Animal Testing: A Necessity or Cruelty?

 Introduction:

 The term "animal testing" refers to procedures performed on living animals for research purposes. Animal testing is done to ensure consumer health and environmental safety when using various products such as medicines, vaccines, cosmetics, cleaners, disinfectants, food additives, preservatives etc. Although animal testing has greatly advanced the medical and cosmetic fields, they cause physical and emotional suffering and misery to animals.

History of Animal Testing:

For centuries, animal experiments has been standard practice for learning medicine and biology, and have proven to yield outstanding results in research. In fact, the first animal testing was done in 500 B. C. in the ancient Greece. During that period, vivisections of animals were a normal practice to acquire knowledge on the mechanisms and functions of organs. Vivisection basically means the cutting of or operation on a living animal. Yes, ancient researchers used to cut open animals body while they were still alive without the use of anesthesia!

Pros of Animal Testing:

  Animal testing has undoubtedly contributed to the advancement of the medical field. The discovery of various organ mechanisms, the creation of countless vaccines, the development of cancer treatments have all been made possible by animal testing. Animal testing is quite useful because their DNA is similar to humans. Scientists have found that chimpanzees and humans share 99 percent of their DNA, and even mice and humans have 98 percent of the same DNA. For this reason, scientists can confidently apply the results of medical experiments on animals to human beings. Cosmetic products are used on animals first and if they pass the test, those products are available to use for humans. Thus, scientists ensure the safety of humans through animal testing.   

Cons of Animal Testing:

Animal treatment is inhumane and cruel towards the animals that are being used. Often the procedures can cause a great deal of distress. Each year, about 100 million animals are used for experimentation only in the U.S. and 97% of them are killed after the experiment or used for another experiment. Most of the labs keep the animals in small lab cages. They are forced to face chemical exposure in toxicity testing, which can include force-feeding, forced inhalation, injection of toxic substances etc. They are often exposed to drugs, chemicals or infectious disease at levels that cause illness, pain or even death! To know more click here.

Alternatives:

Two major alternatives to animal testing are cell culture techniques aka "in vitro" and computer simulation aka "in silico". The testing of cosmetic products directly onto an animal can be minimized by the use of in vitro cell growth and development. This method of cosmetic testing is less time-consuming and less expensive than animal testing. Computer simulations or in silico can offer a good idea of how animals and humans would respond to certain tests. In fact, human genes cloned into microorganisms can offer more specific toxicology reports than animal testing!

Conclusion:

 Animal experiments have led to great advances in many areas of science. In fact, it has saved millions of lives. But as technology advances, the need for animal testing is diminishing. Considering the pain and suffering that animal testing causes to the animals used, researchers should adapt to new alternatives. More researches must be done to improve the alternatives. Meanwhile, to ensure the well-being of laboratory animals, labs should provide a better environment for them rather than keeping them isolated in traditional lab cages, use anesthesia and avoid painful unnecessary experiments which can do so much to ease the sufferings of animals used in research.

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