Defending Animal Research

First of all, scientist have many reasons to use animals in their experiments. Throughout
most of history, humans did not have much more effective tools to ask for clemency to a
supreme being in case of suffering from an illness. The emergence of vaccines, antibiotics and
many other types of drugs radically changed that situation. Nowadays, it is not only possible
to prevent smallpox or polio with vaccines, which until very recently destroyed the lives of
thousands of people. Drugs such as tamoxifen or others have managed to reduce cancer
mortality and drug combinations have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people
infected with HIV. Much of this progress would have been impossible without the use of
animal models.

Scientists believe that biomedical research would be almost impossible to carry out
without endangering large numbers of people. On the other hand, they remember that there is
an ethical code designed to limit to the maximum the suffering of the animals and the amount
used in the studies. Scientists are trying to determine how thousands of products can affect our
health with which we can have contact in our daily lives and whose effect is unknown. For this
work, animal models are fundamental. When there is an alternative, they do not use animals,
among other things because working with animals is usually slower, more expensive and more
complicated. But there are some investigations, such as those that have to do with the way in
which a product can affect behaviour or reproduction, in which there is no alternative

Researchers working in the world of reprogramming stem cells, their work may have
applications, in the long term, in the development of regenerative medicine and this would be
almost impossible without animals. This is because they are interested in the function of certain
genes that can only be studied in the environment of an animal. In addition, mice allow genes
to be turned off specifically to better understand their function.

It is proposed to evaluate drugs in patient samples, and is an alternative to the use of

animals to evaluate these drugs, but it is new and it will take time to replace the standard use
of animals with human samples. Steps like this can help limit the use of animals as much as
possible while maintaining the great benefits that biomedical research has provided for
humanity.
In animal experimentation, it is about fulfilling the principle of the three things:
replacement, reduction and refinement. The replacement consists of replacing, whenever
possible, the animals with computer or cellular models to prove the effect of drugs or toxins.
The reduction tries to reduce the number of animals used. And the refinement consists in
looking for methods to minimize the suffering of the animals. It should be noted in the public's
sensibility that people who use experimental animals are not cruel people. It is about
minimizing the suffering to the maximum, and for that analgesics is used or it can be included
in the toys so that the animal is better.

Likewise, more and more scientists recognize that the lack of information on a controversial
topic such as this can cause unrest in the population and facilitate the appearance of wrong
views, so it is important to increase the participation and visibility they have in the society.
Scientists assume that they have an obligation to inform society about their work. If scientists
are always anonymous figures behind the scenes, then the public will be right to distrust their
purposes.