Animal Testing
Introduction
Attention-getter: Visualize yourself somewhere locked and isolated, whether it is a closet, a cage, or a box. Now visualize yourself being constantly controlled, not being able to choose when to eat, when to drink, or even when to sleep.
Thesis: Animal testing is a heavy topic that usually goes unnoticed. To many scientists, animal testing is beneficial and to society it is morally wrong.
Credibility: After doing our extensive research, we are knowledgeable about animal testing.
Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to discuss multiple perspectives on animal testing.
Invitation: We invite you all to think about the different perspectives and to discuss your thoughts and views on this issue.
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believe that medical testing on animals is “morally acceptable” (faunalytics.org)
All drugs have dangers due to certain chemicals and substances. Because of animal testing, researchers have found another alternative to testing on humans.
Animal testing allows for scientists and researchers to determine the safety and quality of medicinal treatment before humans take it.
This means that humans aren’t being harmed and more lives are being saved.
Modern surgical techniques were also perfected on animals that helped save many lives today such as hip replacement surgery, kidney transplants, heart transplants, and blood transfusions.
Transition: Although testing on animals is beneficial to us humans, some animals being tested on, go through a large amount of agony and not many realize that.
“Every year in the U.S., over 25 million animals are used in biomedical experimentation, product and cosmetic testing, and science education...” (neavs.org)
All those animals are either held in captivity or euthanized. According to Humane Society International, most animals used in testing are usually deprived of water, force fed, and physically restrained for long periods of time while they are being tested.
Through the infliction of burns, wounds, and side effects, researchers examine the animal to study the healing process, and the infliction of pain to determine its effects and remedies.
An example of one of the treatments used by cosmetic companies is
Throughout the years the use of animals in medical research has been a hot debate around the world. Although animal testing may be cruel and inhumane, thousands of humans are saved thanks to the research that animals supply researchers with. Animals testing have taken over our knowledge of medicine and treatments to a whole different level. Animal testing also does this in a cheap and effective way. Without animals testing out knowledge wouldn’t be up to date, in other words animals’ testing is good.
The harmful use of animals in experiments is not only cruel and inhumane but also often ineffective. Animals do not get many of the human diseases that people do, such as major types of heart disease, many types of cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s disease, or schizophrenia. There have been past occasions where drugs passed on animals weren’t even safe. There is no excuse for animal testing in today’s techy world, there are now many alternatives for animal testing that would put an end to the pain and suffering endured by these innocent animals during human testing.
You may think of animal testing and picture a wet bunny all beat up and shivering in a cold barren cage. However, this is not the case, for the law requires that the lab animals are housed in an environment appropriate for their species and are well cared for (Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, 2011). Animals tested on in a laboratory can actually adapt with minimal stress and are provided with everything they need by highly trained professionals. Animal care standards in a testing facility are, more often than not, better than those at shelters, pet stores, even farms. However, I do not wish to neglect the test animals’ discomfort, for
Various studies have shown that animal experimentation often does not even help humans. Some even lead to harmful human reactions to the drugs being tested on animals. Yet we continue to use animal testing while other courses of action exist that do not involve harming an animal.
Animals that are put forward to medical experimentation contribute to cures and treatments that have saved many lives. The California Biomedical Research Association states that “nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals.” (California Biomedical Research Association). Animals that are used for these tests have contributed incredible discoveries on unimaginable areas starting on Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Heart Disease/Stroke, Diabetes, Birth Defects, and Spinal Cord Injuries. Animal testing has made medical discoveries to go from antibiotics to blood transfusions, from
To begin with, one of the advantages of animal testing is to find scientific discoveries to expand human lives. Animals are used to invent medical treatments such as ascertaining the
Animal testing is used to see the effects of products before the products are put up for human consumption. With this testing, thousands and thousands of animals are kept in cages and subjected to pain and isolation every year. Even though these animals endure this extreme pain for the safety of humans, results are rarely the same in animals as they are in humans. Even though animal testing is deemed as bad science, people say that every major medical advance is because of animal testing. This is not true, since we have vaccines, CAT scans, MRI, and many more advances that are not due to animal testing. Do we even need animal testing? Animal testing is misleading, cruel, archaic, and is not essential to medical research.
It is estimated that each year over 100 million animals in the United States are used for animal testing (ProCon.org, 2017). This is unlikely an underestimate as it is impossible to receive a correct count worldwide. Thousands of animals are to be euthanized from the complications they endure from testing. Animals are used to test scientific developments and commercial products. New medical and non-medical experiments are tested on animals to verify the harmfulness of new medications or the safety of a product that will be used on humans. Although the importance of animal testing brings more medical advancement over the years using fewer humans in experiments, it is still an expensive way of researching inaccurate results and at the same time, it is a practice of animal cruelty.
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
Many of the common procedures performed during animal testing can inflict pain on the animals. Animals should not be used for testing because during testing, animals are exposed to harmful chemicals through skin contact, force-feeding, forced inhalation, or injection into the body. Animals are often exposed to harsh chemicals, drugs, bacteria, and viruses which have the potential for causing the animals distress, inflicting pain, and killing the animals. In order to identify each animal, labs commonly clip their tails or notch their ears. Procedures that inflict more pain include: periods of physical restraint, being deprived of food and water, undergoing surgery, studying healing by inflicting cuts and burns, studying physiology by inflicting pain, studying behavior by causing distress, and killing by suffocation, neck breaking, or decapitation (Humane Society International, par. 1). Animals should not have to endure this suffering and inhumane treatment to create and test products and
Animal testing has been a controversial problem in today’s society and it affects people from all over the world1 not just animal activists or scientists. Most of the products and medicines used today have been tested on animals. These animals used in experiments have been thought to only benefit society but morally this hurts our society. This hurts our society because now animal testing has become a social normality and then humans have started to become null to this as time goes on. This slippery slope will only get worse if this is not stopped. This also hurts our society because scientist, physicians, and lawmakers must decide the justification for
“All you have to do is think of any major medical advances of the last 100 years to see the benefit of animal testing,”(Morrison, par.8). Without testing, we could never guess if the drugs were safe enough to be used on humans. Secondly, animals make up 36% (excluding insects and water animals) of living species. There is a large supply of animals that can be used for medical purposes, close to “26 million animals in the U.S. are being used for animal testing,”(Finter,
With testing, it is cruel and inhumane for us to use animals as our “test subjects”. “ According to Humane Society International, animals used in experiments are commonly subjected to force feeding(is), forced inhalation, food and water deprivation, prolonged periods of physical restraint, the infliction of burns and other wounds to study the healing process. The infliction of pain to research its effects and remedies, and "killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means." (ProCon animal
Animal testing is ineffective. After testing medications on animals that were approved for human use, 90% of them were proved unsuccessful and harmful to humans. Rats, mice, dogs, cats, rabbits, and more are used for testing. We are not the same! Our makeup is different and we should not trust products that are said to be safe or helpful if they were tested on animals. If we want to know if certain products are okay for humans to use, then we should test on humans; we are the ones using
In the society we live in, it is filled with debatable controversies. Figuring out a solution to an issue can possibly create quite a stir in our world. In the cooperation of finding a solution, understanding both sides of an argument is very essential. This can help create a better outline of what outweighs the other. With hundreds of topics to solve, there was one that stood out, animal testing. The use of animals for research testing is an issue that has been debated whether or not it is acceptable or not. Within this questionable topic, our main focus is on the researchers, animals, users, and environment. Terms that you may associate with animal testing would vary greatly, but there are some that can be used as an example such as testing, experiment, abuse, negligence, and acceptable. Have you ever thought about these words as you purchase medication or makeup products? As each individual has their own beliefs, is animal testing, acceptable? Not everyday will these words come to our mind as we pick up items from our local pharmacy or store. Granting that there are certain products that are cruelty-free, majority of our daily necessities have been tested with the help of non-human living organisms. The amount of harm that an animal may experience within an experiment of course would fluctuate due to the lab and researchers in which the experiment is being conducted within. Although animal testing benefits humans, as it brings more medical advancement and less human-based