Why Is Animal Testing Inhumane

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Medical research using animals has prolonged the lives of millions of people. Animals such as dogs, primates, guinea pigs, and different strains of rats and mice are used as disease models in medical research to test treatments and surgical procedures. The disease animal models used in medical research have resulted in treatments to combat health disorders such cancer research and asthma. Without the use of animals in medical research, certain medications and treatments would be useless to humans. Opponents of animal testing strongly believe that it is inhumane and cruel to conduct animal testing. No doubt I do agree that it may seem cruel however I feel that it is more than necessary for animal testing to be conducted. Through animal testing…show more content…
However in actual fact, animal experiments are not used to show that drugs are safe and effective in human beings. Instead, they are used to help decide whether a particular drug should be tested on people. Animal experiments reject some potential drugs as either ineffective or too hazardous to use on human beings. If a drug passes the animal test it's then tested on a small human group before large scale clinical trials. Let’s say we have 4 drugs A, B C, D and we feed these drugs to 3 different animals. Drug A killed the dogs and cats. Drug B caused a negative reaction to the mice and cats, drug C killed only dogs and drug D was given to all the animals in high dosage but not one animal died. Thus from these experiments we know at least drug D is safer than the other drugs and can proceed on to the next phase of small human group testing. Open heart surgery- which saves lives of an estimated 44000 every year in the us alone—is now routine thanks to 20 years of animal research by scientists such as John Gibbon of Jefferson Medical college in Philadelphia.( (Rowan, 1997…show more content…
Critiques may argue that animal testing should be eradicated. There are other alternatives available now such as in vitro (in glass) testing, computer (in silico) modelling so why should there be a need for animal testing. In vitro is refers to the technique of performing a given procedure in a controlled environment outside of a living organism. ( (Foundation, 2012)). Studying cell cultures in a petri dish, while sometimes useful, it does not provide the chance to study interrelated processes occurring in the central nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system. Animal testing is still required for example, no tissue cultures mimic asthma symptoms, so the disease had to be researched in a living system.( (Columbia)) By treating the guinea pigs with 2,4-toluene diisocyanate (TDI) for about ten weeks, the guinea pigs suffer from Labored respiration, a symptom associated with bronchiole asthma in humans, Further research using asthma-induced guinea pigs help aid in the discovery of new treatments and cures to conquer asthma since the airway anatomy and the response to inflammatory mediators is similar to humans. In silico modelling can help foresee possible long-term toxic effects on the human body tissue and cell cultures have become valuable additions to the array of research tools and techniques. In consequence, the use of living organisms to test the safety of substances to be found in daily-life products such as make-up, soap or toothpaste is no longer needed
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