Animals Testing for Medical Needs

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De’Anthony Fletcher
English 1020
9/26/11
Animals Testing for Medical Needs Have you taken time out to think about your house pet and how much you love them? Considering that think of lab pets or animals that are used for testing products on and how they are being treated. Do you think it is necessary to test animals for medical needs or for products other than medicine? I strongly believe that animal testing for medical needs is necessary to some extent because it helps trying to find a cure such as HIV/AIDS and animals are a perfect match for testing than humans, but animal testing for things that doesn’t help to improve a product or benefit the health of society is not necessary. I also believe that it is ok for animal testing because animals are only used when they are indispensable. Some people may think otherwise that animal testing is not necessary because not all tests that are good on animals are good on humans.
I believe that the testing on animals for medical needs is necessary because “testing on animals has helped develop vaccines for many life threatening diseases like Herpes Simplex, Hepatitis B, Polio, rabies, malaria, mumps and virus related to organ transplantation rejection” (Shandilya). As Shandilya states testing animals is helpful and necessary to find more vaccines and cures for diseases. Without the help of animal testing it would be hard for humans to come with cures and vaccines for

Fletcher 2 diseases. If animals were never tested a lot of the vaccines that we have today would not exist. Testing the things on humans maybe dangerous because there could me major side effects if it doesn’t work, making it better to be tested on animals that are indispensable. However, some people may think that testing on animals for medical needs is not necessary because they believe “that animal testing and research is completely based on false premises, that the results that are obtained from such experimentation cannot be applied to the human body” (Bantwal). They believe this because “not only do animals react differently from humans where drugs, experiments and vaccines are concerned, but they also tend to react differently from each other” (Bantwal). I disagree to this claim because the results that are from the animals can be used on humans. The only thing is that all of the results that come from animals cannot be used on humans because humans and animals are not completely the same. For the part that animals and humans have similar, animal testing can produce a greater impact on society than to not test animals. I also believe that it is necessary for animal testing because it helps trying to find a cure such as HIV/AIDS and animals are a perfect match for testing than humans. The testing on animals is a better way to find cures for many diseases, than it would if you used humans as lab experiences. Using humans instead of animals could cause a negative impact on humans because if a human is tested and it goes wrong and doesn’t help them out it could cause a severe side effect and maybe even spread the disease. An example would be like the project 4.1 that was conducted by the United States.
Project 4.1 was the designation for a medical study conducted by the United States of those residents of the Marshall Islands exposed to radioactive fallout from the March
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1, 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, which had an unexpectedly large yield. For the first decade after the test, the effects were ambiguous and statistically difficult to correlate to radiation exposure: miscarriages and stillbirths among exposed Rongelap women doubled in the first five years after the accident, but then returned to normal; some developmental difficulties and impaired growth appeared in children, but in no clear-cut pattern. In the decades that followed, though, the effects were undeniable. Children began to suffer disproportionately from thyroid cancer (due to exposure to radioiodines), and almost a third of those exposed developed neoplasms by 1974. (Top 10) Animals would be a better test subject than humans because the animals that they use will have a less impact than a human test subject. The animals that are used in lab experiences are animals that are taking out of shelters. “Dogs and cats that are used in research are taken out of animal shelters[->0]. These animals would otherwise be euthanized. Their number comes to approximately 1.1% of dogs and cats euthanized in shelters” (Shrinivas Kanade). The test on these animals, even if the test turn out bad, would be better than test on humans because the animals taking out of shelters would eventually get euthanized. Would you rather have animals be put to rest or stay alive and be put to use by being used for testing? They believe that animals are not good test subjects because “most of the times, these animals are used in the research of the conditions or diseases that are not found in them naturally, such as different type of cancers to which humans falls prey or HIV” (Kanade). However, I think differently because the results from the animals being tested
Fletcher 4 on may spark something that can help humans. For an example, “the animal models for AIDS are a very important part of the research as they help in understanding the biology of immune-deficiency viruses” (Shandilya). Some people may think otherwise that animal testing is not necessary because not all tests that are good on animals are good on humans. Not all of the test that is done towards animals can be used on humans because animals and humans are not the same and they act differently. “Not only do animals react differently from humans where drugs, experiments and vaccines are concerned, but they also tend to react differently from each other. Ignoring these differences has been and will continue to be extremely costly to human health” (Bantwal). One of the most famous cases is the “Thalidomide Tragedy of the 60’s and 70’s” (Bantwal). The “Thalidomide” was a drug that was successfully tested on humans and was supposed to be known as the wonder drug; “an amazing sedative for breastfeeding or pregnant mothers and it supposedly could cause no harm to either the mother or the child. Despite this apparent ‘safety testing’, tens of thousands of children whose mothers had used this drug were born with severe deformities” (Bantwal). In conclusion, I believe that animal testing for medical needs is necessary to the extent if the testing doesn’t help to improve a product or benefit the health of society it is not necessary. Testing on animals can spark a cure for many different diseases and would benefit society. Wouldn’t it be better if you can keep your pet alive instead on having to euthanizing them? Instead of having your pet euthanized, your pet can be kept alive and used for testing that will help the health of society.

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Work Cited
Bantwal, Natasha. "Arguments Against Animal Testing." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. .
Kanade, Shrinivas. "Animal Testing Statistics." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 21 Oct. 2009. Web. 14 Feb. 2010. .
Shandilya, Ranjan. "Animal Testing Pros." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. .
"Top 10 Evil Human Experiments." Top 10 Lists - Listverse. 14 Mar. 2008. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. .

[->0] - http://www.buzzle.com/articles/animal-shelters/

Cited: Bantwal, Natasha. "Arguments Against Animal Testing." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. . Kanade, Shrinivas. "Animal Testing Statistics." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 21 Oct. 2009. Web. 14 Feb. 2010. . Shandilya, Ranjan. "Animal Testing Pros." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. . "Top 10 Evil Human Experiments." Top 10 Lists - Listverse. 14 Mar. 2008. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. . [->0] - http://www.buzzle.com/articles/animal-shelters/