Why Is Animal Testing Unethical

Animal testing is an unethical and cruel act towards animals, but sadly it is done all over the world. I strongly disagree that animals should be used for testing and experimenting that cause them harm. This type of act should be banned and made illegal, especially in the US. There are so many reasons it should be banned such as the fact that it is unethical, there are other testing option, and that it is a costly way of gathering test result.

Testing animals is such a cruel thing that I don’t how people can even do that. Small animals such as mice and rats are kept in small boxes as big as a shoebox. Animals such as guinea pigs are kept in boxes about twice the size as two shoeboxes and usually have more than one animal. Cats and dogs are usually kept in wire cages. In a BAUV undercover investigation performed on the Wickham Laboratories for eight months showed how bad the animals were being
treated (The Ugly Truth). Their findings included: how mice died routinely from cruel poisoning test rather than being humanely killed by staff- a clear breach in the institution’s government project license. Also the staff’s incompetence on how mice were killed led to many animal sufferings which included breaking of the neck with a pen on the floor. The lab kept the animals in cages which failed to meet their behavioral and social needs. The testing and the way they are kept show how poorly the animals are taken care of. The lack of knowledge displayed by the Wickham Laboratories is an example of how institutions lack the capabilities to test animals let alone care for them.

It is estimated that 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals and a great many more invertebrates are subject to experimentation for human research purposes annually. Thanks to some researchers and experimenters there are other alternatives for ways than animal testing. Scientist says that animal testing for human researches is often inaccurate. An example that highlights my point is the species difference. Out of the 19 chemicals known to cause cancer in humans, only 7 causes cancer in standard animal tests, so not all the test give accurate information (Jennifer Fischer). Scientists are working on other alternatives to substitute animal testing such as tissue studies. For example by using human cancer cells, taken from patients during routine surgery and kept alive in standardized test cultures can be used for future testing that involves the right cells identifies in human cancer. I understand that past experiences show that testing on live animals is the most reliable subject for testing medicine and toxicity. But factors such as stress influences heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, and hormone levels influence the reliability on animal research data. But there are also other tests such as the one where human volunteers are being tested on. I’m not saying that we should test on humans, but if they freely volunteer, I don’t see why not test on them. Animal testing is not only cruel but it can be costly.
Conservatives say that tens of millions of animals are killed or maimed each year for research for the safety purpose of drugs, agricultural, chemicals and consumer products. The biggest forces behind the big shift away from animal testing is the high cost and the concerns of it reliability. Testing can cause hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Some test can take years to conduct and analyze for example the rodent cancer study which took 4-5 years (Humane Society International). While the non-animal alternatives can test hundreds of chemical is about a week and cost a fraction of the cost of animal testing. An example is Phototoxicity tested on rats cost $11,500, while 3T3 neutral red uptake test cost (in vitro test) $ 1300. Also to maintain the animals can be costly as well. Feeding, housing, equipment, etc cost money and depending on how long the experiment takes can eventually add up into a big amount of money in the end. Non-animal test can benefit the scientist as well as the
economy.

In the end animal testing should be banned and made illegal. The way the animals are treated is inhumane and abusive. It’s is an unnecessary type of testing when there are other options out there that can be more effective and cost less. In time I hope that animal testing will replaced with a more reasonable type of testing one that everyone can agree on.