Validity Of Animal Testing

Laurie Pycroft, an advocate for animal rights states, “Humans differ from other animals anatomically, genetically and metabolically, meaning data derived from animals cannot be extrapolated to humans with sufficient accuracy”(Pycroft, Laurie, and Helen Marston). This is just one of the many reasons as to why animals should not be tested on. Testing on animals leads to problems down the road for when it has been approved for human test trials. The way these animals are used and kept is deplorable and inhumane as well. Animals should not be tested on in laboratories because they cannot be used to accurately test new drugs meant for humans.

As of 2015, 200 to 225 million animals are said to used in laboratory research for the biomedical industry annually worldwide. Typically defended by arguments of reliability and human health benefits, recently the question of ethics and values placed on animal testing have caused it to become a relevant and pressing topic that has been more widely discussed and debated. First off, the laboratory conditions that are instigated upon millions of animal models for the sake of medical research has been said to be unethical and cruel. Additionally, it has been debated that the results of animal experimentation are unreliable across a wide range of areas. Lastly, animal testing not only leads away from the direction of resources from more effective testing methods but also prolongs the duration of time humans may need to wait for an effective cure. Therefore, the potential benefits of animal experimentation are greatly outweighed by the risks and collective harm of humans and animals which is why resources should be directed towards more human-based testing procedures.

To begin with, navs.org tells us that humans differ from animals in various ways, animal models will never be able to accurately recapitulate what happens in the human condition. Due to humans differing animals in various ways, the results aren't always effective. Animals being tested on things that humans and animals differ from in basically just killing animals for no reason. Besides, articles.baltimoresun.com states that 90 percent of medications approved for human use after animal testing were later proved ineffective or harmful to humans in clinical trials. As a result, 90 percent of the tests done are ineffective and harmful to humans so there’s no point of doing animal tests. You could save thousands of animals by not doing tests on them. Since animal tests aren’t always effective, people should stop doing them and save the

Animal testing does not accurately predict possible reactions humans might have to animal tested drugs or cosmetics. ProCon.org says that 94% of drugs successful in animal testing fail during human trials. A drug released in 1999, called Vioxx, was tested and showed a positive effect on the hearts of mice, but ended up causing 27,000 heart attacks and cardiac deaths before being withdrawn from the market. A study by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, observed inflammatory conditions in ill humans, and experimented with 150 drugs, all of which were successful in animal tests, and found that none of them were successful in humans. A reason why animal testing is so inaccurate is because humans are very different. Despite having similar DNA to several animals, humans and animal test subjects differ in bone structure, organ size, and react in different ways to drugs that have been tested on animals. Paul Furlong, Professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University, said that "it's very hard to create an animal model that even equates closely to what we're trying to achieve in the human.” With 94% of our drugs failing during human tests, Furlong is, with no doubt, correct. Thomas Hartung, Professor of evidence-based toxicology at Johns Hopkins University also stated that “we are not 70 kg rats.” A final failure in the accuracy of animal tested drugs is that because animal

Throughout the years the use of animals in medical research has been a hot debate around the world. Although animal testing may be cruel and inhumane, thousands of humans are saved thanks to the research that animals supply researchers with. Animals testing have taken over our knowledge of medicine and treatments to a whole different level. Animal testing also does this in a cheap and effective way. Without animals testing out knowledge wouldn’t be up to date, in other words animals’ testing is good.

Animal testing is a controversial topic in today’s society, much more than it was 100’s of years ago. Testing on animals was practiced long ago, and is still practiced today. Greek writings about vivisection [the dissection of a live organism] can be found dated as early as 500 BC. At that time, in Ancient Rome and Alexandria, and later in Greece, vivisection was originally practiced on human criminals, but prohibitions on the mutilation of the human body soon arose. This caused a reliance on animals as a substitute for humans. Many physician-scientists believed that animals lacked intelligence, so justice and injustice could not possibly apply to them. One such physician-scientist was the popular Aristotle. Other physician-philosophers such as Galen (130-200 AD) engaged in public vivisections, which was a popular form of entertainment. The purpose of vivisection was to develop theories of human anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. In one of Galen’s experiments on an animal, he demonstrated that arteries actually contained blood, disproving earlier physician’s belief that the arteries contained air. A French philosopher named René Descartes (1596-1650) experimented occasionally on animals as well. He believed that animals were automata; unable to experience pain and suffering in the same way humans do. Lastly, English Physician William Harvey (1578-1657), through vivisection experimentation, discovered that the heart was the organ that circulated blood

For many years, the field of science has used animals in medical experiments worldwide, because of this innocent animals are being killed everyday. They are being tested with new drugs, new treatments, and by many makeup companies. Connecticut recently celebrated the passage of the “Beagle Freedom Law”, a law that requires laboratories to work with charities and rescue groups to find homes for research cats and dogs. Animals are being tested so humans do not have to be but animal tests do not reliably predict results in human beings, although animals are the closest thing to humans. Most experiments involving animals are flawed, wasting the lives of innocent animal subjects. Over 100 million animals suffer a year from testing. Testing animals is a lot more expensive than alternative methods and it is wasting government research dollars. Animal testing is not only a bad idea, but it is also inhuman and it should not be tolerated. The FDA should stop allowing animal testing. An animal does not give out the same results on a test than a human would.

After all, the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry prove that animal testing in drugs used by humans is unreliable. According to the FDA, 92% of drugs tested fail to meet the standards for human use. Animals do not share the same body system or physiological responses as humans, so why test these medication drugs on them? The National Anti-Vivisection Society states that it can be dangerous to apply animal-derived data to humans. Drugs that may be effective in animals may not be safe or effective in humans and vice versa. There are many examples where medications that worked on animals have proven to be dangerous to humans’ health. For example, the antibiotic, penicillin, was ineffective at treating infected rabbits and was toxic to guinea

Each study can cost thousands of dollars to create and because the results produced can be inaccurate, many tests are repeated multiple times. While a skin irritation test costed under seven hundred dollars to produce in 2005, other tests require almost one million dollars to create, such as the carcinogenicity test which cost over eight hundred thousand and with inflation, the costs are only rising. (Bottini and Hartung, 7). The excessive amount of money needed to perform these tests would only be worth it if the tests were providing useful information, but because these tests aren’t as effective as they should be, spending exorbitant amounts of money is inefficient and pointless. Furthermore, each test requires hundreds of animals over a long period of time(Bottini and Hartung, 7). The animals used in the study are bred specifically to be tested on. They are then researched on for an extended amount of time, and when the scientists have received the results they need, all of the animals that were participating in the study are killed (Stokes, S31). Again, if the research performed on the animals was providing worthwhile information then there would be at least some purpose for the subjects but because the nature of the studies have a high chance of being inaccurate, they cause the deaths of thousands of animals unnecessarily. Not only is animal testing ineffective, it is also extremely

All this is always justified by pointing out future benefits for people, but most of these tests are ignorant. Because every species have different nutritional needs, bodily functions and reactions to substances. It doesn't make any sense to test on them. That and is just unnecessary pain and torture for these beings. “Without doubt there are many experiments that will fail or lead to no use full therapy- such is the nature of all science” (“Animal Experimentation” 4). The results are inaccurate, there is a little chance of creating a cure that works for both animals and people. For example, when rabbits are tested for makeup products, people are tested anyways after the animal trials. “Vioxx, a drug used to treat arthritis, was found to be safe when tested in monkeys (and five other animal species) but has been estimated to have caused around 320,000 heart attacks and strokes and 140,000 deaths worldwide.” (Crueltyfreeinternational.org, “What is animal testing?”). Therefore, as most animals are tested for things that people “need”, that medication that is used will eventually get abused. There are cheaper and less cruel methods to test medicine without hurting animals or people, like artificial skin. I understand that scientists are using animals to “find cures” but greater of them will fail and an animal’s life goes to waste…...as this is the generation of technology. “Animal experimentation-an institutionalized form of exploitation- stands in the way of moral progress” (Haggarty 6). Animals are not needed anymore; they have somewhere better to be at, where they can be

For years, the French cosmetic company L’Oréal has coined the slogan, “Because you’re worth it.” However, a look behind the scenes of the cosmetic industry as a whole begs the question: is it really worth it? Over a hundred million animals ranging from mice, rats, rabbits, primates, cats, and dogs, are locked in laboratories across the U.S. and are subjected to chemical, food, cosmetic, and medical tests for human benefit (“Animal Testing 101”). Many of these animals are severely mistreated, and bear the pain of procedures gone wrong. On the flip side, products and medicines have been made safer and more reliable due to the positive contributions of laboratory tests. The issue has sparked over the last several years, leading many people to

Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, “we have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans” (Using Animals 2). “Terminally ill patients don’t care whether a cancer drug works on a mouse, or that some disease can be cured in another species. Such claims only taunt them with false hope. These people need real cures based on real science—not misleading and antiquated animal experiments” (Pycroft, Martson 3). Often times researchers claim that animal testing is essential to find information about humans regarding medical reasons. However, scientists linked cholesterol with heart disease through Epidemiology, not animal testing. When researchers thought radio keratotomy was impeccable through animals, the first humans were blinded (Greek 1). Some of the animals held in research centers are not even being used. Michael Markarian, officer of the United States Humane Society declares most of the chimpanzees held in the laboratories owned by the United States are not even being used for current research! They are just suffering in cages for years and years for no reason (Animal Experimentation 1). The Journal of the American Medical Association, “Patients and physicians should remain cautious about extrapolating the finding of prominent animal research to the care of human disease… poor replication of even the high-quality animal studies should be expected by those who conduct clinical research” (Using Animals

The effectiveness all up of this survey was good I didn’t have many problems with me getting information from people and collecting it all together and providing a analysis on what information was given to me. It was effective because I wanted to see people thoughts and opinions on how they thought about testing on animals and I had understood that most people are against that idea. I saw that people would take a cure for any type of disease even if it was tested on a animal because they seem to not have a problem with that because it would cure them. No one knows about any diseases that was cured from testing on animals. People mostly disagree that animal testing is worth the lost of the animals however some people are unsure on weather they

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.

It doesn’t help that animals are not a 100% match to the human body, either. Because of the body differences some tests may work on animals but, they have no effect on humans. A former administrator from the National Cancer Institute has said that they have been curing cancerous mice for decades (“Animal Testing Should Be Banned”). In some cases drugs that have been tested and approved on animals are extremely harmful for humans. According to the Federal Drug Administration in one year 1.5 million Americans were hospitalized due to harmful drugs (ProCon). People say that there is no other way to test drugs to see if they are truly safe for humans and animals alike, but that is where they are completely wrong. In fact there are many new ways to test drugs, cosmetics, food, and