The Pros And Cons Of Animal Testing

Imagine you are in Sephora and you notice your favourite brand of eyeshadow. However, you also notice that it is one of the many makeup brands that test on animals. You keep picturing the poor bunnies, kittens and puppies stuffed in cages starving or force-feed so much they cannot move. The sadness in their eyes due to the multiple surgeries and tests they are surviving. Animal testing is a form of commercial and scientific testing that should be banned. In a world as innovative as this one, it is unfair to have animals endure the test of drugs and other products for the benefit of humans. There are countless other effective methods of testing these products that do not involve harming living beings. The animals chosen for the testing are all-around different from the human species, making them not as accurate resulting in their danger for little to no reason. The use of animals costs much more than its equally effective counterparts. Testing harmful products on helpless animals is inhumane and cruel.

Imagine being born, only to live a life of torture. You are brought to a lab, and cruelly tested on against your will. Toxins poured into your eyes, painful injections to your skin, then left to die when you’re no longer useful. Although many do not realize it, people use products tested on animals in their everyday lives. For girls, many of your favorite makeup brands, such as Estee Lauder, Makeup Forever, and Maybelline take part in animal testing. Products such as toothpaste, cologne, deodorant, laundry detergent, razors, and even band-aids aren’t tested innocently, either. As a makeup enthusiast, I am passionate about how the products I use daily are tested. Today I will help you understand what animal testing is and how it started, how it’s currently affecting animals around the world, and what organizations are doing to help make a difference in the future. To begin, I will explain the history of animal testing. An animal test is any scientific experiment or test in which a live animal is forced to undergo something that is likely to cause them pain, suffering, distress, or lasting harm.(https://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/why-we-do-it/what-animal-testing) Animal experiments are not the same as taking your animal to the vet. Animals used in laboratories are harmed, not for their own good, and usually killed at the end of an experiment. Animal experiments include injecting or force feeding animals with potentially harmful substances, exposing animals to radiation,

Everyday cosmetic products that many people use, such as lipsticks, shampoo, face wash, etcetera, are verified to be safe using animal testing. Chemical burns and other short term ailments are very serious concerns that plague Americans and the knowledge that the products they use will not harm them and their families is possible because of animal testing. Also long term effects, such as cancer, have been discovered through animal product testing and promptly stopped saving countless lives. “NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS YOU’RE THE GUINEA PIG” (Source C). Living day to day with the risk that the products trusted to use on your children and yourself is enough to validate

A rabbit lives its life trapped in a laboratory. It doesn’t get fresh air and has different products tested on it every day. The product can make the rabbit go blind or cause its skin to burn, but there is nothing the rabbit can do about it. This is what happens to animals every day from cosmetic companies who test their products on animals. According to Cruelty Free Kitty (2017), over 30 cosmetic companies continue to use animal testing to improve their products. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2017), “the agency has consistently advised cosmetic manufactures to employ whatever testing is appropriate and effective for substantiating the safety of their products.” This means that if the company believes animal testing is the best option for their product they are allowed to do it. Testing cosmetics on animals is cruel and inhumane, and people should avoid using products that test on animals.

Over 100 million animals are crippled, burned, poisoned, and abused in US labs every year so people around the world can have red lips and winged eyeliner (“11 Facts About”). Cosmetic testing on living animals has become an outdated and cruel method of determining which products seem safe for the use of humans. This being said, animal testing is still prominent in the United States even though it is not mandatory to develop or sell products (“Cosmetic Testing”). Though better methods have been proven, other countries still require animal testing on any cosmetics being shipped into them. Their argument? Animals have been found to be the closest living beings to humans and, therefore, the most efficient

Animal testing for cosmetic products and substances should be banned completely because of the cruelty the animals encounter during the experiments. According to neavs.org, animals “spend their lives in barren cages, unable to make choices or express natural behaviors”( “Harm and Suffering”). The animals that are being used for testing are being contained in crowded cages in an unnatural habitat. They don’t get the freedom to experience fresh air or sunshine because of the condition they are kept in everyday. This restrains the animals from doing what they coexist to do naturally. The standard lab conditions causes animals to go through severe stress, which then later on appears as physical signs of stress. According to their website,

Animal testing should not be used in cosmetic industries as a source of experimentation because it is unethical and inefficient. It is a cruel way of trying to find results that are not even always trustworthy. Everyone has a different reaction to different chemicals so why even bother animals for testing? Also different species can respond differently when exposed to the same chemical so animal testing can be inefficient. The results from animal tests can be quite variable and difficult to interpret therefore it may not be applicable to human beings. Thus, consumer safety still cannot be guaranteed even after these gruesome tests which are totally unethical. It is also unethical to torture and end the lives of these animals each year for our own luxury. Everyday cosmetic industries are using defenseless animals very cruelly just to carry out some most often useless tests. Instead they should use other alternatives which has been proved to yield better and accurate results than tests involving animals.

Animal testing is wrong in many ways one of those being that cosmetics are mercilessly tested on animals. “Although the federal food, Drug and Cosmetics acts requires animal testing for pharmaceutical drugs and other chemical compounds that change the structure of the human body it does not specifically require testing of cosmetics” (NAVS). Instead of using animal testing I purpose that we make cosmetics from the already over 1000 proven safe ingredients.

Much progress has been made to end this testing, gearing the world into the right direction of animal testing free procedures, though, not everyone is on board. The United States have yet to hop onto the train toward a free animal testing future. The United States continues to test on animals for cosmetics even though there are numerous ways to test, without using animals, that are more efficient and effective than animal testing. (3D tissue samples of corneas made from human cells can be used instead of using an animal organ when testing for cosmetics side effects.) What is worse than the United States still testing on animals, is that there is continued demand for even more animal

Cosmetic testing is possibly the most trivial excuse for animal testing, animals are restrained in order to pour products into their eyes, often permanently damaging them. Products are applied to the animal's’ skin to test its hypoallergenic properties or acidity. And experimental BOTOX injections are administered, which can even leave animals with permanent paralysis of the muscle it is injected into.

Animal testing is something we have all heard about and/or read about. It is something most people would consider to be horrifyingly wrong. Animal testing is something that many claim to be against and will not support. The lines involving animal testing are a tangled web of blurry and missing pieces of a much greater puzzle. On one hand, there are companies that claim to be cruelty free, but the technicalities that are dug up beg to differ. On the other hand, there are big practices such as pharmaceutical practices that use animals to test on in order to create life saving treatments and medicines for humans. Do we make sure to buy cosmetic products that stray away from testing on animals but continue to take medicines

Should innocent creatures suffer for human vanity? Are there any alternatives to animal testing? Often times, cosmetic companies conduct animal testing to prove the efficacy and safety of their products prior to selling in certain international markets. Without the intent of ever making the test humane for the benefit of the animal. Countless of helpless animals have been left injured because of this and in some cases, have died. Animal testing in the cosmetic industry should end, as there are viable alternatives to this practice, animals are suffering, and it is unreliable.

Next, animal testing is cruel and inhumane towards the animals being tested on. According to Overton’s 2006 article, “It’s not just cruel, it’s ineffective,” the Animal Welfare Act requires all laboratories to keep a count on the animals used in testing, but this act does not require scientists to count mice, rats, and birds which are used in about 80% to 95% (p. 5). Because these animals are not covered and remain uncounted, millions of these animals could have suffered without knowing. Thousands of cosmetics and household products are tested on animals each day, most of them causing the animal severe pain. Most of the products do not work on the first trial and cause

Animal testing has long played a part in the science of testing, and it still plays a very important role in the medical world. Testing on animals in order to create a cure for AIDS is one thing, but testing on animals for human vanity is another. Animal testing is used to test the safety of a product. It has kept some very unsafe substances out of the cosmetic world. However, in this day in age, animal testing is not the only way to test the safety of a product. Animal testing in cosmetics has decreased over the years. However, it is still used by many companies in America. Animal testing is not only cruel, but it is also unnecessary in today’s advanced scientific world.

On average, 26 million animals are used every year for the use of research on cosmetics. These tests should be banned for many obvious reasons such as it is clearly cruel and inhumane, they cost more than alternative methods, and they do not predict an accurate result due to the anatomical differences. Animals are being unfairly tortured and killed for research on ingredients that people are unknowingly using in their everyday lives. Here’s an important question to consider; if an ingredient is potentially toxic or harmful in any way, why is it even being considered as part of a product to be used on our faces and bodies? There are other ways to test cosmetics that do not involve treating animals so unfairly, yet the