4. Write an essay discussing under what circumstances, if any, animals should be used for scientific experimentation.

[Patterns for College Writing] [Writing Assignments for Argumentation]

[Laurie G. Kirszner] [ Stephen R. Mandell]  [ Let Them Drink Water, Daniel Engber]

 

Using animals in research and to test the safety of products has been a topic of heated debate for decades. Sixty percent of all animals used in testing are used in biomedical research and product-safety testing. People have different feelings for animals, many look upon animals as companions while others view animals as a means for advancing medical techniques. However, individuals perceive animals, the fact remains that animals are being exploited by research facilities and cosmetics companies all across the country and all around the world. Animals being used for research should be banned due to the pain that the animal is going through for the research, the suffering that is caused is not worthy enough for human benefits, and it is completely unnecessary due to alternative resources such as using natural resources, Eyetex, and Vitro testing.

First, animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research. Some would argue animals and people are alike in many ways; they both feel, think, behave, and experience pain. Animals should be treated with the same respect as humans. Yet animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research because they are not given a choice. “Animals used in experiments are commonly subjected to force feeding, 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”( ProCon 1). Animals are subjected to tests that are often painful or cause permanent damage or death, and they are never given the option of not participating in the experiment. For example, that animal experimentation is morally wrong no matter how much humans may benefit because the animal’s basic right has been infringed. Risks are not morally transferable to those who do not choose to take them. Animals do not willingly sacrifice themselves for the advancement of human welfare and new technology. Their decisions are made for them because they cannot vocalize their own preferences and choices. When humans decide the fate of animals in research environments, the animals’ rights are taken away without any thought of their well-being or the quality of their lives. Therefore, animal experimentation should be stopped because it violates the rights of animals.
Next, the pain and suffering that experimental animals are subject to is not worth any possible benefits to humans.

“Modern medical advances such as antibiotics and vaccines are not the result of
animal experiments. For example, experiments with mice and rats failed to turn
up any connections between cancer and smoking. Epidemiological studies, not
animal experiments, found links between heart disease and cholesterol.
Furthermore, more than half of the medications released between 1976 and 1985
were taken off the market or relabeled because dangerous side effects were
discovered that had not been found in animal experiments. AIDS research with
primates has also shown a high level of failure. Instead of relying on animal
experiments for their research findings, scientists should use other, more
dependable, techniques such as in vitro testing, modeling studies, and clinical
research. Animal experiments continue only because they are profitable.” Mur, Cindy Animal Experimentaion (25).

Animals feel pain in many of the same ways that humans do; in fact, their reactions to pain are virtually identical (both humans and animals scream, for example). When animals are used for product toxicity testing or laboratory research, they are subjected to painful and frequently deadly experiments. Two of the most commonly used toxicity tests are the Draize test and the LD50 test, both of which are infamous for the intense pain and suffering they inflict upon experimental animals. In the Draize test the substance or product being tested is placed in the eyes of an animal then the animal is monitored for damage to the cornea and other tissues in and near the eye. This test is intensely painful for the animal, and blindness, scarring, and death are generally the end results. The Draize test has been criticized for being unreliable and a needless waste of animal life. The LD50 test is used to test the dosage of a substance that is necessary to cause death in 50% of the animal subjects within a certain amount of time. To perform this test, the researchers hook the animals up to tubes that pump huge amounts of the test product into their stomachs until they die. This test is extremely painful to the animals because death can take days or even weeks. Which causes vomiting, diarrhea, paralysis, convulsion, and internal bleeding. Since death is the required endpoint, dying animals are not put out of their misery. Michael Balls sats that the LD50 test is “scientifically unjustifiable”. Even though the use of the Draize test and the LD50 test to examine product toxicity has decreased over the past few years, it has not been completely eliminated. Medical and cosmetic testing should be stopped to prevent more waste of animal life.

Finally, the testing of products on animals is completely unnecessary because viable alternatives are available. Many cosmetic companies, for example, have sought better ways to test their products without the use of animal subjects. In Against Animal Testing, a pamphlet published by The Body Shop, a well-known cosmetics and bath-product company based in London, the development of products that “use natural ingredients, like bananas and Basil nut oil, as well as others with a long history of safe human usage” is advocated instead of testing on animals (3). Researchers can test the potential damage that a product can do to the skin by using this artificial “skin” instead of testing on animals. Another alternative to this test is a product called Eyetex. This synthetic material turns opaque when a product damages it, closely resembling the way that a real eye reacts to harmful substances. Computers have also been used to simulate and estimate the potential damage that a product or chemical can cause, and human tissues and cells have been used to examine the effects of harmful substances. In another method, vitro testing, cellular tests are done inside a test tube. All of these tests have been proven to be useful and reliable alternatives to testing products on live animals. Therefore, because effective means of product toxicity testing are available without the use of live animal specimens, testing potentially deadly substances on animals is unnecessary.
However, many people believe that animal testing is justified because the animals are sacrificed to make products safer for human use and consumption. The problem with this reasoning is that the animals’ safety, well-being, and quality of life is generally not a consideration. Experimental animals are virtually tortured to death, and all of these tests are done in the interest of human welfare, without any thought to how the animals are treated. Others respond that animals themselves benefit from animal research. Making human’s lives better should not be justification for torturing and exploiting animals. The value that humans place on their own lives should be extended to the lives of animals as well.

Still, other people think that animal testing is acceptable because animals are lower species than humans and therefore have no rights. These individuals feel that animals have no rights because they lack the capacity to understand or to knowingly exercise these rights. However, animal experimentation in medical research and cosmetics testing cannot be justified on the basis that animals are lower on the evolutionary chart than humans since animals resemble humans in so many ways. Many animals, especially the higher mammalian species, have internal systems and organs that are identical to the structures and functions of human internal organs. Also, animals have feelings, thoughts, goals, needs, and desires that are similar to human functions and capacities, and these similarities should be respected, not exploited, because of the selfishness of humans. Therefore, animals’ lives should be respected because they have an inherent right to be treated with dignity.

While animal testing has led to many medical break throughs It has helped people in many ways with medical conditions. It is completely unnecessary in every way; animal lives are sacrificed every day. In statistics published by the International Humane Society, 80% of all animals used in testing die from the suffering that they occur. This waste of In conclusion, animal testing should be eliminated because it violates animals’ rights, it causes pain and suffering to the experimental animals, and other means of testing product toxicity are available. Humans cannot justify making life better for themselves by randomly torturing and executing thousands of animals per year to perform laboratory experiments or to test products. Animals should be treated with respect and dignity, and this right to decent treatment is not upheld when animals are exploited for selfish human gain. After all, humans are animals too.