Essay Sample on Animal Testing

Inroduction

The use of animals for testing has been a controversial topic and raised concerns among stakeholders. Animals, from non-human primates to the mice and rats, are used in scientific research. They provide an opportunity for scientists, research, learn more about human health, and develop new medicines that eliminate human suffering. According to Baumans (2004), "the practice the use of animals in research, experiments and development of drugs has its roots in the Ancient Greece, where Hippocrates and Aristotle laid down the knowledge on the structure of the human body". Despite the argument that animal research has developed a lifesaving treatment for both people and animals, others consider it unethical, expensive and cruelty against animals and an alternative should be found.

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There is an ongoing debate about the ethics of animal experimentation. Some people argue that the benefits of animal research are enormous, and they have very useful results for public health. According to this point of view, animal research has played an important role in various scientific and medical advances of the twentieth century and still proceeds to improve others argue (Harrison, 2013). Animals have a basic moral right to respectful treatment. Animals and people are not very different kinds, in fact, they are similar in many ways; they all think, feel and experience pain. According to my anecdotal evidence, all pets that I owned sensed the same feeling with me. Therefore, animals should be treated with respect as humans. When animals are used in research, human being violates their rights.

There exists a moral and ethical blind spot in animals' treatment, which helps us in justifying the cruelties for the benefits perceived by the humans. Animals are also living things. They do have hearts to beat, lungs breathe and blood flow (Thomas, 2008). The smell of sight, sense, and the sound of animals is more acute than for human beings. As a result, the sensitivity of animals to pain is equal to ours. Hippocrates said that the soul of all living creatures is the same, but the bodies are different (Thomas, 2008). Because they don't give a choice, animals subjected to that kind of tests are painful or cause long-term damage or death, and they are never given the chance of not participating in the experiments. Furthermore, although we share most of our genes with other mammals, they are genetic, anatomically different from humans (Flamm, 2013). In brief, animal testing is ethically wrong to inflict suffering upon any living creature and should, therefore, stop henceforth.

Today animal research has become a big business. Some say the animal testing experiments are not expensive since it is an experimentation industry. Chemical industries, university, government and pharmaceutical are part of this industry. Moreover, they add that it is a booming market, which has thousands of employers engage in. This argument, however, does not take into account the total cost of this kind of research (Badyal & Desai, 2014). For example, the total cost of animal use can be equal to the cost of acquisition plus maintenance of the animals and technical equipment of the laboratories. Similarly, these methods of animal testing are more cost-effective and more confidential than conventional animal experimentation (Badyal & Desai, 2014). For example, cell-based tests and tissue models can be used to adjust the safety of chemicals, drugs, or cosmetics. Also, a wide range of sophisticated computer models that simulate human biology can be easily used for developing treatments. Although the initial cost of implementing these alternatives expensive, the long-term savings would justify the investment.

Economic costs, animal research are for commercial interests, the industry produces multi-billion dollars, this is why we should discourage the continued use of animals because it may not help our battle against diseases but rather may hinder it. For instance, in 2010 alone, the Jackson Laboratory, the leading mammalian genetics research centres sold over 3 million mice and made a profit of $98.7 million (Thomas, 2008). Animal breeders, importers, dealers, equipment and cage manufacturers, drug companies and feed producers enjoy the huge investment in procurement handling and upkeep of animals for labs. This makes procurement and maintenance of animals to test expensive (Scholz et al., 2013). Mice, birds and rats make over 90 per cent of animals used in research because they are less expensive to buy, easy to maintain and can easily be disposed of without much public concern compared to other species (Scholz et al., 2013). Despite the industry becoming lucrative and drawing profits, it brings some downside to animal experimentation that affects environmental health and public health. Compared to non-animal other alternative methods are the live animal test is very expensive and consumes much time. For example, the DakDak experiment used to test the efficacy of sunscreens in preventing screen damage can yield data for five-six products at less than a half lower the cost of experimenting one product in animals.

Until now, many have argued that scientific research has no alternatives for testing new drugs. Stokes (2015) states, "Notwithstanding attempts to stop using animals in experimentation and the presence of several widely recognized substitute procedures, animals are used widely for toxicology research experimentation (Stokes 2015). Replacing animal tests does not mean that putting human patients at risk. The alternative methods are growing and developing day by day. For example, volunteered human clinical tests, lab-grown cells, organs are used for research. Alternative methods have the added benefit of greater accuracy because the results come directly from human beings (Armstrong, & Botzler, 2016). Furthermore, it is most probably that alternative ways and model, in time, will replace animal testing in public health and pharmacology studies, either partially or completely.

Despite positive tests carried scientifically on animals and yielding drugs and cure, these results are not completely safe. Several drugs and medicines that have been manufactured lately have been banned because they have either created new problems or worsened the existing one to customers. Thalidomide is a good example of such drug; it was commercially released in the 1950s (Festing & Wilkinson, 2007). The drug caused severe deformities caused numerous abnormalities in newborn babies despite showing a successful result in animals without any side effects. Moreover, many other medications have been denied release approval because they failed to pass the lab test. This is so to protect the consumer from harmful effects of the drug (Festing & Wilkinson, 2007). This shows some form of human selfishness because of the attempt to protect at the expense of the lives of innocent animals.

Furthermore, experts such as Professor Paul Furlong of the Auston University Neuroimaging Clinic argue, "creating animal models that are equal or can bring similar results to what is being achieved in human is hard." There is evidence proving that animal models are not always accurate and hence they cannot be depended upon on the safety testing and research on diseases. Doctors and other scientists understand that while animals are similar to humans biologically, they are not identical (Masterton et al., 2014). The metabolic, anatomy and cellular variances between humans and animals make animals' poor model for people. Further, different species of animals react differently to chemical and drugs. This makes it difficult to predict whether a human reaction will be similar or different based on tests carried out on animals. Many millions of the lab animals killed annually have saved human lives (Armstrong, & Botzler, 2016). I would argue that animal testing is unethical and should not continue. The opposite can also create challenges with animal experiments (Festing & Wilkinson, 2007). Some products and drugs can benefit human and harm animals, the current state of research priority makes difficult to make this discovery. Animals are normally tested before human are tested. For instance, Asprin has benefited, improved, and saved millions of lives despite being a hazardous product for animals. Insulin saves lives on a daily basis despite causing animal birth defects.

Over five million animals have already been used for conducting safety tests. These safety tests are usually conducted with a broad range of chemical products such as cosmetics, household cleaners, vaccines and packing materials (Flamm, 2013). As a result, issues like ethics and the humanness of poisoning animals deliberately are raised. Animals are harmed for the sake of advertising and marketing new household and cosmetic products. The U.S Humane Society promotes the research methods that can potentially minimize, replace or even refine the use of animals in order for the animals to experience suffering (Flamm, 2013). HSUS conducted an opinion poll ten years ago on the pain and the distress in research. They found that approximately 62% of the people would accept and approve animal testing if the animals experienced little or no pain. At least 75% of the people disapproved animal testing because of the severe pain experienced by these animals (Flamm, 2013).

Most tests involving animals are involved are faulty, wasting the subjected animals' lives. A peer review study conducted in 2009 established serious discrepancies in the most publicly funded UK and US animals studies where primate and rodents were used. Eighty-seven per cent of those tests did not randomize animals' selection and eighty-six per cent failed to apply to the blind (Flamm, 2013). In addition, slightly above 50 per cent of the studies revealed the study objective or hypothesis and the number of animal characteristics used. The lives of animals are sacrificed for poorly done researches because most of the animals involved are killed during or after the experiments.

Consequently, the Animal Welfare Act has failed in deterring terrible incidents in the testing labs. For instance, the Human Society of the United States (HSUS) established possible over 330 cases of breach of the Animal Welfare Act in March 2009 at the New Iberia Research Center (Knight et al., 2009). The federal government in Louisiana funded the research. Some of the primates kept at the NIRC engaged in self-mutilation because of severe emotional stress (Knight et al., 2009). A video recording showed infant chimpanzees screaming when separating from their mothers, infant primates are seen the alert as they undergo the painful experience and their parents being intimidated and shot using dart gun. In another violation incident, three unattended baby mice were discovered wrapped in a plastic baggie while still alive at the University of California, Davis Centre for Neuroscience (Knight et al., 2009).

The undeniable truth is that every day thousands of animals are dying every day due to animal testing. The hard debate at hand is if we should continue to do as we are doing or should we stop due to the fact that it is morally not right. My side lies with both. Animal testing has made some important breakthroughs that we could have possibly not found any other way. We have new medicine, new cures, and a better standard of living through the process of animal testing. Because of this, we should strive to make things better for not only us but the animals we treat with too. A scientist should find a way to provide the safest and most suitable environments for the animals until they don't get treated badly. Having thousands of deaths of animals is sad, but when it comes to the lives of millions of humans, it may be the only thing to do. On the other side, cosmetic animal...