Physicians are known to have performed vivisection on animals for hundreds of years, and nowadays animal testing remains an essential element of research in medicine and pharmacology. Animal experimentation has generated heated discussions among scientists, philosophers, and politicians. This issue is very controversial, since it involves ethical questions. While it is generally accepted that testing cosmetics on animals is unnecessary and immoral, there is a debate concerning the use of animals for medical purposes. Our society is split into supporters and opponents of animal experimentation. The latter tend to resort to violent methods of protest, namely they intimidate physicians involved in animal testing, etc. Whereas proponents of …show more content…
In many countries throughout the world testing drugs on animals is legal. In fact, medications and other substances like household chemicals will not reach the market unless they are tested and proved to be safe for consumers (ILAR 21). Thus, animal testing is crucially important for exploring maladies and evaluating the safety of medications.
People who disapprove of use of animals as research models frequently appeal to cases when the results of animal testing turned out to be unreliable. It cannot be denied that sometimes treatments approved after animal experimentation are ineffective or even harmful for people. However, it is impossible to ban animal testing only because of these instances, since such errors occur rarely as compared with the number of lifesaving medications that appear as a result of animal research. The examples given below will help to understand the significance of vivisection on animals. There is a long list of illnesses which can be cured today due to animal experimentation. For example, diabetes, appendicitis, diphtheria are successfully treated nowadays as a result of experiments involving animals (Loeb et al. 2716). Antibiotics, which treat bacterial infections, drugs to reduce depression and treat cancer, insulin, open-heart surgery, and medications, which reduce cholesterol in blood, have evolved from animal experimentation (Watson 30).
A number of medical advances achieved through
“It is a simple fact that many, if not most, of today’s modern medical miracles would not exist if experimental animals had not been available to medical scientists. It is equally a fact that, should we as a society decide the use of animal subjects is ethically unacceptable and therefore must be stopped, medical progress will slow to a snail’s pace. Such retardation will in itself have a huge ethical ‘price tag’ in terms of continued human and animal suffering from problems such as diabetes, cancer, degenerative cardiovascular diseases, and so forth.”
Animal Testing is uncertain and hard. Animals go through a series of tests are very painful, most of the time they are not even given anything for pain. Some product tests require the same painful procedure on a daily basis over a weeks' time. Most tests on animals cause permanent injury or even death. The tests performed on animals are not always reliable. A medicine that may be safe with animals may not be for human beings. For example, aspirin is toxic to cats, so if we were to test this medication on cats, it would not help to determine if this was a safe product for human beings. One alternative to animal testing is human testing, if we are looking to find out if the product works on humans, we should test them on humans. That case "No
A life can be taken or created in a matter of seconds and with that has come the miracles of modern medicine. People have come to expect science to save lives, prevent illness, relieve suffering and improve the quality of life. The means of curing, treating and preventing diseases are not achieved by magic or accident. Medical advances are gained through years of intensive research -- research in which laboratory animals have played, and continue to play, a critical role. Opponents of animal testing are wrongfully determined that this process is completely unethical.
Animal activists and scientists experience ongoing conflict between animal experimentation and biomedical ethics. Animal testing is one of the oldest methods of experimentation. In the 1980s, the animal rights movement and the argument surrounding the ethics came under fire. As a result of this movement, the experimental procedures became public, giving more incentive to the activists and momentum to their cause. The ethics of animal experimentation come into question in everything from beauty products to the food and vitamins that are sent to consumers worldwide. However, because of the industries ' involvement within animal experimentation, many consumers do not know how these products they are purchasing are tested. Although the ethics of experimentation have come into question, new ideas of experimentation have progressed. Within the biomedical field, new testing methods for both medicine and beauty products have evolved. Because of this new technology, activists against animal experimentation argue that the necessity of animal experimentation is unneeded. In contrast, scientists argue it is not outdated. Despite the progress made by the activists many scientists still believe that animal experimentation will be needed. Although animal testing may have served as a useful tool in the past, it no longer is as accurate as the new technology and research methods from the 21st century.
Testing drugs on an animal is not only wrong, but also inaccurate. There are drugs tested on animals and thought to yield positive results, however “92% of experimental drugs deemed to be effective fail in a human trial.” Such mistakes have led to dangerous drugs being sold off the shelf. The inconsistency of effective drugs isn't helped by the undesirable living situations of some of the testing subjects. Many subjects live with others that are sick or in places that are unsanitary, which also hinders the results of the tests (Animal Testing - ProCon.org.).
In history, animal experimentation has played a significant important role in leading to new discoveries and human benefit. However, what many people tend to forget are the numbers of animal subjects that have suffered serious harm during the process of experimentation. Each day across America innocent animals are used as test subjects for products that have little to no relevance importance. Animal testing has had many negative issues arise in society in a negative way. Debating over the animal rights movement has raised many questions and concerns for years. There is an ongoing controversy regarding if companies should stop testing their products on animals. Although animal research has been the cause of many medical breakthroughs, is it morally and ethically right to put animals in these kinds of situations? This is one of the underlying questions that must be solved before it is too late. When considering how truly reliable the results of animal test are, and the expense of testing will help bring new light to the problem. By simply passing a policy will not only address this issue, will help better products and medicine in the future.
Scientists use animals in order to make medical advancements to help humans however, it is often difficult to get the same results in both animals and humans. The biology of humans and animals is not the same, although there are some similarities. According to Akhtar, in an article titled “The Flaws and Human Harms of Animal Experimentation”, “Annually, more than 115 million animals are used worldwide in experimentation or to supply the biomedical industry” (Akhtar). Millions of animals are used, against their will, to try to help humans. Although there are some instances in which the experiments have helped humans, is it really worth the pain and suffering that all of those animals have had to suffer. Akhtar also stated “Although it is widely accepted that medicine should be evidence based, animal experimentation as a means of informing human health has generally not been held, in practice, to this standard” (Akhtar). There has been some cases in which testing medicine on animals has benefitted humans, however this type of result is hard to duplicate. Often when a result is achieved in the lab, there are many influences that can cause these
With every new emerging disease and make up trend, hundreds and thousands of drugs are tested and evaluated before they are sold and used to ensure their safety in humans. Animal testing, also referred to as animal experimentation and animal research involves experimentation on animals such as mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters in labs to investigate the safety and efficiency of a variety of products ranging from medication to cosmetics and even understanding the physiology of the human body. However, with masses of animals killed each year for this purpose; this essay will aim to evaluate the necessity of animal testing as well the opposition to why animal testing should not be a part of our human nature.
But also, since the beginning of animal experimentations about a century ago, there have been a large number of medical advancements. According to Simon Festing, the animal research has helped us understand the biology of both humans and animals and also lead us to the discovery of cures and treatments of diseases. (570) Some examples of treatments are anesthesia, blood transfusions, penicillin, medicine for asthma, hypertension, and leukemia, vaccines against polio, measles and meningitis. We now know more about animal testing… C. Finally, let us move on to the ways this issue can be solved, as in the alternatives and what we can do to put an end to it.
Each year in America 100 million animals die from animal testing. Many animals suffer the pain through animal testing, even though they have found more accurate testing without using animals. Sometimes the drugs that pass animals do not always have the same effect on humans. Some of the new methods even mimic parts of the human body. Testing drugs on animals is not an acceptable way to test because drugs passing animal tests are not always safe, what they do to animals is cruel and inhumane, and because they have found other safer ways to run the tests.
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
First off Vivisection is the practice that uses living animals for operations for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research. In shorter words vivisection is a type of animal testing. Aristotle used animal testing in 384-322 BC(Hajar 1). This just shows animal testing has been going on for decades. Vivisection is viewed as a harmful abusive practice to animals. If their was a way to demolish vivisection in the future there would be other alternatives that would replace it.
Every year, millions of animals suffer through painful and unnecessary tests. Animals in laboratories all over the world live lives of deprivation, pain, isolation, and torture. Even though vast studies show that animal experimentation often lacks validity, leading to harmful human reactions, we still continue to use this method of experimentation, while many other less-expensive and more beneficial alternatives exist. Going beyond the issue of animal experimentation being morally wrong, this form of research is also hindering medical progress. Although the use of animals in laboratories is said to be necessary for the welfare and health of humans, people mistakenly believe that this immoral and unscientific method of experimentation is
Animal experimentation today is much different than it was 100 years ago, it is still changing today, and will continue to change forever. Keeping to a moral high ground is difficult if a milestone is close to becoming met, people get greedy or overly ambitious. Pushing aside ethics to achieve a result is a very common and many times it has been beneficial for the greater good. Drawing a line for professionals to not cross is the best thing to protect the rights of individuals and animals. Many experiments go on across the world that increase the well being of humans, some impact humanity more than others. People need to develop a moral compass to keep animal experimentation humane, laws are a perfect example for guiding research.
In society, animals are treated and viewed as inferior in comparison to humans. However, this theory is far from the truth. Therefore, medical and scientific research conducted with the use of animals has become a problem. Animals who are subjected to foul treatment, and ultimately death, are evidence of inhumane action taken upon something that the scientific community now, in the twenty first century, can change the course of. There have been a number of occasions in which I have witnessed the foul treatment against animals. However, it is little in comparison to what happens behind the production of products, drugs, and medicines people use everyday. This idea is devastating and has the ability to change the perspective on how unethical and inhumane these processes are. In order to mitigate inhumane treatment against animals, new and modern solutions must be implemented within the testing process of scientific and medical research.