Curtis Terry

English 111
November 10, 2014
Animal Experimentation
Thesis:
Although there may not be another way to conduct experiments without involving
humans; some scientists have recently begun to realize that there must to be better methods
to perform medical research without using innocent animals.
Over the years, scientists have used animal experimentation for medical research
including chemical tests, biology lessons, drug tests, and a variety of other tests. The results of
using animal experimentation have been positive and negative for both the scientists and the
animals used. Animal experimentation or animal testing is the use of animals for medical
research. Animal experimentation became a debatable topic because millions of animals
unnecessarily suffer and die each year in the United States while being involved with medical
research. It became controversial in the 1950s because peoples views of the way testing
research should be done, began to change because animal experimentations are not 100%
accurate. People and some scientists begun to realize that there are other better methods to
perform medical research without using innocent animals. Many people accept animal
experimentation because they believe it is the only way to do medical research.

In a Pew Research poll they found that 43% of adults surveyed against the use of animals in
scientific research, other surveys suggest that those who do accept animal experimentation do
so only because they believe it to be necessary for the medical progress. Though I believe, using
Animals for Medical Testing is wrong and completely unnecessary.
Many people are for having nonviolent methods being involved in scientific research. While
some may say argue that animal experimentation is a good idea in medical research, but my
research suggest that animal experimentation should be banned because of animal cruelty, it is
confusing to scientist, and there are better techniques scientists can use.
First and foremost, one reason animal experimentation should be banned is because of
its act of animal cruelty. Animal cruelty is neglect towards something or someone, intentional
cruelty, or sexual abuse towards animals. In this case, animal cruelty exists in animal
experimentation because it is intentional cruelty and every year hundreds of animals are killed
due to it. According to PETA, an organization that treats animals that have been involved in
animal cruelty, many of the animals are forced to inhale toxic fumes, immobilized, in restraint
devices such as cages for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their
skin burned off or spinal cords crushed before their deaths. Those are painful procedures that
are harmful to the animals used on medical research. The lab animals have to live in barren
cages, they are socially isolated, and are mentally traumatized. According to John Dewey, a
philosopher and educator, animal cruelty is wrong because of its immorality. The cruelty
amongst the animals is wrong and there is no justification even when animal experimenters are
using a non-painful death, it is still cruel because the animals are under anesthetics. People will
eventually learn that ignoring the issue is helping to continue it.

In addition to the animal cruelty, experiments without animals is possible to perform

research because there are better methods and alternatives. There is a variety of different
technology out there in the world that can be substituted for animals. According to a Health
director, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, some methods that can be used for research are epidemiological
studies, clinical intervention trials, astute clinical observation aided by laboratory testing,
human tissue and cell cultures, biopsy studies, endoscopic examination and biopsy, and also
new imaging methods. Epidemiological study is identifying what the problem is, which in this
case may be a disease, learning its characteristics to figure out the causes and influences of it,
and then testing some solutions. It will offer a significant promise for identifying the causes of
human diseases. New imaging methods would be great for research for breast cancer. Those
techniques are just some of the many techniques that are available for medical research.
Besides that, there is another solution for not having to use animals in research which is in vitro
studies. In vitro studies are vital to the advancement of medicine in general. To perform in vitro
studies scientist must create an artificial model of a human and animal (Using animals for
Medical Testing Is Unethical and Unnecessary para. 14). This can be difficult to do but it is a
great method instead of using live animals. Some companies are trying hard to find and use
alternative methods. A national center was set up in 2004 to accompany the 3 Rs. 3 Rs
stands for refinement which means less suffering, reduction which means fewer animals, and
lastly, which is the most difficult, replacement which means no use of living animals period. It is
a challenging goal that can be achieved with more awareness for fundings and energy.

Work Cited
Guillermo, Kathy. "Animals Used for Experimentation." PETA. The Washington Post, Mar. 1980.
Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
Dewey, John. "The Ethics of Animal Experimentation." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company,
01 Sept. 1926. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.