Arguments Against Animal Testing
Barbara Franco
October 8 2013
Professor Craig
English 115
Over 100 million animals are subject to being burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused in laboratories throughout the U.S. What is even more disheartening is that up to 90 percent of animals that are used in laboratories throughout the United States are not inclusive in the official statistics of animal testing (dosomething.org, 2013). Although animal testing does have social and economical benefits, animal testing should not be conducted due to the following reasons: It is very expensive, it holds to be invalid due to contrastive anatomies and environments animals and humans physically bear, and acts of animal testing are inappropriate as well as inhumane. Conducting animal tests …show more content…
can become quite costly. Each year, taxes are paid to our state from committed citizens and are contributed to animal testing. Some questions that may be asked are, “How much of our taxes are being contributed to animal testing?” or “How much does animal testing cost?” According to their article, “More Than $16 Billion in Taxpayer Money Wasted Annually on Animal Testing”, PeTA well elaborates on just how much of the common taxpayer’s money is being wasted on animal testing:
Ohio State University
$1.9 million – for cruel heart attack experiments conducted on dogs
University of Wisconsin
$3 million – for cruel fighting experiments conducted on mice
Oregon National Primate Research Center
$5 million – for cruel obesity experiments conducted on monkeys
Harvard University
$16 million – for cruel addiction experiments conducted on monkeys.
Instead of funding for cruel experiments that are being conducted on animals, America can utilize this squandered amount of $16 billion on more useful and beneficial conditions. Taxpayers can contribute to hiring additional teachers to contribute to educating the youth of this nation, or contribute their taxes to monthly provision for the 1.6 million veterans who are currently homeless or at risk of losing their homes (PeTA, 2013). Taxpayers can even give back to federal income in order to support and contribute to millions of households throughout America. Instead of squandering the yearly incomes of taxpayers on the cruelty of animal testing, this money should be contributed to those who really need the help, and in this way, the good American dollar can go a long way and can aid in saving lives, jobs, homes, and futures. Not only is animal testing very expensive, but animal testing also holds invalidity due to the physical contrastive anatomy and environment of humans vice animals. Testing animals in order to discover a cure or medicinal solution to human conditions tend to be quite fallacious.
While there may be similarities found between certain species of animals and humans, the similarities are just that: they are similar but they are not the same. In biology, science proves that the specimen containing the closest physical attributes of the human anatomy is a cat. Although cats are biologically similar to the human anatomy, primates are the most similar to humans in terms of behavior, conduct, and some physical attributes – such as the opposable thumb. Reviewing these simple scientific facts reveal that if animals are tested for human purposes, more than one specimen of animal needs to be tested in order to achieve a solution. Why? Animals are not the same as humans. Not only is the biology of animals contrastive to humans but also the conditions and environments that humans live in vice the environments and conditions animals are captive to for testing. Everyday, we humans dwell within our natural habitats; however, animals that are subject to testing do not. Ian Murnaghan, author of the article “Using Animals for Testing: Pros Versus Cons”, asserts, “…because animals are in an unnatural environment, they will be under stress. Therefore, they won’t react to the drug in the same way compared to their potential reaction in a natural environment. This argument further weakens the validity of animal experimentation.” The reaction of a drug in an …show more content…
animal’s body will result contradistinctively than that of a human reaction to that same drug; thereby further inducing the unreliability, as well as the irrelevance, of animal testing. Mice are utilized for subjects of testing for cancer research and they die by the thousands. Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the Cancer Institute justifies, “The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human beings.” Furthering the argument of animal testing due to the expenses of animal testing as well as the invalidity of animal testing due to physical contrasts of human and animal anatomies, animal testing should also not be conducted because they are inhumane and inappropriate. While it has been known to humanity that animal testing may be justly proven as inhumane, evidence of inappropriate conduction of animal experimentation and testing is now being proven and adhering to the characteristics of being inhumane. The organization, In Defense of Animals (IDA), put together an article titled, “Top 10 Reasons Why Animal Research Is A Cruel Joke”. The following are the titles of articles and their summaries from “Top 10 Reasons Why Animal Research Is A Cruel Joke” that confirm the inappropriateness and inhumaneness that animal testing and experimentations hold.
“4 out of 5 Scientists Surveyed Recommend Ejaculation to Rats”
Four researchers at Ontario’s School of Medicine and Dentistry as well as one researcher from the University of Cincinnati studied whether male rats enjoyed ejaculation or intromission (the insertion of the penis into the vagina) more. Their research and study bolstered the hypothesis that rats contain a hierarchy of sexual pleasure, resulting with ejaculation as most enjoyable.
“Thanks To These Scientists, Castrated Hamsters Can Still Get It Up”
Researchers from the University of California – Berkeley, University of Virginia, and Colombia University utilized diversified amounts of testosterone at diversified frequencies and injected them into castrated, sexually – experienced Syrian male hamsters in order to elucidate the most favorable concentration for maintaining ejaculation.
“A Fight To The Death But – But Not Between Lizards”
A study was created by scientists from Harvard University and the University of South Dakota, forcing territorial male lizards to fight each other by confining them to a single cage.
After 31 pairs of lizards had fought and undergone a three-day recovery period, the experimenters killed them all. Some lizards were immediately decapitated, others were “restrained” (intentionally stressed out). This very experiment was considered necessary in order to study the effects of stress on lizards of differential social status and the advancement of modern medicine.
Conducting animal testing for animals’ sexual pleasure is inappropriate and inhumane. How does animal experimentation for the animals’ sexual pleasure benefit humans? How does animal experimentation for the animals’ sexual pleasure help find a medicinal solution for human health? In what way does animal experimentation for an animal’ sexual pleasure bolster medicinal advancement? The answer is that it doesn’t. Animal testing and experimentation – such as the few listed above – does not contribute to human health. Animals testing and experimentation, like the ones formerly mentioned, are inappropriate, inhumane, and frankly incongruous. Such animal testing and experimentation interjects with the specimen’s natural habitats and behaviors and indeed become unreliable because scientists and experimenters are orchestrating their environments, and therefore orchestrating their
reactions.
Each year, thousands of animals are held in captivity and subjected to tests that cause them pain and result in death. Many scientists and experimenters argue that almost all our medical breakthroughs are accounted to animal testing. However, other experiments and research have proved that higher life expectancy of humans result from advances in hygiene and health awareness. Jeremy Bentham once stated, “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?’” Animal testing is very expensive, it holds to be invalid due to contrastive anatomies and environments animals and humans physically bare, and acts of animal testing are inappropriate as well as inhumane. Torturing one animal is considered cruelty. Why is the torture of thousands of animals considered science?
Works Cited
Bentham, Jeremy. “Why Animal Testing Should Be Stopped”. AnimalTestingCons. AnimalTestingCons.webs.com . 2007. Web. 9 October 2013.
Murnaghan, Ian. “Using Animals for Testing: Pros Versus Cons”. AboutAnimalTesting. AboutAnimalTesting.com. 2 September 2013. Web. 9 October 2013.
IDA. “Top 10 Reasons Why Animal Research Is A Cruel Joke”. In Defense of Animals: Protecting the rights, welfare and habitats of animals. Idausa.org. Web. 9 October 2013.PeTA. Peta.org. Web. 2013. 9 October 2013.
PeTA. “More Than $16 Billion in Taxpayer Money Wasted Annually on Animal Testing”. PeTA. Peta.org. Web. 2013. 9 October 2013.
October 8 2013
Professor Craig
English 115
Over 100 million animals are subject to being burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused in laboratories throughout the U.S. What is even more disheartening is that up to 90 percent of animals that are used in laboratories throughout the United States are not inclusive in the official statistics of animal testing (dosomething.org, 2013). Although animal testing does have social and economical benefits, animal testing should not be conducted due to the following reasons: It is very expensive, it holds to be invalid due to contrastive anatomies and environments animals and humans physically bear, and acts of animal testing are inappropriate as well as inhumane. Conducting animal tests …show more content…
can become quite costly. Each year, taxes are paid to our state from committed citizens and are contributed to animal testing. Some questions that may be asked are, “How much of our taxes are being contributed to animal testing?” or “How much does animal testing cost?” According to their article, “More Than $16 Billion in Taxpayer Money Wasted Annually on Animal Testing”, PeTA well elaborates on just how much of the common taxpayer’s money is being wasted on animal testing:
Ohio State University
$1.9 million – for cruel heart attack experiments conducted on dogs
University of Wisconsin
$3 million – for cruel fighting experiments conducted on mice
Oregon National Primate Research Center
$5 million – for cruel obesity experiments conducted on monkeys
Harvard University
$16 million – for cruel addiction experiments conducted on monkeys.
Instead of funding for cruel experiments that are being conducted on animals, America can utilize this squandered amount of $16 billion on more useful and beneficial conditions. Taxpayers can contribute to hiring additional teachers to contribute to educating the youth of this nation, or contribute their taxes to monthly provision for the 1.6 million veterans who are currently homeless or at risk of losing their homes (PeTA, 2013). Taxpayers can even give back to federal income in order to support and contribute to millions of households throughout America. Instead of squandering the yearly incomes of taxpayers on the cruelty of animal testing, this money should be contributed to those who really need the help, and in this way, the good American dollar can go a long way and can aid in saving lives, jobs, homes, and futures. Not only is animal testing very expensive, but animal testing also holds invalidity due to the physical contrastive anatomy and environment of humans vice animals. Testing animals in order to discover a cure or medicinal solution to human conditions tend to be quite fallacious.
While there may be similarities found between certain species of animals and humans, the similarities are just that: they are similar but they are not the same. In biology, science proves that the specimen containing the closest physical attributes of the human anatomy is a cat. Although cats are biologically similar to the human anatomy, primates are the most similar to humans in terms of behavior, conduct, and some physical attributes – such as the opposable thumb. Reviewing these simple scientific facts reveal that if animals are tested for human purposes, more than one specimen of animal needs to be tested in order to achieve a solution. Why? Animals are not the same as humans. Not only is the biology of animals contrastive to humans but also the conditions and environments that humans live in vice the environments and conditions animals are captive to for testing. Everyday, we humans dwell within our natural habitats; however, animals that are subject to testing do not. Ian Murnaghan, author of the article “Using Animals for Testing: Pros Versus Cons”, asserts, “…because animals are in an unnatural environment, they will be under stress. Therefore, they won’t react to the drug in the same way compared to their potential reaction in a natural environment. This argument further weakens the validity of animal experimentation.” The reaction of a drug in an …show more content…
animal’s body will result contradistinctively than that of a human reaction to that same drug; thereby further inducing the unreliability, as well as the irrelevance, of animal testing. Mice are utilized for subjects of testing for cancer research and they die by the thousands. Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the Cancer Institute justifies, “The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human beings.” Furthering the argument of animal testing due to the expenses of animal testing as well as the invalidity of animal testing due to physical contrasts of human and animal anatomies, animal testing should also not be conducted because they are inhumane and inappropriate. While it has been known to humanity that animal testing may be justly proven as inhumane, evidence of inappropriate conduction of animal experimentation and testing is now being proven and adhering to the characteristics of being inhumane. The organization, In Defense of Animals (IDA), put together an article titled, “Top 10 Reasons Why Animal Research Is A Cruel Joke”. The following are the titles of articles and their summaries from “Top 10 Reasons Why Animal Research Is A Cruel Joke” that confirm the inappropriateness and inhumaneness that animal testing and experimentations hold.
“4 out of 5 Scientists Surveyed Recommend Ejaculation to Rats”
Four researchers at Ontario’s School of Medicine and Dentistry as well as one researcher from the University of Cincinnati studied whether male rats enjoyed ejaculation or intromission (the insertion of the penis into the vagina) more. Their research and study bolstered the hypothesis that rats contain a hierarchy of sexual pleasure, resulting with ejaculation as most enjoyable.
“Thanks To These Scientists, Castrated Hamsters Can Still Get It Up”
Researchers from the University of California – Berkeley, University of Virginia, and Colombia University utilized diversified amounts of testosterone at diversified frequencies and injected them into castrated, sexually – experienced Syrian male hamsters in order to elucidate the most favorable concentration for maintaining ejaculation.
“A Fight To The Death But – But Not Between Lizards”
A study was created by scientists from Harvard University and the University of South Dakota, forcing territorial male lizards to fight each other by confining them to a single cage.
After 31 pairs of lizards had fought and undergone a three-day recovery period, the experimenters killed them all. Some lizards were immediately decapitated, others were “restrained” (intentionally stressed out). This very experiment was considered necessary in order to study the effects of stress on lizards of differential social status and the advancement of modern medicine.
Conducting animal testing for animals’ sexual pleasure is inappropriate and inhumane. How does animal experimentation for the animals’ sexual pleasure benefit humans? How does animal experimentation for the animals’ sexual pleasure help find a medicinal solution for human health? In what way does animal experimentation for an animal’ sexual pleasure bolster medicinal advancement? The answer is that it doesn’t. Animal testing and experimentation – such as the few listed above – does not contribute to human health. Animals testing and experimentation, like the ones formerly mentioned, are inappropriate, inhumane, and frankly incongruous. Such animal testing and experimentation interjects with the specimen’s natural habitats and behaviors and indeed become unreliable because scientists and experimenters are orchestrating their environments, and therefore orchestrating their
reactions.
Each year, thousands of animals are held in captivity and subjected to tests that cause them pain and result in death. Many scientists and experimenters argue that almost all our medical breakthroughs are accounted to animal testing. However, other experiments and research have proved that higher life expectancy of humans result from advances in hygiene and health awareness. Jeremy Bentham once stated, “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?’” Animal testing is very expensive, it holds to be invalid due to contrastive anatomies and environments animals and humans physically bare, and acts of animal testing are inappropriate as well as inhumane. Torturing one animal is considered cruelty. Why is the torture of thousands of animals considered science?
Works Cited
Bentham, Jeremy. “Why Animal Testing Should Be Stopped”. AnimalTestingCons. AnimalTestingCons.webs.com . 2007. Web. 9 October 2013.
Murnaghan, Ian. “Using Animals for Testing: Pros Versus Cons”. AboutAnimalTesting. AboutAnimalTesting.com. 2 September 2013. Web. 9 October 2013.
IDA. “Top 10 Reasons Why Animal Research Is A Cruel Joke”. In Defense of Animals: Protecting the rights, welfare and habitats of animals. Idausa.org. Web. 9 October 2013.PeTA. Peta.org. Web. 2013. 9 October 2013.
PeTA. “More Than $16 Billion in Taxpayer Money Wasted Annually on Animal Testing”. PeTA. Peta.org. Web. 2013. 9 October 2013.