Olivia Zollinger

Tolkan

English 12

October 18, 2017

Animal testing

For a long time humans have practiced animal testing. This is when experiments are

performed on animals. This usually involves forcing an animal to undergo something that causes

them extreme pain. Animals should not be used for scientific or commercial testing because it is

painful and unnecessary.

Animals are commonly used in experiments that involve injecting or force feeding

animals with potentially harmful substances, exposing animals to radiation, surgically removing

animals’ organs or tissues to deliberately cause damage, forcing animals to inhale toxic gases,

subjecting animals to frightening situations to create anxiety and depression, food and water

deprivation, physical restraint, the infliction of burns and other wounds to study the healing

process, the infliction of pain to study its effects and remedies, "killing by carbon dioxide

asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means.” “The US Department of Agriculture

reported in 2010 that 97,123 animals suffered pain during experiments while being given no

anesthesia for relief, including 1,395 primates, 5,996 rabbits, 33,652 guinea pigs, and 48,015

hamsters.” Examples of these experiments include The Draize eye test in which cosmetic

companies analyzed the irritation of eyes caused by shampoos by locking rabbits in stocks and

forcing their eyes open with clips for numerous days so they could not blink away the

substances. Other experiments require the animals to die, such as the LD50 test. This test entails

hundreds of mice receiving botox injections in their stomachs and then the number of dead mice
is tallied over the next couple of days. In the USA, the Animal Welfare Act does not even cover

rodents, fish, birds or amphibians, because these animals are not considered animals. This means

no permission is needed to experiment on them. It’s not only the USA either, “In the UK in

2012, 62% of licences granted by the Government allowed animals to be subjected to moderate

or severe suffering. Over 70% of experiments were carried out without providing the animals

with a local or general anaesthetic.”

In reality we don’t even need to use animals for testing nowadays. We now possess the

technology for better alternatives. Animals are not similar enough to us to even test products

accurately. Professor Paul Furlong of Clinical Neuroimaging says, "it's very hard to create an

animal model that even equates closely to what we're trying to achieve in the human." and

Professor Thomas Hartung of evidence-based toxicology says, "we are not 70 kg rats." and he

believes we should use alternatives. 94% of tests that pass on animals fail on humans including

85 HIV vaccines and 100 stroke drugs. Not only are the tests not accurate, but are also causing

harm. The drug Vioxx, used for arthritis, caused over 27,000 heart attacks and deaths even

though the animal tests proved it protected hearts of mice. In the 50s, 10,000 babies were born

with birth defects because of the drug thalidomide which passed animal tests.

There are alternatives. Experiments can easily be performed on human cells in a petri

dish and have better results. There are also products called EpiDerm or ThinCert which serve as

artificial skins. These are made from actual skin cells and would work just as well. We can even

use computer models or microfluidic chips.

Labs are not a place for animals. Forcing animals to suffer and live under these

conditions is discrimination. Just because they do not have the same language or abilities as
humans does not give us the right to treat them in these cruel ways. We need to use testing

alternatives and we need to stop animal cruelty.

 Works Cited

"EpiDerm™ - Overview." MatTek Corporation. N.p., n.d. Web.

"EpiDerm™ - Overview." MatTek Corporation. N.p., n.d. Web.

"GREINER BIO-ONE." ThinCert™ Cell Culture Inserts. N.p., n.d. Web.

"PETA." Animal Testing: Judging the Greatness of Our Nation. N.p., n.d. Web.

"Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web.

"What Is Animal Testing." Cruelty Free International. N.p., n.d. Web.