are used for testing are put in cages and isolated. They are usually, they are taken almost casually, housed appallingly, and denied anything close to a life (Newkirk). These animals are trapped their whole life and are stripped of their ways of life. Not to mention that within some of these laboratories, universities, and every other place that animal testing is conducted in, researchers treat animals very poorly. In one place, "workers were caught punching dogs in the face, screaming at the animals, and even simulating sex with each other while trying to inject a frightened beagle" (Newkirk). Not only do researchers do those cruel actions, but some "experimenters force-feed chemicals to animals, conduct repeated surgeries on them, implant wires in their brains, crush their spines, and much more" (PETA). Some may say that this does not happen and that animals do not experience pain anymore due to new laws, like the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). But, the truth is, these "laws" do barely anything, if nothing, to help stop the cruel

Drug testing using animals became important in the 20th Century. A pharmaceutical company in the USA created a mixture of sulfanilamide, using diethylene glycol (DEG) as a solvent. DEG is poisonous to humans, but the company’s chief pharmacist and chemist were not aware. The preparation led to mass poisoning causing the deaths of more than a hundred people. The public outcry caused by the incident and other disasters led to the passing of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. This required safety testing of drugs on animals before they can be distributed to the public. I chose this article because it gives out examples of what happened without animal testing or testing in

Pigs being shot, rabbits blown up, guinea pigs paralyzed with toxic nerve agent, and monkeys given smallpox. 100 million animals die in laboratories, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds are killed in laboratories for lessons in biology, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. Innocent animals are being tested on and killed every single day.

frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, monkeys, fish, and birds, are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity- driven experimentation, and chemical drug, food, and cosmetic testing” (Peta 1). Animals have been used repeatedly throughout the history of biomedical research. Early Greek physician-scientists such as Aristotle and Erasistratus, performed experiments on living animals. Every day, animals all over the world are killed in laboratories for testing. Although there is a rising number of activists fighting against animal testing and abuse, there are still an excessive amount of animals being

A big epidemic in testing is that drugs that pass animal tests are not necessarily safe for human consumption. In the 1950s the sleeping pill thalidomide, which caused 10,000 babies to be born with severe deformities, was tested on animals prior to its release. There was also the drug Vioxx for arthritis when tested it had positive response on the heart of mice, when the drug was released to humans there were more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths before being pulled from the market. (Medical Articles and Infographics, 2014)

“Each year, more than 100 million animals—including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing.” ("Experiments on Animals: Overview.") Some believe that animal testing is futile, while others say it is beneficial to science. Testing cosmetic, medical, and chemical products on animals is unreliable, unnecessary, and inhumane.

In the medical journal Animal Testing and Medicine, the article outlined an incident in 1937, in which a pharmaceutical company released a drug containing a harmful chemical compound known as “diethylene glycol,” which was marketed to the public (Hajar). The scientist had failed to acknowledge the potential of poisoning by the compound to the public, and upon its release there was mass poisoning. This frivolity of the scientists led to massive public outcry, and in turn lead for the movement of the passing of the “1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requiring the safety testing of drugs on animals before they could be marketed”(Hajar). More incidents following these lead scientists into the belief that animal testing was necessary as a safety net to prevent such tragedies from occurring again in the

Each year over 100 million animals gets killed by animal testing. According to Humane Society International, animals usually get force fed, forced inhalation, and food and water depriving.

One of those reasons is that animals are not excellent test subjects. Animals are not the same as humans. Using mice and rats to test the safety of drugs in humans is accurate only a mere 43% of the time (Arguments Against Animal Testing). That is less that 50%, therefore, animal testing should not be continued anymore.

"Animal testing is also testing the human health and environmental safety of consumer and industry products"("About Animal Testing"). All the procedures during the testings cause the animals suffering and psychological distress. At the end of an experiment most of the animals are killed and some are re-used in other experiments. "The most common animals that are used are: mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates"("About Animal Testing"). In Africa, Asia, and South America the monkeys are being trapped and being used in experiments or breeding facilities and their children are exported to laboratories. Some of the animal experiments are: exposing the animals to radiation, put the animals into terrifying situations causing them anxiety and depression, forcing them to inhale toxic gases, removing their organs and tissues to cause damage, and either inject them or force them to eat harmful substances. "More animal experimentations are: food and water deprivation, injuries to study how they heal, pain to study their physiology and treatment, and physical restraint"("About Animal Testing").