Paste your essay in here…Animal testing also known as animal experimentation was founded in the writings of Greek in the 2nd and 4th Centuries BC. Greek’s were seen to be some of the earliest individuals to experiment on animals to help create new findings that they feel may be helpful to them and others. Animal testing was mostly performed to help many researchers and medical specialists find new solutions to help cure and prevent many of human health diseases. A philosopher and anatomist known as Aristotle and Erasistratus were some of the first people in the world to perform experiments on living animals. In the 12th century, a physician known as Avenzoar finally introduced animal testing to the world as a way to practice health procedures before actually applying them to humans for the saftey concerns for humans. As animal tesing grew and became more popular all over the world while doing research over the years, many new laws were created because animal testing started to be seen as a controversial issue for those who thought animal testing was inhumane. Animal testing was more than just experimenting on animals. The process of testing on animals was also seen as abusive because the animals were being harmed past their limits to the point where death was now a result of experimenting on animals. Once an animal was pronounced as dead, the animal was then removed to make room for another animal, as well as for another experiment to take place. Simple things like so only made animal testing seem more and more inhumane over the years. Animal testing was seen as inhumane because animals did not volunteer to give their life up to be used as objects in a lab for experimenting human needs. This is why animals now have people all over trying to create a voice for those who are unable to fight for themselves. In today’s society, animal testing grew to become not only a huge issue but also a controversial issue that had made its way into the voter’s ballots over the years due to how important it is to many individuals all over the world. What drew many individuals to this controversial issue is the way that thosewho are doing the research for new medical advances automatically assume that humans and animals have the same body constructs, when in reality they do not. Animals and humans may both be complex and similar, but they do have different genetic backgrounds which draws them apart. When using two objects that are not the same, the results tend to end up ot being the same. Testing on animals is cruel and only causes pain for the animals rather than anything good. The bodies of animals and humans are not the same, and so animals should not be used as objects for medical research experiments knowing the results of the experiments can lead to unwanted affects.
Animals should not be used for animal experimentation because animals have rights to their own bodies just like humans have rights to their body that were guaranteed by the Constitution. Even though animals can not speak up for themselves, they still feel things such as pain just like humans do. Animals can not fight for themselves which is why there are laws created in many states to help protect animals from being treated wrongly, however; a lot of it still happens anyways since animals can not always escape. Yet in California, governer Jerry Brown just recently signed “The California Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act (SB-1249)” into law Friday September 28th, 2018. This Act states, “…largely prohibiting the sale of cosmetic products and ingredients that have been tested on animals beginning in January 2020. Animal-tested products may still be sold in the state after the start of 2020, so long as the testing on them did not occur after that date.” It is also difficult to create new laws when the issue is very controversial. Those creating the laws have to create efficient laws without leaving the chance for researchers to find any loop holes to get around animal testing without getting in trouble for it. Many advocates believe creating laws like this one is a big step forward for those who are against animal cruelty. This is important because animal testing has been allowed all over the world for decades and it is still occuring as of right now. There has been organizations created such as: The European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE), PETA, Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), and Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) which were are all created to help fight and bring an end to animal testing. It is very important to have organizations that are trying to end animal cruelty because it is not something that can end easily since it has been used for a long time for medical experiments and has brought back a few medical advances. Animal testing has been around and it has grew to be popular making it not something that can easily ended by just saying “no”. Yet, these organizations are also important because they help speak for animals since they are not able to speak up for themselves and have a voice in this world. Animal rights is more than a philosophy, but it is also seen as a social movement that challenges views. The reason animal testing challenges views is because it can tie into traditions. In the United States, politics is very important and so liberals and conservatives are always going back and forth with situations such as this one itself. According to the PETA, “Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth—a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering…Only prejudice allows us to deny others the rights that we expect to have for ourselves.” This is significant because humans do not give animals enough credit like they deserve. Animals are typically seen as just a pet to some people, but they are way more than just a pet. These animals are similiar to humans because they feel things such as pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and love. Whenever we decide to do something that can interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to remember they feel things too and are just as important to the world like humans are. Everything we do has an affect on animals more than we may think. Therefore animals, just like humans, should be gauranteed safety as well as their complete full rights just like anyone would. On the other hand, someone who is pro animal testing can say that there are religious traditions that allow for human dominion over animals, even if it means taking the lifes away from innocent animals. It has been said that animals are meant to be treated strictly as animals and not like humans. I on the other hand do not agree that humans should have authority over animals nor should humans have the right to treat animals how they want because humans are mammals themselves. Yes humans and animals do not have the same genes or body structures, but they are still both living things.
Animals and humans are not the same which can make them poor test subjects for medical research. The anatomic, metabolic, and cellular differences between animals and humans make animals poor models for medical research because they are not genetically the same. It is difficult to achieve the results many researchers want when the animal body has different structures compared to a humans body. “Paul Furlong, Professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University (UK) states that, "it's very hard to create an animal model that even equates closely to what we're trying to achieve in the human."” (Furlong). This helps to say that humans and animals do not have the same body constructs which can make it impossible to achieve the goal we would like. There are so many different organs and body parts which can lead to many similarities and disimilarities between humans and animals. So yes, there are some similarities between them, but animals lives are constantly being put on the line for experiments not knowing the consequences they will suffer in the process. According to the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), “Does it make sense, then, to expect an animal model, with a different genetic background, to predict what happens in people? No. When you need medical treatment, you want what works for you, not what works in a completely different species” (NAVS). Animals and humans are known to be different from one another. It does not make sense to use an animal that has a different genetic background compared to humans just to predict a what if, not knowing if the results will be 100 percent accurate. Animal testing has a lot to do with predictions and there are now new and even more efficient ways to find medical break throughs that do not require the use of animals. On the contrary, many scientists who do a lot of experimenting on animals believe that animals are appropriate research subjects because they are similar to human beings in many ways. Many scientists like to use the example of humans and chimpanzees or even mice because they are said to be almost the same. Not only do the scientists say they are almost the same, but they also like to tie in that all mammals have descended from common ancestors; however, only being common does not guarantee common ancestors are genetically the same to one another.
Even though there are some successes with animal testing, the successes are not always gauranteed which is why there are new advances in finding medical break throughs that do not require animals as the test object. Many believe it is necessary to find alterntives to animal testing because they do not believe testing on animals is getting them anywhere. During a government meeting about funding for research, former U.S. National Institutes of Health director Dr. Elias Zerhouni stated, “the problem is that [animal testing] hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem. … We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.” Dr.Zerhouni as well as many of the other individuals who were part of the meeting for funding research all agreed on the fact the animal testing is not really helpful nor is it bringing the solutions many researchers want as much as many would like. Those in the meeting finally concluded it is time to try using the new medical advances that were found to give even more accurate results as well as for having a way that does not involve hurting anyone during the process. In this meeting, this conclusion came to be because after searching the same grounds for centuries and not getting any new results, it is best to start over and with new tools to possibly receive the results many researchers would like. As of today, many new alternatives to animal testing has been seen to be even more helpful than testing on an animal. According to Balls, Combes, Illing and Knight, “Progress has been made in reducing the animal studies used for hazard evaluation by using in vitro tests and property predictions based on chemical structure” (Balls, Combes, Illing and Knight 82). This is important because it shows that animal testing is not needed due to the advances that are being made in the medicine field. Vitro tests also known as “glass” tests are when scientists use cells and organisms instead of doing operations on animals. This type of testing is usually done in a test tube or on a piece of glass by using similar cells and tissues to run experiments that can still give the same results as animal testing would, but without harming anyone or anything in the process. There is also another process similar to in vitro testing known as in vivo testing which is when the experiment is being done in a situation that can accurately mirror those existing in nature, usually within a natural organism. These two types of alternatives are important because they can help save the lives of animals from being used as a test object in a lab. On the other hand, there are no adequate alternatives to testing on a living, whole body system other then actually testing on a whole body sytem itself. There will always be consquences when testing for new medical advances. Humans and animals are both very complex, making it hard to find the perfect solution without having some type of consequence along the way. When looking for alternative methods, computers can only be reliable if the information is accurate, but to get any type of information, research needs to be done to help proceed with the experiment. Therefore, animals are very important to the research, but not the full procedure, leaving animals not needed for the entire process nor needed for the continuation of animal experimentation.
After several years of discussing animal experimentation, there is still not enough evidence proving that animal experimenting was essential to the many break throughs that were awarded all over. A lot of the medical break throughs that were claimed to be from the use of animals were actually false until further updates. According to the Humane Research Australia (HRA), “…reports that many discoveries made by non-animal methods were later verified by animal experiments, "giving false credit" to animal use.” What is so significant about this is the fact that animals are claimed to be the reason for a lot of the new medical advancements, yet a lot of the results are not proven until after a non-animal procedure was used first. Animals are clearly not necessary for the progress of medical advancements since there is not even proven evidence that they are beneficial to medical advancements. An experimental example of this is shown when, “…Banting and Best are often cited as having discovered insulin through animal experiments in 1922. However… the discovery of insulin dates back to 1788 when an English physician, Thomas Cawley, performed an autopsy on a diabetic.” This example helps show that animals were not the ones to create this medical break through. Insulin was actually founded in the late 1700’s, yet it was later discovered again in the early 1900’s during animal experiments. This is important because animals are usually used after a non-animal experiment has been completed. Even though the procedures that do not require the use of animals were shown to be good, individuals still believed it was necessary to use animals as well because it makes them feel safe even though it is not needed. On the Contrary, only a select few amount of animals which are used in research, is the price we pay as humans for advancing medical progress. Many researchers who administer these different types of animal experiments tend to use different test subjects such as mice, monkeys, rabbits, and other animals. These animals are chosen because they can easily reproduce and create more.This then helps make it seem like it does not matter if ones’ life is lost during the procedure. Yet, even if it is only a select amount of animals that are undergoing these different types of inhumane experiments, there is still not enough evidence gathered proving that animals are even necessary to continue doing these experiments with their lives on the lines for the sake of human benefits.
In todays society, technology is more advance and there are many alternatives being created that are more efficient than things such as animal testing. Not only are a lot of these new technologies that are being created even more efficent, but they are also cheaper, quicker and safer to get results. According to Ericson, “Biotechnology company Empiriko invented synthetic livers which can predict the liver's metabolic reactions to drugs in a process that is quicker, cheaper, and more accurate than animal testing; in one trial it provided a level of specificity which previously would have required testing on 1,000 rats and 100 dogs” (Ericson). Due to how technology is constantly advancing, one would think that medical researchers would try to complete new medical experiments with approved alternatives such as synthetic livers, but since many labs are so accustomed to using animals for their research, they choose to stick to what they feel is safe to them even though it is not right for the animals who have to undergo the process and suffer along the way. Consequently, many animal researchers treat animals humanely, both for the animals' sake and to ensure reliable test results. There are many animal health technicians and specialists around during the procedures to make sure animals are still receiving the best care while going through the process. Yet, even though there can be safety measures fixed for the animals that are getting experimented on, there are still many issues that need to be fixed for the safety of the animals. Out of a lot of the medications that have been approved of from animal testing, many of them are actually misleading and can lead to life threatening issues. The reason these medications can be misleading is because animals and humans are not the same, and so they have different body structures. This then means different results for those who are taking the medicine. There has been evidence that a lot of the medications that have been tested have worked on mice, yet they have also caused dangerous results on humans. According to Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and NBC News, “Animal tests on the arthritis drug Vioxx showed that it had a protective effect on the hearts of mice, yet the drug went on to cause more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths before being pulled from the market.” What is so significant about this is even though there were many deaths from using the different unsafe medications created from the experiment, animals are still being experimented on till this day for human medications and other types of benefits. Mice are some of the most common animals to get tested on due to their availibility, reproduction rate, size and more. Mice have been used in over 70 percent of animal testing and have also led to some medical discoveries. Yet, there are still a lot of fails due to how mice and humans are not the same and have different structures as well as genes.
On the contrary, animals themselves can gain benefits themselves from the results of animal testing. Over the past couple of centuries, animals had help create many break through results for the medical field. According to The California Biomedical Research Association, “…nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals” (CBRA). This is important because animals have grew to become the new normal when experimenting to create new medicines for many diseases and more. There has been many treatments created due to animal testing such as the polio vaccine, vaccines for Hepatitis C, and even major advances to understanding breast cancer, childhood leukemia, multiple sclerosis and many more. Yet, not only do humans benefit from animal testing, but animals can also benefit from the use of animal testing. According to the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, the institute states, “Vaccines, antibiotics, anesthetics, surgical procedures, and other approaches developed in animals for human use are now commonly employed throughout veterinary medicine. Pets, livestock, and animals in zoos live longer, more comfortable, and healthier lives as a result of animal research” (14). A lot of these discoveries were even rewarded and given nobel prizes. Since of all of these discoveries with the use of animals, many believe it can only get better and so they continue to make even better discoveries with the use of animals. What is significant about this is that the animal testing is specifically for animals and their own health benefits. The genetic background is more accurate since it is meant for animals and not the use of humans. There has been a great amount of breakthroughs for animal health benefits and it has also led to animals being even more comfortable as well as living longer when they are living in a zoo or even as livestock. Animal testing is certainly not the best, but when it used specifically on animals for the health of animals, it brings a little light on the subject. Even though there are many break throughs when it came to getting new treatments with the use of animal experimentation, there are now new advancements created alongside animal testing to help create new and more efficent discoveries. Due to the new advancements, there will always be an alternative way to gaurantee the results from the experiment.
Animal testing is not only a huge controversial issue going on in the United States, but it is also an issue all over the world. Testing on animals is mostly a issue when it comes to make up products as well as trying to create new medical treatments.This type of experimenting has been going on for centuries and it has led to lots of organizations being created to help get justice for the animals that have to give their lives up unwillingly for the use of humans. Many do not believe it is right for animals to have to undergo being mistreated for the happiness of humans. There has also been a lot of new laws created in several states to help protect the rights of animals from being taken away unwillingly. Animals do not ask to be put in a lab to get used for tests and to undergo cruel experiments which can cause them not only lots of pain but also death. Experimentation on animals for the health of humans is inhumane and should not still be going on today since there are a lot of new technology available today to help create medical advances. Humans and animals do not have the same body types and so animals should not be used as experimental objects knowing the results of the experiment can lead to unwanted effects for humans. Animals can not gaurantee the results of a medical experiment will also have the same result for a human and so it is quite pointless to experiment on an animal for the safety of humans.