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Brandon Nagle
Mr. Patten
English 1010
4/16/14
Animal Experimentation
Animal testing is a very controversial topic and you are either for it or against, as there is
never an in between on it. Animal testing or animal experimentation is the use of non-human
animals for experimentation. It is estimated that, between, 100 150 million vertebrate animals
are used in animal testing annually worldwide. Animals are tested for the safety and efficacy of
products for humans. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) require animal testing for the marketing of industrial chemicals,
vaccines, and drugs. Even though animal tests have an appalling 92 percent failure rate in
predicting the safety and/or effectiveness of pharmaceuticals for humans, they are still being
used.
Animal testing is not required for cosmetics or household products. Human testing is
often required post animal testing indicating a certain degree of distrust in the accuracy of
animal testing. The animals that are used in these experiments often die during experimentation
or are subsequently euthanized. The majority of animals used in laboratory testing are purpose-
bred. A smaller number are wild caught or supplied by class B dealers. Then they are sold at
auctions, shelters, and even newspaper ads.
One of the reasons that people want animal testing stopped is the ethical concerns behind
it. Animals are living beings who can feel just like we can, but are unable to express their pain
like we can. Why is it okay to test on animals when its not okay to test on humans without their
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consent? They call this speciesism, which means that one species is superior to another and they
dont have the same rights and values as the other. Many animal rights activists use this term
and they consider it to be similar to racism and sexism. However, many of the scientists try to
minimize the pain and distress as much as possible, but suffering is nonetheless inherent as
animals are held in sterile, isolated cages, forced to suffer disease and injury, or euthanized at the
end of the study. While the majority of scientists are well-intentioned and focused on finding
cures for what ails us, some medical researchers fail to recognize or appreciate that laboratory
animals are not simply machines that produce varieties of data. That is the main concern for
animal rights activists; these animals are not being treated the same way a human would if they
were in the same circumstance and that forces animal rights activists to acknowledge these
ethical issues.
In addition to the ethical arguments against using animals in research, animal advocates,
as well as many scientists, are increasingly questioning the scientific validity and reliability of
animal experimentation. Many have come to realize that animal testing does not reliably predict
how a human will react to a positive test on an animal. That is because humans and animals have
a different physiology, anatomy, and metabolism. Because of the differences between animals
and humans, drugs and procedures that work on animals often end up failing to work on humans.
According to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, Nine out of ten experimental
drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people
based on laboratory and animal studies.
There is also the argument that there is too much wasted time and money that goes into
these animal experiments. For example, Pfizer reported in 2004 that it had wasted more than
$2 billion over the past decade on drugs that failed in advanced human testing or, in a few
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instances, were forced off the market, because of liver toxicity problems. There have been
numerous reports of approved drugs causing serious and unexpected health issues, leading the
FDA to remove the products from the market or require black box warnings on their labels. The
FDA has reported that, Adverse events associated with drugs are the single leading contributor
to preventable patient injury and may cost the lives of up to 100,000 Americans, account for
more than 3 million hospital admissions, and increase the nations hospitalization bill by up to
$17 billion each year.
Then there is the fact that we now have various alternatives to animal testing that have
been proven effective. A specific example of a basic research alternative method, and one that
potentially has saved up to one million animals, is the in-vitro production of monoclonal
antibodies (MABs), which are used in nearly every field of biomedical research and critical areas
of clinical practice. Studies like this one have been proven effective in the medical research
community because this specific study actually uses human cells and tissues to test on. The use
of human tissue in toxicity testing has been proven to be a more effective and reliable than the
use of animal models. The use of human cells and tissues are more accurate in overall results of a
test. However, vitro experimentation does have its limits. A cell culture cannot tell us the effects
a drug will have on an entire human body. It cant help doctors develop new surgical procedures.
It is also a political issue that will not be settled anytime soon. At the moment, it's the law that all
medical drugs are tested on animals, so the law would need to be changed. Perhaps the law could
be changed so that animal testing was optional, rather than mandatory. Scientists could decide
whether or not to test drugs on animals if they knew that it was safe to do so.
Using animals in health care research also presents another problem: the risk of animal
viruses infecting the human population. Some primate viruses, when transmitted to humans, can
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cause disease and even death. Most scientists now believe that the virus that causes AIDS is a
descendent of a virus found in primates. If we practice xenotransplantation, which is the
transplant of animal organs or tissues into humans, the risk of animal viruses entering the human
body could have devastating consequences.
Why is it okay to eat an animal, but not perform tests on them? We eat many times more
of the animals than that are used in medical experiments. The animal is still being used for a
purpose and the only consideration that is taken into account is the person eating the animal. It is
still a very selfish act by the person eating the animal, since they are the only one who benefits
from it. So, when is it considered animal cruelty and when is it not? What is the fine line that
shouldnt be crossed?
There are those who argue that animal testing is a necessary evil that we cannot do
without. Their main argument is that almost every medical breakthrough or achievement has
relied on animal testing at some point in the process. Insulin, which now provides life-saving
treatments for those with diabetes, was once tested on animals. Other medical breakthroughs that
come from animal testing include the polio vaccine, lithium, and penicillin just to name a few.
Now some scientists are fearful that medical research could be stopped entirely if animal testing
was not allowed and any other cures or treatments that could have come from animal testing
would no longer be possible. Many scientists argue that it is essential that we use every available
resource possible to address the medical threats that face humanity today. Most people dont
want to see animals being treated poorly, but who would you rather have suffer: an animal or a
family member? That is the main question that this side of the debate usually takes. I think most
would choose a family member over an animal and that is why animal testing is such a
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controversial topic to talk about. Even though there are alternatives to animal testing, it is often
necessary to test treatments within a living body.
The only way for an experiment to be considered usable for a human is that it must first
be tested on a living creature, whether that is a human or animal. It is argued that many animals
possess the same biological structure of a human. We all have the same organs, bloodstream, and
nervous system. So, animals are an essential part of many clinical trials prior to the phase of
testing the new product on humans.
There are those who argue that animal testing is acceptable because animals are a lower
species than humans and therefore have no rights. These individuals feel that animals have no
rights because they lack the capacity to understand or to knowingly exercise these rights.
However, animal experimentation in medical research and cosmetics testing cannot be justified
on the basis that animals are lower on the evolutionary chart than humans since animals resemble
humans in so many ways. Animals possess internal structures and organs that are identical to the
internal structure and organs that humans have. Also, animals have feelings, thoughts, needs, and
desires that are very similar to human functions and capacities, which should be respected rather
than exploited. However, it is argued that animals are treated humanely in these various tests, for
not only the sake of the animal, but also for accurate test results. Tom Regan asserts that,
"Animals are subjects of a life just as human beings are, and a subject of a life has inherent
value. They are ends in themselves. Therefore, animals' lives should be respected because they
have an inherent right to be treated with dignity. The harm that is committed against animals
should not be minimized because they are not considered to be human."
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However, many people still believe that animal testing is justified because the animals
used in these medical tests are sacrificed to make products that are safer for human use. The
problem with this reasoning is that the animals' safety, well-being, and quality of life are
generally not a consideration. All of these tests are done in the interest of human welfare, without
any thought to how the animals are treated. Others respond that animals themselves benefit from
animal research. That is true to some extent. Some of the tests that are performed on these
animals are for the interest of other animals. The treatments and cures that we have for animals
today in veterinary clinics usually came from animal testing. In an article titled, "Is Your
Experiment Really Necessary?" Sheila Silcock, a research consultant for the RSPCA, states,
"Animals may themselves be the beneficiaries of animal experiments. But the value we place on
the quality of their lives is determined by their perceived value to humans. Making human lives
better should not be justification for torturing and exploiting animals. The value that humans
place on their own lives should be extended to the lives of animals as well.
Animals usually make great test subjects because of their shorter lifespans. Laboratory
mice, for example, live for only two to three years, so researchers can study the effects of
treatments or genetic manipulation over a whole lifespan, or across several generations, which
would be impossible using human subjects. When studying long-term research of cancer, mice
and rats are usually the best suited species, because of their short lifespans.
The fact of the matter is animal testing will never truly go away as long as scientists and
biomedical organizations endorse it. A 2011 poll of nearly 1,000 biomedical scientists conducted
by the science journal Nature found that more than ninety percent agreed that the use of animals
in research is essential. Among those who advocate for the use of animals in medical research
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are The American Cancer Society, American Physiological Society, National Association for
Biomedical Research, American Heart Association, and the Society of Toxicology.
In my opinion, I dont believe we need or should have animal testing in medical
experiments. However, I also realize that many of the cures we have today came from animal
experimentation and many of those cures have saved many lives. Also, many of the cures that
worked for the animal, failed to work for humans and, as a result, have wasted a lot of time and
money for the various organizations that put in that time and money. I just think that in this day
and age, we should have an alternative that doesnt have an ethical debate that surrounds it, is
less time and cost effective, and is more reliable and accurate in results that it provides.










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Works Cited
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): The Animal Rights Organization. Web.
2014.
Silcock, Sheila. Is Your Experiment Really Necessary. New Scientist. April 18, 1992. Web.
2014.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Challenges and Opportunities Report, March 16,
2004. Web. 2014.
Pfizer. Pfizer Guidelines, 2004. Web. 2014.
Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt, Mike. No title. Understanding Animal Research.
2006. Web. 2014.
Regan, Tom. The Case For Animal Rights. Webster. Animal Rights and Human Obligations,
1989. Web. 2014.
Blue, Laura. How Much Does Animal Testing Tell Us. Time. June 17, 2008. Web. 2014.