How do the contributions of animal testing to global medical science justify whether or not it should be banned?
According to the Humane Society International (HSI), animal testing or animal experimentation for medical research refers to the experimentation on live animals for the purposes of investigation on diseases, medical treatments, or fundamental biology. Charles Gross, a former member of the History of Neuroscience committee of the global Society for Neuroscience, states that animals were used for improving medical knowledge even during the 2nd century when Galen, a Greek physician, utilized pigs for experimentation. Galen’s research led to a better understanding of how the brain and heart function in Western Europe (Gross).
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The NEAVS demonstrates that animal testing is often unsuccessful by reporting that 95% of all cancer drugs that work on animals fail in human testing (“Limitations”). The NEAVS further argues that sometimes drugs produced from animal experimentation actually harm humans as they report that an arthritis drug, Vioxx, was deemed safe by animal studies but was taken back in 2004 after causing 60,000 deaths in the US (“Limitations”). As shown, the NEAVS primarily argues that animal experimentation should be banned because it often fails to benefit humans (“Limitations”). Although the NEAVS poses strong information as to why animal testing is ineffective, information published by the NEAVS might only pose the negatives of animal testing as the organization works to end animal experimentation (“Limitations”). Gill Langley, a British scientist, agrees with the NEAVS that the high failure rate of animal testing proves that it should be banned. She supports her argument by stating that 100% of the AIDS vaccines developed using chimpanzees and monkeys failed to work in humans (Langley). Langley demonstrates the unsuccessfulness of animal testing by reporting that within 97 drugs for stroke that have passed animal tests, only two work.
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.
For many years, the field of science has used animals in medical experiments worldwide, because of this innocent animals are being killed everyday. They are being tested with new drugs, new treatments, and by many makeup companies. Connecticut recently celebrated the passage of the “Beagle Freedom Law”, a law that requires laboratories to work with charities and rescue groups to find homes for research cats and dogs. Animals are being tested so humans do not have to be but animal tests do not reliably predict results in human beings, although animals are the closest thing to humans. Most experiments involving animals are flawed, wasting the lives of innocent animal subjects. Over 100 million animals suffer a year from testing. Testing animals is a lot more expensive than alternative methods and it is wasting government research dollars. Animal testing is not only a bad idea, but it is also inhuman and it should not be tolerated. The FDA should stop allowing animal testing. An animal does not give out the same results on a test than a human would.
A Necessary Evil?” written by Danielle Paterson, a pre-vet student at James Madison University argues that animal testing should be stopped. Paterson explains the cruelty behind animal experimentation. To oppose her argument, a 2016 article by the title of “Medical Experiments on Animals Are an Important Element of Drug Development” written by Geraldine Wagner, a graduate of the state university of New York argues the importance of animal
Despite many animal testing protesters, the benefits of animal testing in the field of medicine for humans
Whether animal testing is considered to be useful or unnecessary in the development of medicine is an ongoing discussion. Animal testing is the issue Andrew Rowan and Jack Botting with Adrian Morrison discuss in both their articles. “Avoiding Animal Testing” was written in 2011 by Andrew Rowan and was published in The Scientist. Jack Botting along with Adrian Morrison are the authors of “Animals are Vital to Medicine,” which was published in the Scientific American. All three authors clearly state their position on this issue from the beginning of their articles, starting with each of their titles. In “Avoiding Animal
Animals have been used all throughout history to test the effectiveness of medicines. Rachel Hajar discusses the history of this controversial issue. Early Greek scientists performed various experiments on animals to advance their understanding of anatomy, physiology, and other sciences. Some scientists even performed surgical procedures on animals before performing them on humans. Based on this history, we can say that it is necessary to preform experiments to advance knowledge, although those against animal testing claim the benefit to humans does not justify the harm to animals.
Animal testing has contributed to many life-saving cures and treatments for humans. In the last century, nearly all the medical breakthroughs, for finding cures and treatment for diseases, were directly from animal testing. Animal testing first began in 129 A D with a Greek doctor named Galen. Galen’s main focus for conducting animal testing was to advance the understanding of anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. Scientists have been doing animal testing for various reasons, from finding cures to diseases to testing makeup to see if the makeup is safe for human use. Animal testing has been good for humans, but not much for the animals being tested on. While many people do not agree with animal testing because of the high risks
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics records the use of roughly 26 million animals per year for animal testing. These test reports in many cases are poor. Although animals were greatly used in the past the effects of treatments on animals and humans can’t be compared. The human body, reactions to toxins, and usefulness of treatments is different because we are different, “While animal’s maybe ‘whole models,’ states Dr. Aysha Akhtar, MD,” they are the wrong whole model because of interspecies differences.” Testing animals for human treatments should not continue to be practiced.
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
As of 2015, 200 to 225 million animals are said to used in laboratory research for the biomedical industry annually worldwide. Typically defended by arguments of reliability and human health benefits, recently the question of ethics and values placed on animal testing have caused it to become a relevant and pressing topic that has been more widely discussed and debated. First off, the laboratory conditions that are instigated upon millions of animal models for the sake of medical research has been said to be unethical and cruel. Additionally, it has been debated that the results of animal experimentation are unreliable across a wide range of areas. Lastly, animal testing not only leads away from the direction of resources from more effective testing methods but also prolongs the duration of time humans may need to wait for an effective cure. Therefore, the potential benefits of animal experimentation are greatly outweighed by the risks and collective harm of humans and animals which is why resources should be directed towards more human-based testing procedures.
Some people believe that animal testing is essential for the medical breakthrough, while others disagree. Thanks to biomedical research people
Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, “we have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans” (Using Animals 2). “Terminally ill patients don’t care whether a cancer drug works on a mouse, or that some disease can be cured in another species. Such claims only taunt them with false hope. These people need real cures based on real science—not misleading and antiquated animal experiments” (Pycroft, Martson 3). Often times researchers claim that animal testing is essential to find information about humans regarding medical reasons. However, scientists linked cholesterol with heart disease through Epidemiology, not animal testing. When researchers thought radio keratotomy was impeccable through animals, the first humans were blinded (Greek 1). Some of the animals held in research centers are not even being used. Michael Markarian, officer of the United States Humane Society declares most of the chimpanzees held in the laboratories owned by the United States are not even being used for current research! They are just suffering in cages for years and years for no reason (Animal Experimentation 1). The Journal of the American Medical Association, “Patients and physicians should remain cautious about extrapolating the finding of prominent animal research to the care of human disease… poor replication of even the high-quality animal studies should be expected by those who conduct clinical research” (Using Animals
Animal testing, because of its links to animal cruelty, causes many people to question whether it should be outlawed. Without animal testing in medical field, medical research would not have the vaccinations in use today that saves lives every minute. Galen, a European physician in 200 AD, used animal experimentation to understand and comprehend the complexity of the human body. Even in today’s time, the human body is a mystery and things happen that physicians cannot explain or understand.
The article, “Limitations and Dangers,” written by NEAVS, explores the shortcomings of practical animal testing and the risks posed to human health. According to the article, the exorbitant costs of testing a new drug are accumulated when said drug needs to go through multiple rounds of testing before being deemed safe enough for human trials; the phrase “time is money” is an entirely true statement in the medical research industry. The amount of time needed to complete testing could potentially require billions of dollars, as seen with common rat testing to determine a substance's carcinogenic properties. Such tests will take, “up to five years from planning to evaluation and review, at a cost of up to more than $4 million per substance” (“Limitations”). The inefficiency in cost and time required make it difficult to thoroughly evaluate the potential effects of more than 100,000 chemicals currently sold worldwide, as well as the millions of combinations of these chemicals (“Costs”). In addition to the cost of proctoring the tests, the cost of purchasing the animals needs to be factored into whether this practice is economically solid. Evidence suggests that animal testing has continued despite its limitations because for-profit commercial interests are giving the animal research industry the financial motivation needed to continue. Research facilities require massive amounts of money to not only conduct tests, but to purchase and raise animals , such as, ”The Jackson Laboratory—’a leading mammalian genetics research center’— [who] sold 2.9 million mice for a profit of $98.7 million” (“Limitations”) in 2010. Clearly, exorbitant costs associated with using the outdated methods of animal testing are not
Animal testing is the use of non-human animals in research and developmental projects, especially for purposes of determining the safety of substances such as food or drugs (Animal Experimentation 4). Along with these reasons, animals were also used to understand anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology in experiments that trace all the way back to 129 AD (Hajar 5). A physician from Rome named Galen conducted these experiments (Hajar 5). Ever since the early Greek physician-scientists started using animals to test on, animal testing has become more and more popular.