Persuasive Essay On Animal Testing

Animal testing is always a behind closed doors situation. Most people are aware that it is happening yet never give it a second thought. An estimate of more then 115 million animals all around the world, including the most common mice, rats, rabbits, and monkeys, are used in experiments every single year (“11 Facts About Animal Testing”, n.d.). And according to change.org the “USA spends $16 billion dollars annually for animal testing at tax payers' expense.” (“Sign the Petition”, n.d.)

Every year, a total of one million children die from pneumonia. If you multiply that number by one hundred, you will have the number of animals that suffer painful deaths due to medical experimentation in U.S. laboratories each year. This number includes animals of all types, from mice and rats to fish and birds. These animals are typically used because of tradition rather than actual scientific reasoning, making their deaths all the more cruel. Animal experimentation is not only unethical, but ineffective and expensive. It should be phased out and replaced with technological alternatives.

Animals endure so much pain and suffering when being tested on. In some cases, animal testing can be deadly or lead to serious side effects that will forever stick with the animal that was tested on. Animals hardly ever, to never benefit from testing. In research and testing, animals are subjected to experiments that can include everything from testing new drugs to infecting with diseases, poisoning for toxicity testing, burning skin, causing brain damage, implanting electrodes into the brain, maiming, blinding, and other painful and invasive procedures (NEAVS). It can include protocols that cause severe suffering. Also, can’t forget about the restricted living conditions where animals are forced to live in an unhealthy habitat out of their own element during the testing period. Animals in labs suffer not only pain from protocols, but also severe stress from day-to-day laboratory life. They spend their lives in barren cages, unable to make choices or express natural behaviors. Most never experience fresh air or sunshine, only bars and concrete. Although most think that the Animal Welfare Act protects animals from abuse, it is a common misconception that the AWA protects animals against abuse and harm in the laboratory or in other areas of commerce. This is not true. According to the National Anti-Vivisection Society the AWA regulates the use of animals in research and outlines standards for their care, it does not protect

Did you know that animals that are found in laboratories are not all legally protected? There are a couple organizations provided by Legal Animal Defense Fund that protect animals from being illegally used, such as Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) and mandatory Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC). AAALAC is an organization that promotes the humane treatments of animals used in experiments. On their website they explain that animal research is known as controversial topic. “But like others in the animal welfare

federal law that covers animals in research” (Laws and Regulations | Animal Use in Research). What protection does this provide for animals in use for research purposes? This Act provides the minimum standards by which the animals must be housed, fed, handled and attended to health wise. The Act further minimizes and limits its protection to only a number of species of which includes dogs, chimpanzees, cats and other warm-blooded animals. Some of the species that are not protected from this act include rats, mice and birds as well as many cold-blooded animals. One of the animals that I hear a lot about, as far as testing goes, is mice. Mice are used in a lot of testing ranging from cancer research, in an attempt to find new drugs, all the way to research in diabetes. The mice provide useful models for a wide range of human diseases and are not protected under the Animal Welfare Act so the treatment of these types of animals is unregulated. Some people may say that they are just mice, but they are still animals and experience pain and symptoms just like any other animal even though they are a pest. The reason mice make good test subjects for pharmaceutical companies is because of how similar the biological and genetic characteristics are to a human thus allowing for comparative testing. If this “compound” was found to have this effect on mice, then it would have a similar effect on humans and so on. The amount of

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.

The people who work for the ASPCA are dedicated to prevent animal cruelty. If there was a global ban on animal testing, it would end animal suffering for decades. “In short while, the AWA and the IACUC purport to insure ‘humane’ treatment of animals in labs, this system is so limited and plagued with loopholes that these animals have little or no protection,” (“Animals in Science/Research”), there are laws globally that ban animal testing. Unluckily, there are so many ways to avoid these laws that animals still are not protected. The United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services established institutional animal care. These agencies require that research faculties that “also use committees to evaluate the merits of research involving animals and monitor the treatment of experimental subjects,” (“Animal Experimentation”). This means that these agencies watch over the people who test the animals and limit their ability to do the harsh things they do to the animals. There are many ways to prevent animal testing. Some alternatives are different ways and different organisms are applied to enforce this strategy, as well as having a lower demand for animals. Some more are in “vitro (test tube) test methods and models based on human cell and tissue cultures, computerized patient-drug databases and virtual drug trials,

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) signed in 1966 is the only U.S. Federal Law that regulates the treatment of animals in research.

According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or more commonly known as PETA, “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 chemical, drug, food, and cosmetic testing; biology lessons; medical training; and curiosity-driven experimentation” (76). Not only is it clear the number of animals killed per year is extremely large, but also the number of uses, compared to their uses in the past, have expanded widely and are now being used for testing a large variety of things. We also now have statistics that show most people fund animal testing without even realizing it. Animal testing is funded in many ways which include “taxes, charitable donations, purchases of lottery tickets and consumer products” (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals 79). This is bad in many ways because people are never told this and by taking apart of these things they are encouraging and helping fund the use of animal testing. According to the People for the Ethical Treatments of Animals, in 2009 the U.S. National Institutes of Health “budgeted nearly $29 billion for research and development” (79). Instead of wasting money on this scientific testing, we should be funding research for non-invasive and less harmful methods.

When in a drugstore, whether you browse in the cosmetic, household, or daily products isle, the majority of the items have one fact in common--animal testing. For over a century now, thousands of companies have decided to experiment on animals in order to determine if it is safe enough for humans to use. However, testing on these animals is not a dependable source as it is costly to maintain and does not provide reliable results.

There are alternative testing methods that allow for no animal subjects, yet the clear majority of scientists still continue to use animals as subjects to their experimentations. There are now no excuses for animals to be used in laboratories when results and data can more accurately be gathered through the use of new biological and technological advances. Many substances tested on animals cause them harm, whether it comes in the form of pain or just through the long-term effects it will bear upon the animal. Laboratories do not always use pain relievers when submitting an animal to pain. In an article, titled “Pros and Cons of Animal Testing”, it states that Animal Welfare Acts can and are bypassed. It continues to mention that “The Animal Welfare Act, or AWA, was signed in 1966 in order to protect certain animals from cruel treatment. The animals that are chosen for testing are not covered in this act,” allowing those who preform animal tests to go against the Animal Welfare Act because it does not apply to their circumstances. This then leads to cruel or inhumane treatment of

Some of these companies even have alternative choices to test on rather than animals, but the law doesn’t require they be used no matter how valid they are. Laws also state that no experimental test is illegal in regards to performing the test on animals, meaning no matter how cruel or irrelevant to human health the lab test is, there’s nothing we can do to stop it as long as they say it’s for research purposes. The real sickening part, however, is that ninety five percent of animals used in experiments are excluded from the only federal law that we’ve set in order for any sort of protection for these animals. The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) requires the minimal standards and treatment be provided for certain animals bred for the use of commercial sale, in research, transported commercially, or exhibited publicly. Giving test animals

Medical research benefits humans greatly. In fact, decades of medical studies have made several diseases treatable, such as diabetes, tuberculosis, and malaria; moreover, medical research has prevented diseases altogether. Common for all these developments is animal-testing. While testing on animals is not morally ideal, scientists lack good alternatives. Thus, abandoning animal-testing is premature because medical research needs complex-system test-subjects, and the absence of which can be risky for pharmaceutical consumers.Viewed as inhumane to many, animal testing is not ideal; however, animal experimentation is necessary for the advancement of medicine.

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.

Animal experimentation causes tremendous harm and suffering to otherwise innocent animals. The cruelty level on testing ranges from food and water deprivation, to cosmetic purposes, to burning and chemical exposures, to injections of diseases they would have otherwise never contracted on their own, to purposeful death of an animal or groups of animals to see how it would take place or how much an animal can withstand before termination (Humane Society International). The Silver Spring Monkeys is known as the case that launched PETA. A member of PETA went undercover in a lab that tested on 17 monkeys living in tiny wire cages that were caked with years of feces that had accumulated (PETA). These monkeys were subjected to surgeries where their spinal nerves were severed, rendering one or more of their limbs useless (PETA). “Through the use of shock, food and water deprivation, and other methods, the monkeys were forced to try to regain the use of their limb(s) or go without food. The trauma of the monkeys’ imprisonment was so traumatizing they ripped away their own flesh and had lost most of their fingers from getting them caught in tiny wire cage bars.” (PETA). Experimenters also neglected to feed the 17 monkeys and would often force them to dig beneath their feces to try to locate food. The monkeys would be moved from cage to experimental tables and rooms only with a choking rod placed around their neck. This case was the first Supreme Court victory for animals used in