Animals are more than test dummies, they are friends, family or even sometimes considered your sidekick. So why do we experiment on them, aren't their lives just as valuable as ours? Even though animals are appropriate research subjects, considering they are similar to humans in many ways, testing on animals is wrong, cruel, and inhumane. Innocent creatures are forced or subjected to pain and are put in harm's way, there are better ways to test products that don't involve killing or harming animals. Some people may not know what animal testing is exactly. Let me enlighten you, as reported by ,Cruelty Free International, “Animal testing is any scientific experiment where an animal is used as the test subject. It is most likely to cause the animal pain, suffering distress or injuries that could last them their entire life and the animal is also normally killed at the end of the experiment.” This includes things such as, Injecting or forcefully feeding animals and or exposing harmless animals to radiation. Surgically taking animal organs and harming them while doing so. Forcing animals to breath in toxic gasses and also killing the animal to see how it reacts to pain. One of the many reasons why I believe that scientists should not be able to use animals as test subjects is because the number of animals injured, hurt, or killed. According to the article “11 Facts About Animal Testing” In US labs every year 100 million animals are crippled, burned, poisoned and abused. In tests of potential carcinogens, subjects are given an substance every day for two years. Other tests involve killing pregnant animals and testing on the fetuses. If you harm or mistreat an animal in any way, then it is considered animal abuse. So how is it that the cruelty that scientists show towards animals goes unnoticed? The United States Department of Agriculture signed into law the “Animal Welfare Act” in 1966. As stated by the USDA, It is the only law in the US that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, and transport. Yet animals are still being exploited by animal research facilities and cosmetic companies all around the world. In addition to that Michael O. Leavitt, former secretary for the US Department of
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.)
Animal Testing is widely known to be cruel and inhumane. Many animals suffer due to scientists wanting to test their products on them to benefit humans. The Humane Society International stated that animals that are experimented on are usually force fed, forces inhalation, deprivation of food and water.
i. According to Dr. T Page, Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals. Over 98% never affect animals.
To begin with, why is it done? Animal testing is done to protect humans from bad products that may hurt them, also to find ways to cure diseases that haven’t been cure yet. 95 percent of mice and rats are used for research. Mice represented the largest increase in research with their numbers going from 1.2 million to nearly 1.9 million in that period. Other animals also saw increases (Qtd animal experiment up to 73 percent, study says). Other animals that are used in research are rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, fish, and insects, and also less than one percent cats, and dog’s area also used for research. Another reason is to treat injuries and learn more about the animal bodies to find the similarity to the human body (qtd. animal research). Animal testing is inhumane when testing to protect humans. Some people say testing on animals are life changing experiments and with the help of animal experiment can discover blood transfusion, kidney dialysis, and gene therapy for example cystic fibrosis and types of cancer( Coster 7). Others think experimenting on animal is cruel and they suffer a lot. It is true
Although animals testing help humans in many ways it can be cruel and inhuman to the animals being tested on. Depending on which lab the end up in they could be treated poorly and starved. They could be “inflicted with burn wounds and pain to test for a healing process” (Brown, 2017). This is cruel and just wrong for many reasons. “When testing to evaluate irritation caused by
Animals can be burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused as a result of testing. And the list could go on forever. The way animals are being mistreated and tested on should be against the law. There is a different ways to do research other than killing and abusing animals. There are many alternate test that scientist can use to do there research without harming animals. Alternative test are defined as test that use the three “R’s”, a test that replaces a procedure that uses animals with one that doesn’t, a test that reduces the number of animals used in a procedure, and test that refine a procedure to cause less pain to the animal.(11 Facts about…)
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
Millions of animals suffer due to effects of testing they must endure. This testing is usually done unethically and causes major harm. It’s wrong to harm animals for the sake of testing products for society. Furthermore, animals are living creatures just like humans and should not be treated differently. While testing animals may be cheaper, it is morally wrong and causes many harmful side effects in animals.
Animal testing is an experimentation performed on animals. Scientists test on animals to assess the how safe and effective a product for humans is, this can be anything from medication, pesticides, industrial chemicals, food additives, household products, supplements, and cosmetics. Animal testing is morally wrong as it involves the torturing of innocent animals. “Right now, millions of mice, rats, rabbits, primates, cats, dogs, and other animals are locked inside cold, barren cages in laboratories across the country. They languish in pain, ache with loneliness, and long to roam free and use their minds. Instead, all they can do is sit and wait in fear of the next terrifying and painful
Animal testing is a huge problem. The methods used to test on them are dangerous and cruel. To measure the toxic effects, animals are forced to swallow or inhale massive quantities of a test substance or have the chemical smeared in their eyes and on their skin. This makes the animals endure severe abdominal pain, convulsions, seizures, paralysis and extreme internal and external bleeding. These horrific things happen to the animals before they are killed and eventually die from all the chemicals and toxins put on and in them. That is why animal testing is a big problem.
Ignorance, it’s is the lack of knowledge or information. Many say its bliss, right? That what we don’t know can’t hurt us. But this ignorance is killing millions yearly. Doesn’t matter if it’s a human or an animal, they both have the same worth, but people forget this. They call it medical research, they get away with murder. Every morning after we wake up we go through the same routine, eat, brush our teeth, shower and so on, what if I told you that most of everything you probably use daily is tested on animals. Would you believe me? The shampoo you use, like head and shoulders, tresemmé, Pantene and so many more are tested on animals. The face or body wash you use are tested on animals, ones like Garnier, clean and clear and Olay. Even toothpaste like Colgate is. This is the cruel reality, so many everyday products are torturing animals daily, killing millions off yearly. Though we are ignoring the problem, try to convince ourselves its better then testing on humans or simple we don’t think about how they test their product. This only makes the problem worse, companies continue to test on animals the more people buy their products This is the reality, this is what people try to forget.
While opinions on the matter differ greatly, animal testing has been ongoing since at least 500 B.C., and frankly, old habits are harder to break than new ones (animal-testing.procon.org). Like the extensively tested mouse in the short story “Flowers for Algernon”, many creatures are experimented on daily. The mouse, Algernon, went through daily tests that displayed his artificially increased intelligence; that is, until his foreseen but nonetheless tempestuous plummet in health (Keyes, Flowers for Algernon). Animals should not be used for experimental research potentially harmful to them because it is unnecessary with our advanced technology, expensive, and testing is often followed by misled
Animal testing is a cruel thing to do. It is inhuman and should be stopped immediately. What is being done to these helpless animals is disgusting. We do not put into consideration that these animals have feelings too. While we continue to bring harm to them we do not consider their feelings.
Recently, an animal was used to test perfume on, it was allergic to the perfume and died while being tested on. Millions of animals are dying from testings like this every year. Researchers are killing innocent animals for no reason. They never did anything to deserve to be killed and injured. Animals do not have to be locked up in cages most of their life and tested on because it does not even help discover accurate advances in medical technology. Animals should not be used for product or medical research.
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