Animal Testing - Literature review Example

Animal Testing Introduction Animal testing is extensively used in many countries for scientific research and studies. Before testinga new medicine on human, animals are used to test the medicines. Animals and the human have similarities in their physiology and metabolism which is exploited by the human for his selfish purposes. Life is precious to all and the ethics and morality in using animal life for the benefit of human is a debatable topic across the world. Animal lovers are of the opinion that animal life is as important as the human life and it is ethically wrong to sacrifice the life of animals for human benefits. On the other hand, supporters of animal life believe that human life is the most important thing in the world and in order to safeguard the human life, exploiting other lives like the animal life is logical and ethical. This paper analyses some of the articles appeared in the internet with respect to the animal testing problems and solutions. Summary Response # 1 “What’s Wrong With Animal Experiments?”. 24 March 2010. The article What’s wrong with animal experiments on Dr Hawden Trust, the UK’s leading medical research charity website, mentioned that animal experiments globally are around 100 million experiments each year. Cats, dogs, rabbits, mice and other animals are widely used for testing purposes. The trust strongly opposed the animal testing citing moral and scientific reasons. The trust argued that results from animal experiments may be of dubious value to humans. It also mentioned that the major weakness of medical research on animals is the differences between species, which can make results from one type of animal inapplicable to another. It explained that while some of these variations are known and can be taken into account; others, such as reactions to new drugs or the function of an area of the brain, are not yet discovered and results from animal experiments can be seriously misleading. Another reason cited in the above article was with respect to the ethical issue. Animals which are used to study pain, depression, anxiety, and to test pain-killing drugs for human use, capable of suffering in many ways just like humans. Beyond pain, there is also evidence that animals, in particular mammals and birds, have thoughts, intentions, and memories which can be harmed by confinement, frustration, fear, isolation, and loss of life. 215 Words Summary Response # 2 “Not Ours to Experiment on” .2010. Stopanimaltests.com. 24 March 2010. Another article Not Ours to Experiment on, appeared on Stopanimaltests.com also argued against animal testing. It mentioned that animal experimentation not only preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year. It also explained that animals which are routinely cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years are not providing the necessary data beyond doubt because of vast physiological variations between species and human reactions to illnesses. The article also mentioned that the s non-animal research methods are cheaper today and are humane, more accurate and less time-consuming than animal experiments. The article blamed the current researchers who still persist with animal testing for not willing to switch to superior technological advances. The above article direct us to another article in the same website under the title of Animal Testing 101 which explained that as many as 115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the U.S. Moreover, it argued that animal experimentation is a multibillion-dollar industry which involves corporate, government, and university laboratories, cage and food manufacturers, and animal breeders, dealers, and transporters. It also explained that massive funding is there in this area and the public money is looted by the above people in the name of animal testing. 218 Words Summary Response # 3 Allen, Arthur. 2006. “Of Mice or Men: The Problems With Animal Testing”. 24 March 2010. Allen Arthur has posted an article, Of Mice or Men: The problems with animal testing in 2006, which explains the problems associated with animal testing and solutions for it. Allen has mentioned that in an era in which advance methods of drug development is growing, new methodologies should be devised for testing the drugs. He has pointed out that only chimpanzees and humans provide realistic models for testing many monoclonal antibodies citing an FDA article. He has cited ethical reasons also to argue against animal testing. In his opinion, it was immoral "to subject animals to painful, distressing and lethal experiments when the reliability of the results are questionable. He has argued that animal testing is not much effective to test the medicines. The most important problem in animal testing is the reliability of the results. Nobody can guarantee 100% surety of the results on human even after 100% success on animals because of the immense differences in the physiology and metabolism between animals and humans. For example, nowadays vaccines against HIV/AIDS are tested on animals first before testing it on humans. It is quiet possible that the HIV/AIDS medicine shown 100% success on monkeys and chimpanzees may yield negative results on human. Even though lots of similarities are there between animals and human, there are lots of differences also. 220 Words Summary Response # 4 “Animal Testing”. 24 March 2010. The article Animal Testing provides us the problems and some solutions for the animal testing. The article argues that since animals have no voice; an animal cannot tell you to stop hurting them or that they object to what you are doing, animal testing is ethically wrong. The article also mentioned that about 5% of total animal deaths are due to animal testing. The results that come from animal testing are obsolete or are done and redone with the same results according to this article. There are physical and physiological differences between animals and humans which again reduces the utility of animal testing. The article suggests that Replacement, Reduction and Refinement can be used as the three R’s of solutions for animal testing problems. Replacement refers to the substitution for conscious living higher animals of insentient material whereas Reduction means the reduction of number of experiments conducted on animals before proving the reliability of the medicine. Most of the researchers even start their experiments from the animals. Such practices are not advisable. Animals should be used only at a stage when the researcher was almost sure about the outcomes of his medicines. Thus researchers can reduce the number of experiments on animals. Researchers should make sure that their drugs are free from any consequences as much as possible before testing it on animals. 223 Words Conclusions Animal testing involves ethical and scientific problems. Nobody can guarantee 100% effectiveness of medicines on human even if it is 100% successful on animals because of the differences in physiology and metabolism. The value of animal life is as important as human life and killing of animals for the human benefit is ethically wrong. Animal testing is unavoidable. But we can reduce the harms caused to animals by implementing advanced methods in animal testing. Replacement, Reduction and Refinement can be used as the three R’s of solutions for animal testing problems Works Cited 1. “Animal Testing”. 24 March 2010. 2. Allen, Arthur. 2006. “Of Mice or Men: The problems with animal testing”. 24 March 2010. 3. Stopanimaltests.com. 2010. “Not Ours to Experiment on”. 24 March 2010. 4. “What’s Wrong With Animal Experiments?”. 24 March 2010. Read More