Animal Testing
Animal testing is a practice that has been done for many years now. Many people will say that animal testing is a cruel and unjust practice. However, those people didn’t take into the account on the benefits of animal testing to both human and animal life. Animal testing should be allowed to ensure a new drug is safe for human use beneficial for animals and for future research into new theories and new ideas for progressing medical practices.
The truth is that animal testing has contributed to many life-saving cures and treatments. Animal testing has also halted the testing of drugs to the next step, which is human testing. 93% of all drugs that are tested with animals don’t even continue to human testing. This then saved countless human volunteers lives. The California Biomedical Research Association stated that almost every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has been resulted from using animal testing. For example, the polio vaccine, was tested with animal testing it reduced the number of cases from 350,000 in 1988 to 223 cases in 2012. Animal testing also contributed to research and better understanding diseases and injuries in human and animals. Our understanding of breast cancer, leukemia and countless other diseases and injuries, we understand them more because of animal testing. Development of equipment and other procedures has come through animal testing. I’m sure that you or a person you know, knows someone else that has a pacemaker. Pacemaker were able to be develop through animal testing. However other people will state that animal testing is cruel and inhumane. They state that experimentation is cruel due to that they say that the test subjects are subjected to force feeding, forced inhalation and many other cruel inhumane things. I would say that some of the testing is unjust. Such as cosmetic companies testing rabbits on which chemicals will kill 50% of the test subjects the (lethal dose 50).
Animal testing isn’t just beneficial for humans but also for animals as well. Not just for medical but also for nutritional and understanding of animals. Of course for medical reason testing is beneficial. Seeing what chemicals can be used on animals and yet still be used to cure a disease. Also to create vaccines for the animals to prevent. My teacher says it’s easier to prevent then it is to treat. It is true about that. Also some disease that can be contracted through animals can be transmitted to humans. This is called zoonotic diseases. So if we prevent animals from getting those zoonotic diseases then we can then prevent ourselves from contracting those diseases. For nutritional if an animal is malnourished we needed to take test on which chemicals have high in certain vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbs and fats. If a steer isn’t gaining enough weight per day, then the owner needs to add some kind additive to the feed to increase the steer intake and then hopefully the steer will be gaining an adequate amount of weight at that certain amount of time. Understanding the animals is another way to correct anything wrong with the animal. Also if we understand the animal then we can understand what they can and can’t consume or come into contact with. Such as dogs, dogs can’t consume a chemical called xylitol. Xylitol is in gum, toothpaste, candies and mouthwash. Now that we understand what dogs can’t eat we can then prevent them from consuming these items by educating and making these items very difficult to get into for the animals. Understanding the animal can also be beneficial for their wellness. For example, goat have ruminant stomachs meaning that their stomachs have 4 chambers. Knowing this I can easily determine what is wrong with the animal and can easily determine what has been going on with them. Also testing on animals we can easily determine those diseases and then treat those who can then contract those diseases. Testing on those who are already infected we can then prevent or cure those in the future who contact that disease.
Progressing in both medical and scientific exploration we need to be testing multiple times over a long period of time. Testing is needed to see if the procedure is being conducted properly and safely for the subject. Testing theories can then improve the life and the lifespan of the animal. We can also test new procedure with new technologies to see if they are safe for the major population. Surgeons test on drugged swine due to the fact that the body of swine mimics the human body when cutting into. They practice on drugged and not dead due to the fact that if they can operate on a drugged swine then the can operate on a drugged human. Surgeons practicing on swine so that they can then perfect their craft and save human lives with life threatening injuries. Even vet students practice their craft on live patients. In Cornell University they have their own practice and they go to farms and assist the farmers in anything that they need they use live animals to then practice their craft to ensure that they can progress to the next year of veterinary school. Let’s say that you have got a broken bone and need surgery to fix it. The procedure has been perfected through many trial of testing with subject with the same situation as you. It is actually the animals who are tested first then human to make sure there aren’t any complication with the trials or if there are then it won’t harm any human. Improving our technologies and making our lives easier and more sustainable for the future. By testing on animals we can then improve on new theories and with testing we can improve our technologies and our better rate on saving lives. Progressing medical practices can then follow us to curing currently incurable diseases such as cancer or diabetes. If we keep on testing, then we will soon find a cure for anything. Testing for the polio vaccine was just a theory. Now there is actually a vaccine for polio and a year after the development of the vaccine the number of cases freefall to single digit numbers.
As you can see animal testing can contribute to the benefit of both humans and animals and for the future. Yet people still think that animals are being treated inhumanly. This is true on some cases but the majority of the cases are humanely treated. Also I think that testing on animals is beneficial for human but for the majority is for animals. There are many test for the benefit of animals for example which protein is the most beneficial for which animal, which additives is the best for which deficiency and how much. For the future of animals and human’s animals testing has to be conducted to ensure the beneficial practices and beneficial theories are plausible and achievable and then can be used for the public. Yes, there may be some cases of animal getting treated inhumanely but yet the benefit of present and future of everyone there needs to be animal testing being conducted. Many biologists stated that animal testing is needed for research to excel and that it is essential. The National Association for Biomedical Research, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society all advocate for the use of animal testing. The opinion of the few, outweigh the chance of the many.
References
http://www.petplace.com/article/dogs/diseases-conditions-of-dogs/features/is-chewing-gum-toxic-to-your-pet
http://animal-testing.procon.org/
https://www2.vet.cornell.edu/education/doctor-veterinary-medicine
http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/resources/faqs/