Running Head: Animal Testing

The Ethics Behind Animal Testing

Honors British Literature
E. Clinton Tawes

Sierra N. Poole
24 April 2015

Animal Testing

The Ethics Behind Animal Testing

Introduction
The practice of animal testing is widely used in order to thoroughly test new
products to assure the safety of all future human consumers. The benefit of perfecting the
product, however, is not always present. Numerous products have been released after many
years of constant animal testing, and have still had side effects and reactions occur that were not
initially expected. Many experts have stated that animal testing has interfered with the
observations and evaluations of many ingredients and chemicals throughout the medical and
cosmetic industries. If animal testing is not 100% effective, should we continue to subject
animals to medical and cosmetic testing for our benefit?

Science
Scientists view animal testing as almost necessary in order to prepare products for the
real world. It has been seen as the only way to fix a problem without affecting humans.
Animals have been used for years as test subjects in order to test new formulas and replicate the
reactions that the human body would have to those certain products. These tests can range from
simply feeding test medicine to a rat to see its reactions, to isolating other animals, and even
going as far as getting them addicted to human drugs. The number of different experiments
that have and will be done on animals are endless, and the lives of these animals are put in
danger more and more each day. Not only are these tests continued to be performed there are
many that are not effective in the lab due to the numerous difference between humans and
common test subjects such as mice. There have been many tests that have passed animal testing,
and has later killed humans. For example, the chemical benzene was not removed from the
industrial world, despite its epidemological and clinical proof that exposure to humans caused

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leukemia, simply because the tests that were supported by the manufacturer were unable to
recreate this effect in mice.
3R Principles
Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement; ... fundamental principles for driving ethical
research, testing and education using animals as stated by Trnqvist, Cotgreave, and berg
(2014). There has yet to be a standardized way to report the 3R principle, making it that much
harder to convince scientists, being there is no way to view any progress made. Many scientists,
close to 95%, have admitted that they have considered the 3Rs before beginning their research,
but when it comes to actually carrying out the experiments this number drops to around 50%,
and by the time they are presenting their findings, whether it be conferences or meetings, it has
dropped to 25%. Replacing the animals within the testing area is one of the largest complaints.
Many scientists do not believe that this is possible because the testing on animals has become
such a regular thing.

The Animals
Cages, injections, tests, and torture; the basics of what animals endure while in the labs of
scientists, all just to test out products that will be used to benefit the lives of humans. The major
defense made by scientists is that they are merely animals and that testing on animals is better
than testing on humans. While testing on humans is dangerous, so is animal testing. Peter Singer
writes in Animal Liberation that animals ... should be considered because of their ability to
suffer. which is the exact statement that changed the perspective of Steven M. Wise, who was
before a criminal and personal injury lawyer but then turned to join Attorneys for Animal Rights,
later known as Animal Legal Defense Fund. Organizations such as these are working to keep
animals out of the harsh environments of labs and in the wild where they belong. The argument
that animals have social and emotional lives (Mitra, 2015) and deserve to be free has been

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challenged for years and was addressed by Wise, along with many others, which slowly sparked
the changes that we see today. There has been a plethora of new information discovered by
researchers through the fields of endocrinology, ethology, psychology, and neurobiology, which
have provided the world with a new outlook on animals. Mitra (2015) writes that it is now
widely known that animals experience and display a, range of emotions -- joy, love, grief,
shame, embarrassment, despair --and have a basic sense of justice and what we call morality.
These traits were once believed to only be held by humans, putting us above the animal
kingdom. It seems that Mitra had it right when she titled her article Animals are Persons, too.

Conclusion
Animal testing should not be legal. Not only is it harming thousands of animals but it is
costing millions of dollars. More scientists should be implementing the 3Rs and minimizing the
number of animals tortured by scientists through injections and trials. Animals, while not always
seen as equals to humans, do have rights and those rights are quickly disregarded if used in the
name of science. Science can not be used as an explanation for taking away the rights of anyone
or anything.

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References

Mitra, M. N. (2015). ANIMALS ARE PERSONS, TOO. Earth Island Journal, 29(4), 17.
Mone, G. (2014). New Models in Cosmetics Replacing Animal Testing. Communications
Of The ACM, 57(4), 20-21. doi:10.1145/2581925
Trnqvist, E., Annas, A., Granath, B., Jalkesten, E., Cotgreave, I., & berg, M. (2014).
Strategic Focus on 3R Principles Reveals Major Reductions in the Use of Animals in
Pharmaceutical Toxicity Testing. Plos ONE, 9(7), 1-11.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0101638
Zhao, F., Guo, X., Wang, Y., Liu, J., Lee, W., & Zhang, Y. (2014). Drug Target Mining
and Analysis of the Chinese Tree Shrew for Pharmacological Testing. Plos ONE, 9(8), 112. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104191