The Argument Against Animal Testing

Though there is a growing case against animal testing, there are those who fully stand behind it. Their arguments defending the concept are most often centered around ethics of testing. For starters, the FDA mandates that all drugs go through a series of tests, most often on animals, before they are allowed to be released to the public for consumption (Ericson, 2014, a). With these laws in place, people claim that animal testing must continue to be accepted so that new drug developments can continue. Furthermore, another argument is that machines just can't replace animal functions. Machines can do a lot to replicate some elements of animal testing, but will never be able to mimic the functions of a living body, such as that of a rat (Ericson,
“Frankie Trull, science advocate and President of the Foundation for Medical Research says, “An immediate end to animal research in the U.S. would be a death sentence for millions of people around the world,” (Ericson, 2014, b).” The reality is, many of today's advancements in research have come from animal testing. No matter how many trials they took, most advancements were at least started with animal testing and grew from there. All vaccines, chemotherapy, MRI’s, blood transfusions, dialysis, transplants, bypass surgery, joint replacements, and many other medical treatments were brought from research that started with animal testing (Ericson, 2014, a). This being said, as long as animal testing is accepted in laboratories, medical advancements can and will continue. If animal testing were to be abolished, research for many diseases would come to an alarming halt. Most scientists say that animal testing is a major key to research in genetic engineering and the study of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and an end to it would make research in these fields impossible (Ericson, 2014, a). It's argued that without animal testing, cures for these diseases would be impossible to find and research wouldn't be able to