“It is a simple fact that many, if not most, of today’s modern medical miracles would not exist if experimental animals had not been available to medical scientists. It is equally a fact that, should we as a society decide the use of animal subjects is ethically unacceptable and therefore must be stopped, medical progress will slow to a snail’s pace. Such retardation will in itself have a huge ethical ‘price tag’ in terms of continued human and animal suffering from problems such as diabetes, cancer, degenerative cardiovascular diseases, and so forth. ” Dr.
Simmonds, a veterinarian who specializes in the care of laboratory animals, is one of many who believe that animal testing is an ethical practice. He and many others see the testing as inevitable and say it must continue to help humans survive. “The elimination of horrible disease, the increase of longevity, the avoidance of great pain, the saving of lives, and the improvement of the quality of lives achieved through research using animals is so incalculably great…”(Cohen 27-28). As in any debate though there is always an opposing side, which seems to toss out their opinions and facts as frequently as the rest.
So many in today’s world view animal research as morally wrong and believe animals do have rights. Peter Singer, an author and philosophy professor, “argues that because animals have nervous systems and can suffer just as much as humans can, it is wrong for humans to use animals for research, food, or clothing” (Singer 17). Do animals have any rights? Is animal experimentation ethical? These are questions many struggle with day in and day out in the ongoing battle surrounding the controversial topic of animal research and testing, known as vivisection. Throughout centuries medical research has been conducted on animals.
Animals were used in early studies to discover how blood circulates through the body, the effect of anesthesia, and the relationship between bacteria and disease” (AMA 59). Experiments such as these seem to be outdated and actually are by today’s means, scientists now study commonly for three general purposes: (1) biomedical and behavioral research, (2) education, (3) drug and product testing (AMA 60). These three types of experiments allow scientists to gain vast amounts of knowledge about human beings. Biomedical and behavioral experiments are directed at determining how behavior is affected by certain factors used on the animals.
Educational experiments help train students in school. Majors like medicine, physiology, and general science all use dead animals in experiments. Drug and product testing use animals to determine the safety of new drugs and how toxic they really are. Without the presence of animals in research, what else would scientists use, a human being? “Animals are important in research precisely because they have complex body systems that react and interact with stimuli much as humans do” (AMA 61). This quote directly correlates with some of the common household pets, which are considered important resources for biomedical and behavioral research.
One clear example of an invaluable household pet used in biomedical research are dogs. Dogs are used for many types of research mainly because they have the same relative size of organs when compared to humans. “The first successful kidney transplant was performed in a dog and techniques used to save the lives of ‘blue babies,’ and babies with structural defects in their hearts, were developed with dogs. Open heart surgical techniques, coronary bypass surgery and heart transplantation were all developed using dogs” (AMA 61). Other animals that are typically used in experiments are rats and mice.
Doctors find these species very accommodating when they study different genetic experiments. The mice reproduce very quickly; thus the doctors can view the experiment of genes over several generations of that distinct family. “Experiments on cats have enhanced the understanding of the corpus callosum, a band of fibers that connects the left and right sides of the brain needed for transfer of information from one side to another… led directly to the development of new treatments for patients with strokes, language disorders, brain damage, intractable epilepsy, and other neurologic conditions” (AMA 63).
Biomedical and behavioral research have clearly expanded horizons and greatly benefited humans due to the use of these animals. Animal experimentation also plays a critical role in dealing with educational factors. Experiments have been very helpful to many students trying to learn different techniques or types of surgeries. Veterinarians have to test and research on animals, otherwise would never know what to do in different situations. Medical schools, colleges, and physiology departments all use animal research, but in different numbers. “Fewer animals are used for education than for any other purpose…
Educators generally agree, however, that students are better trained and patients better served when the students are given ‘hands-on’ experience with living tissue, especially for training in surgery” (AMA 64). Animals are essential in educational uses and experiments. One last role animal experimentation helps is in testing for toxicity and chemicals in household items and drugs. Many activists hope that computer simulations can end this type of testing, however there is not much known about the biological systems of animals thus the validity of the tests would be questioned.
Until more is found out about the biological systems, no model can be used to give accurate representation. Tests that spray chemicals into animals’ eyes often determine toxic effects of that item. It may sound harsh, but is necessary to protect citizens that purchase these items. The test must be conducted because there are no quality replacements that would give the desired results to protect people from toxic drugs and chemicals that are in household items. “Biomedical research using animals is essential to continued progress in clinical medicine.
Animal research holds the key for solution to AIDS, cancer, heart disease, aging and congenital defects” (AMA 67). Research and testing on animals is definitely a questionable practice, but with all the helpful vaccines and test results it has produced how can anyone argue it? Easily! “They’re expensive, time consuming and often have dubious applicability to humans. There are so many species to test on, and so many doses that can be administered, that scientists can theoretically come up with whatever results they’re looking for,” says Dr.
Martin Stephens of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). “Many alternatives are often quicker, cheaper and more accurate” (Pardue 14-15). Dr. Martin is one of the many activists that support animal rights movements. The debate of animal testing rose greatly in the decade of the nineties. Pros and cons to the treatment of the animals were abundant everywhere. Two main tests that fuel the fire behind anti-vivisection actions are the Draize Test and the LD50 Test. The Draize Test involves dropping a substance directly into an animals eyes and watching the results.
The LD50 (Lethal Dose 50) is force-feeding a substance to a group of animals until 50 percent of the group dies. Many consider tests such as these very ridiculous and wastes of money. Anti-vivisectionists argue how accurate they truly can be when comparing animals like rats, rabbits, and dogs to the human anatomy and physiological effects. There seem to be two important questions that animal rights activists seek to answer. Are the treatments humane? And are there alternatives to animal testing? Today many scientists and activists fight against vivisection, the dissection of live creatures.
This practice seems very unethical to large amounts of people when they are conducted on poor, defenseless animals. Animal testing is portrayed as an inhumane injustice. The Draize Eye Irritancy Test and the LD-50 Test are just a couple of tests that harm millions and millions of animals each year. The afore mentioned Draize Test is used to measure how harmful chemicals found in cosmetics and household products can be by observing the damage they cause in the eyes and on the skin of animals like rabbits. The test is very simple.
While holding open the animals’ eyes with metal clips, a solution is dropped in to see what happens over a given time frame. Reactions are different for certain species, but for the most part animals suffer great pain from this sort of test and it often causes blindness in the animals’ eyes. At the end of the test period however, all of the animals are killed anyway to determine the internal effects the substance had on the organism. This is not the only inhumane test out there today. The LD-50 Test, or Lethal Dose 50% Test, is another test that kills numerous animals annually.
This test takes a certain number of animals, usually 200 or so, and forcibly feeds the test group a substance until over half of the group has died. Animals usually suffer from different areas of pain during the administering of this test. Convulsions and diarrhea are two of the more significant side effects the animals experience. However, once again at the end of the testing period those animals that have not already died are killed. Each of these unjust tests both provide adequate safety and information for humans correct? Wrong!
The Draize Test does not even provide information for the effective treatment of certain injuries that can occur from the products use. Numerous companies have been known to even market products that have been shown to be irritants in animal testing, and just provide small, unnoticeable warning labels on the side of the package. The LD-50 Test is supposed to yield information on different toxicities of specific substances, like the amount that needs to be ingested to harm people. But once more, since the results can vary between species, like elephants and mice, the predictions are very unreliable and almost impossible to attain.
One of the few studies that examined the differences in species reactions, found only a 5-25% correlation between harmful effects in people and the results of animal experiments” (Lan Shark). These two tests most certainly are not humane and cause great amounts of death to the species. The tests do not produce reliable evidence in helping humans, and if so it is very minimal. “Did you know that testing a drug or chemical on an animal provides no evidence that it is safe for humans? This is because each species of animal reacts in a different way to drugs and chemicals.
Each species of animal differs in terms of metabolic rate, physiology, immunology, anatomy, genetics, etc. ” (Make Cense). Alternative testing is what most consider the easiest way to reduce the number of animal testing stations throughout the world. There are many alternatives to animal testing today. “Clinical and epidemiological studies, cadavers, tissue cultures, cell cultures from human organs, and sophisticated computer simulators are just a few of the cheaper, much more reliable alternatives to animal research” (New England 84-85).
New substitutes for irritancy tests have been infiltrated into use such as “egg membranes…vaccines from human tissues, and…pregnancy tests using blood samples instead of killing rabbits” (New England 84-85). Due to modern technology, alternative methods are paving their way for more effective and humane approaches to animal research and to solving human health problems. Alternatives like these are already saving human and animal lives. They often provide usable data faster than animal experiments, and of course are much more reliable.