Pros and Cons of Animal Testing: The Conflicting Debate

Animal testing is a worldwide controversy that is constantly battling between the benefits and drawbacks of using animals for scientific and commercial testing. They have been used for many things like testing make-up products, developing medical treatments, checking the safety of products intended for human use and many more. Before the 19th century, there was an insubstantial amount of public objection to the testing of animals until more pets were being adopted into families and it is estimated that 26 million animals are used for testing every year in America: it has been said that animal testing started as early as 500BC. With this in mind, there are an endless amount of pros and cons that have been argued throughout the years.

The first argument that is a popular advantage to using animals, is testing for medical treatments: this has lead to various life-saving cures and treatments. California Biomedical Research Association (2013) found that a vast majority of medical breakthroughs within the last 100 years is due to using animals for research. The associations research was on their website and written in 2013, providing insight to the benefits of animal testing. An example of this is the Polio vaccine. When testing on animals to further understand this disease, a cure was eventually found; this then lead to a decrease in it’s manifestation globally from 350,000 cases in 1988 to then only 27 cases in 2016, a long 28 years later. Alongside this, various researchers came across information that animal testing was beneficial due to it giving a larger insight and understanding in things such as brain injuries, childhood leukaemia, cystic fibrosis and countless other conditions. A drawback to testing on animals is mainly due to the fact that in my personal opinion, it is both barbaric and inhumane. The Humane Society International (2013) made public that the animals being used in experiments are subjected to force feeding, both food and water deprivation, potentially days of physical restraint and also killing via carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck breaking, decapitation or various other means. The argument that it is morally wrong can be supported with what is called “The Draize Eye Test”. This is commonly used by cosmetic companies to analyse irritation that is caused by shampoos and other cosmetic products: rabbits are forced to be immobilised in restraining stocks with their eyelids held open by clips for multiple days on end; the clips are used in order to prevent them from blinking the products away that are being tested.

The US department of Agriculture (2016) reported that there was a total of 71,370 animals which suffered pain during these experiments due to not being given any anaesthesia for relief.

An additional benefit to animal testing is the fact that they are similar to humans in several ways. An example of this is chimpanzees sharing almost all (99%) of their DNA with humans alongside mice being 98% genetically similar to humans. Understanding Animal Research (2013) discovered that all mammals (including humans) are all descended from multiple common ancestors, as well as also having the same organs in the body (heart, lungs etc) that all correctly function in the same way. This has then been portrayed to the public that animals are essentially identical to humans allowing people to believe that due to them being so biologically similar, they can be used as test subjects as they are in a way, like humans. It has also been reported that animals can obtain some of the same conditions or illnesses like diabetes or heart disease which therefore further conveys reasons for them to be used. Due to them being different via their metabolic, anatomic and cellular functions (contrast to popular belief they’re biologically different) it is able to show the downsides to testing on animals. It has also been proven that 94% of drugs that pass animal testing, do not pass when trying them in human clinical trials.

To reinforce the previous drawbacks to animal testing, a lot of experiments that are tested on animals don’t always work and so it can be seen as a waste of life. There is an unnamed peer-reviewed study that found significant flaws in a rather large portion of publicly funded studies in both the UK and US. Similar to humans, animals feel pain; Singer (2009) and Dawkins (2011) conveyed that by discriminating against animals due to them not having things such as the “cognitive ability, language or moral judgement that humans do”, it isn’t equally as justifiable than discriminating against humans that suffer with severe mental impairments. This is a strong point from both researchers concluding that animal testing is wrong. However, it has been said that animals are used in particular cases due to ethical considerations that prevent human participants from being used. It is believed that when testing new medicines for any potential toxicity, human participants should not be put in harms way for no reason (procon.org). Speaking of Research (2013) remarked that it would be unethical to humans to do invasive experimental procedures on them before it has been done on the likes of animals beforehand due to it involving genetic manipulation.

This is a global controversy that is constantly in the media due to the benefits and drawbacks it has. Where each point makes up the argument, animal testing shouldn’t be used unless absolutely necessary, despite the fact it has developed various drugs for severe illnesses or conditions like polio. Despite this notable event, animals are loving creatures who instead of being tortured by cosmetics (like the rabbits eyes being held open by clips), should be in loving families or back in their own environment. As previously mentioned, animals should only be used when absolutely necessary in the case of it not working in human trials and it needing to be further developed.

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