Pros And Cons Of Animal Testing
Animal Experimentation: A Cruel, Outdated Practice Animal experimentation, or testing, is a method used to discover cures to illnesses; the functions of organs; the anatomy of the body; the safety, effectiveness, and reliability of cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and household products on animals (“About Animal Testing”). An estimated 25 million animals are subject to these practices each year in the United States (“Harm and Suffering”). Because of the massive number of animals used in experimentation each year, William Russell and Rex Burch devised the “3 Rs.” Reduction, refinement, and replacement are the ideas that compose the “3 Rs.” By reducing the number of animals used in testing, refining procedures to ensure minimal discomfort, and, when
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The discovery of insulin, which now saves the lives of those with diabetes, was because dogs had their pancreases removed. The 350,000 cases of polio in 1988 dropped to 223 in 2012 due to experimenting on animals. Another reason animal experimentation still occurs is because animals make appropriate test subjects for products intended for human use. After all, a chimpanzee’s genetics are 99% similar to a human’s, and a mouse’s DNA falls only one percentile short of the chimp’s. Also, the lifespan of an animal is shorter than a human’s, making the research of the drug more exact, because one can easily observe the effects of the drug throughout the entire life of the test subject. Furthermore, there is no other way to conduct research on a living organism with the entire body system. Measly cell cultures in petri dishes do not show how the respiratory, digestive, or nervous systems are affected by the drug being tested. Not all diseases that affect the body can be studied by using in vitro testing, either (“Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?”). On that note, if one was to study a condition that could not be researched by using cell cultures and animals were no longer an option, humans would have to be tested upon to expand scientific and medical knowledge (“Animal Testing Is Bad Science:
The discovery of insulin, which now saves the lives of those with diabetes, was because dogs had their pancreases removed. The 350,000 cases of polio in 1988 dropped to 223 in 2012 due to experimenting on animals. Another reason animal experimentation still occurs is because animals make appropriate test subjects for products intended for human use. After all, a chimpanzee’s genetics are 99% similar to a human’s, and a mouse’s DNA falls only one percentile short of the chimp’s. Also, the lifespan of an animal is shorter than a human’s, making the research of the drug more exact, because one can easily observe the effects of the drug throughout the entire life of the test subject. Furthermore, there is no other way to conduct research on a living organism with the entire body system. Measly cell cultures in petri dishes do not show how the respiratory, digestive, or nervous systems are affected by the drug being tested. Not all diseases that affect the body can be studied by using in vitro testing, either (“Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?”). On that note, if one was to study a condition that could not be researched by using cell cultures and animals were no longer an option, humans would have to be tested upon to expand scientific and medical knowledge (“Animal Testing Is Bad Science: