The Truth About Animal Testing

“People first started thinking of the ethics and cruelty to animals in 1714. It was not pet owners who first wanted to change the treatment of animals, it was the people who worked with agricultural operations” (Guither 2). The testing of animals is used all over colleges, medical schools, and pharmaceutical companies. It’s a fact that examiners experiment on animals for research on genetics, education, behavioral studies, drug testing, toxicity testing, cosmetic testing, and breeding.

Animal testing may have been a reliable source in the past, but not anymore in comparison to the other methods of experimentation today. Technology has brought about many different paths of research that are not harmful to living creatures and can produce more precise data. Ultimately, animal testing is a substantial problem that needs to be solved because animals in testing are treated as if they are

When picking up makeup or shampoo at a drug store, does one ever stop to think if an animal tested product is being bought or not? Innumerable people fail to consider how these products came to be or if there was animal experimentation was involved. Many people are oblivious to the appalling occurrences that take place in laboratories involving animal cruelty on a daily basis. Government officials and scientists believe that testing on animals is essential for medical research, but many of the results prove to be irrelevant and the reality is that most animals that are experimented on go through excruciating torture that frequently leads to death. Even though the methods of testing have greatly changed over the course of many years, this topic is widely debated between animal right’s activists, scientists and the government, as well as the public. It is inhumane to burn, electrocute, torture with drugs, poison with chemicals, or even kill an animal for the sake of a human’s well being. Although animal experimentation is a traditional method to develop more medical advancements with less human-based experiments, it is an expensive way of testing products and often the results show inaccurate outputs, and at the same time, it is cruel to the animals.

Animal Testing… If you’re unfamiliar with this practice, it’s when scientists use animals for scientific or commercial testing, which involves harmful experiments on the specimen by force feeding it, depriving it of food and water, inflicting painful wounds to study its healing process, and much more. These animals do not deserve to live through such cruelty and pain so scientists can figure out what happens if you inject lethal doses into innocent animals. Experiments like LD50 involve finding out what kinds of chemicals will kill animals and according to scientist records, fifty percent of these animals that were experimented on by scientists died. Fifty percent. That’s not even where the cruelty ends.

Animal testing has been vital for the development of new medicines and scientific studies for a long time. Whether it is ethically appropriate or not, however, is one of the most controversial issues in these days.

Animal testing has been a widely debated topic. Many think it is cruelty and others say it is “science”. In today’s society animal testing has been incredibly sugar-coated and deemed acceptable to the public eye, but when did the merciless slaughter of innocent animals for the simple luxuries of humans become acceptable? I believe animal testing should be banned because it is, cruel, unreliable and has proved to be unnecessary and that is why I am here to tell you about the inhumane manner in which animals are tortured ,mistreated because of the harsh ways of their experimenters ( scientists, military defence establishments, medical universities & Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology

According to PETA, statistics show that each year more than ten million animals are “killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing.” It’s no surprise that animal testing has caused a lot of controversy in the world throughout the past few years. Vegans and Omnivores tend to go head to head over the rights of animals. Some people even question if these animals should even have rights at all, while others believe that the lives of human being’s and these wildlife creatures are synonymous and go hand in hand, or they should to say the least. Not only does animal testing unethically lack mercy and morality, but it’s also not the safest and vigorous way to go. Quite a lot of people are opposed to this general disputation, and their argument will be debunked in this paper, after a thorough explanation has been presented along with their opposing positions.

“Right now millions of mice, rats, rabbits, primates, puppies and other animals are locked inside cold, barren cages, in laboratories across the country. They ache in loneliness, and long to roam free and use their minds. Instead all they can do is wait in fear of the next terrifying and painful procedure that will be performed on them,” is the opening statement on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or more commonly PETA, website. An estimated 29 million animals are used in scientific and commercial testing each year in the United States. Animal testing is often cruel, and cannot accurately predict results in human beings because humans are very different. This issue is very personal to me, as I love animals and have two

Testing on animals has always been a controversy often debated. Millions of animals are tested on each year to aid in the research and development of commercial and scientific products. Animals get tested on to ensure the safety of human use or consumption in anything from beauty products to medicine. Testing has enabled life-saving advancements in medicine; however it is no longer necessary to harm animals in the process of saving humans. Animal testing should be deemed unethical and illegal for several reasons. There are alternatives to animal testing which eliminates the need for animals to suffer any longer. New found studies show how much distress animals actually go through during the testing period. Current laws and regulations against animal testing aren’t strict enough and have no protected animals from physical and psychological harm. Animal activists have argued for decades against the cruel and inhumane mistreatment of animals and it is time that animal testing is put to a stop.

The harsh reality of the pain caused during animal testing is quite hard for some people to bare. Animal testing’s barbaric methods lead to extreme pain for the animals, whether the pain is mental or physical. For example, a large majority of the intelligent animals subjected to animal testing display the same behavioral signs that a tortured human being exhibits (Goodman). These intelligent animals suffer from severe anxiety, depression, hair loss and other physical and mental illnesses and engage in self-destructive behavior such as biting themselves and pulling out their own hair (Goodman). This is due to the emotional and physical trauma that is induced. Martin Wasserman, former Maryland secretary of Health and Hygiene wrote, “Animals used in chemical testing- always alive and fully conscious- are never given pain relief. They’re scalded by chemicals on their skin and eyes,

Throughout the years, controversial topics such as animal testing have morphed into a variety of different questions. Scientists are always coming up with new topics to debate. Many people often overlook the effects of animal testing. This has been going on for decades since many are unaware of the results and the damages animal testing can cause. However, as time progresses, more people are becoming more informed about this and taking it into action. Animal testing is cruel and inhumane since many innocent animals’ lives are being taken due to our selfish needs. During 2000-2010, scholars argued that animal testing can be reduced or improved in other ways rather than eliminated completely. Although, from 2010 and on that conversation has changed to whether or not computer programming could work as a permanent alternative since there was research that proved this experiment to be valid. Such as, in vivo testing, which literally means ‘in glass’ experimentations that does not require animals at all.

Animal testing; appealing or atrocious? Each year, more than 100 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories for medicinal training, classroom lessons, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. Animals are not objects. Many Americans fight over the pros and cons of this two-sided argument. Although animal testing may further advance the medical field, scientific experimentation on animals is unfavorable among a large portion of the American population because these creatures are imperfect analogs for the human body, the process is wasteful in terms of money and the lives of the creatures, and the testing of innocent, guileless animals is now considered archaic by most.

Ninety five percent of the animals experimented on in America are not protected under the Animal Welfare Act. (Hoffman 1). This leaves the majority of animal’s rights unprotected and vulnerable. The animals may be subjected to things such as: “testing drugs , infecting with diseases, poisoning, burning skin, causing brain damage, implanting electrodes into the brain, maiming and blinding, long-term social isolation, electric shocks, and the withholding of food and water” (Animals in Science/Research 1). The experimentation of animals should be banned because it is unethical, unreliable, and has an extremely low ratio of the number of experiments to amount of success they lead to.

An estimated 26 million animals are mistreated every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing (“Background”). Animals are used to develop medical treatments, determine toxicity of medications, check the safety of products destined for human use, and other biomedical, commercial, and health care uses. Research on living animals has been exercised since at least 500 BC (“Background”). Most of these animals include dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, pigs, sheep, monkeys, chimpanzees, rats, mice, and birds (“Harm and Suffering”). It has caused so many animals to suffer and die painful, slow deaths. The animals that are tested are forced to eat adverse substances, inhale harmful toxins, and remain immobilized so they can be utilized for experimentation. Not only do they endure painful procedures, they also suffer from mental abuse. They are locked up in scanty cages at all hours and are neglected by their holders. Animals should have basic moral rights to proper treatment. Another problem is the minimal protection they have with the Animal Welfare Act (“Harm and Suffering”). It allows rats, mice, and birds to be experimented on and consequently these animals make up ninety five percent of the testing population (“Rats”). Animals testing should not be used because it is morally wrong to harm an animal for another's benefit, animals may react differently to certain medication and cosmetics than humans, and there are other ways to do testing that do not include

From the time of the Ancient Greeks up until present day, the words animal experimentation sparks an abundance of opposing opinions. While public support of animal testing gradually declined as the public became more educated towards what was entailed, the use of animals in laboratories around the world exploded. This created an increase in concern over animal welfare, and generated a new level of controversy over the use of animals for medical and cosmetic research. Animal testing controversy has become as vocal as ever, as the public weighs the pros and cons of crossing the line of what is moral, and what is done in the name of science. Animal testing in North America is damaging the reliability of medical research and testing moral codes boundaries as it creates more problems than it solves. Animal testing should become a prohibited practice because of the cruel and inhumane treatment of the animals, the variety of alternative methods than can be used in place and animal testing being a flawed, unreliable and expensive scientific method.