Running Head: Animal Testing 1

Animal Testing

Zanet Navarrete

University of Texas at El Paso

 Animal testing has been a huge issue through out the years, but it has become more

controversial in todays society. Todays society wants people to see the pros and cons of animal

testing, many times there is going to be organizations who just want other people to see the bad

side of animal testing and not the beneficial side.

Testing animals has been an ongoing issue in todays society because of the treatment that

animals are being exposed to. An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United

States for scientific and commercial testing. The animals are used to develop medical treatments,

determine the toxicity of medications, check the safety of products for human use, and other

biomedical, commercial, and health care uses. The research on living animals has going on for

years and it has been practiced since at least 500 BC.

When it comes to animal testing there is also regulations that need to be followed. Animal

testing in the United States is regulated by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The AWA

defines animal as any live or dead dog, cat, or monkey. The AWA excludes birds, rats and other

cold blooded animals from research. The AWA requires that each research facility has an

institutional animal committee which in that committee there should be at least three members in

which one member should be a veterinarian. Also while the AWA regulates the housing and

transportation of animals that are being used for research, it does not regulate the experiments

themselves. A fact about the AWA is that 95% of animals used in experiments are not protected,

which excludes birds, rats and mice for research, and cold-blooded animals such as reptiles and

mostly fish. Animals can be protected by organizations, one of the most huge organization that

protects animals is PETA. The organization promotes and image of vegans and many times they

show videos were many times it makes people feel guilty about the situation.
 Other random facts that were found are that in 1997, researchers Joseph and Charles

Vacanti grew a human ear from implanted cow cartilage cells on the back of a living mouse, and

this was done to explore the possibility of creating body parts for plastic and reconstructive

surgery, and in 2010, Minnesota used more cats for testing than any other state 2,703, New

Jersey used the most dogs 6,077, and Massachusetts used the most primates 7,458, and in 2011 a

poll was released to 1,000 biomedical scientists conducted by the science journal Nature they

found that more than 90% of the scientists agreed that the use of animals in research is essential,

and very beneficial for people and they say that it can also benefit the animals themselves.

Probably the most accurate random fact is that chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with

humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans, and the United States and Gabon are

the only two countries that allow experimentation on chimpanzees.

The pros and cons of animal testing is that many people that are proponents of animal

testing say that it has contributed to the discovery of many vaccines or other treatments that are

beneficial for humans and animals. The people that are opponents of animal testing say that it is

cruel and inhumane to experiment on any type of animals. Those are some of the arguments that

many people are arguing, but many of the pros are that animal testing has contributed to many

life saving cures and treatments and some of the discoveries that have contributed to this

statement is that according to the California Biomedical Research Association it states that nearly

every medical breakthrough has contributed from researching animals, another statement that

supports the pro is that experiments were made to dogs which resulted in the discovery of

insulin. Another pro is that all mammals, including humans, are descended from common

ancestors, and all have the same set of organs that function in the same way, and many people

agree that experiments should be made to animals instead of humans. There is an ongoing list of
pros, but also one of the pros that stood out the most is that animals don't have actual rights,

thats why it acceptable in any case to test on them, this is because animals don't have the ability

that humans do and thats also why they are treated differently, in every culture, state or country

is the same, they don't have rights except the organizations that try to protect them. For example,

if animals were granted animal rights all humans would have to become vegetarians and hunting

would not be allowed.

The cons for animal testing are the people who are against it. One of the cons of the

ongoing list is that animal testing is cruel and inhumane. According to Humane Society

International, animals used in experiments are commonly subjected to force feeding, forced

inhalation, food and water deprivation, this affects the animals because many of the times they

are injured and also in many of the cases when and experiment is done, the animals are not put

through anesthesia ,therefore many of the animals that are experimented end up dying or killed.

Another con that is also is that there has been a discovery that there is an alternative testing

method that now exists that can replace the need for animals, and the statement that supports is

that there is a new testing going on that tests cell cultures and it can produce more results than

animal testing. One con that actually affects the government is that animal tests are more

expensive than alternative methods and its actually a waste of money from the government. A

statement that actually supports this con is that the Humane Society International compared a

variety of animal tests with their cell structure tests and it comes out that animal test costs

$32,000, while the cell structure costs $11,000. These cons show how animal testing is cruel and

inhumane and thats why many people don't support it, but also there is the pros which also can
benefit the animals themselves, but people still have different opinions on why they are for

animal testing and against it.

The 2 different genres that are being used are typography and iconography. Typography is

being used in animal testing in an article. The article is demonstrating and stating the pros and

cons of animal testing. The other genre that is being used in animal testing is iconography, the

video is from the organization Peta, and it is related to the topic because it shows how laboratory

employees are mistreating the animals and those animals include cats and chimpanzees. Its

showing how the employees are mistreating them by injecting liquids, or by just inserting tubes.

Although there has been a lot of controversy over this issue, people are never going to be

happy with what society agrees with or not. Everyone has different opinions, and each person

defends what they believe is the right thing.

 References

This Is Animal Research. retrieved from http://www.peta.org/videos/this-is-animal-research-2

Animal Testing - ProCon.org. retrieved from http://animal-testing.procon.org/#arguments