Animal Testing: As Detrimental to Us as it is to Them

Thesis: Animal testing is an evil that should be abolished for animal and human sake. Between
the ethical issues, medical issues, and scientific issues it causes, it is not worth continuing to
support.

A. R1: From an ethical standpoint, animal testing is appalling.

a. Overview
b. Statistics
c. Argument “animals can feel pain”
d. Living Conditions

B. Refutation: Animal testing is necessary because there is no other way.

C. R2: Many diseases, and even some medicines, have been researched on humans
because they are not carried or transmitted by animals.
a. Cancer
b. AIDS
c. Diabetes
d. Unnecessary human exposure to viruses
e. Anesthesia

D. R3: Even in monkeys and other closely related mammals, the genetic code of their cells
differs too greatly from humans to trust research.
a. TGN1412
b. Thalidomide
c. Clioquinol
d. Effects of known medicines on other animals
 Imagine being locked up in a hot, uncomfortable, and cramped cage for years on

end. Imagine being a test subject for medicines that will not even work on the human

population. This is essentially what animal testing does. It takes innocent lab animals,

crams them into small cages, and puts them up to tests that very often will not be able

to be applied in a human setting. Many medicines which have been tested on animals

are not usable on humans because of the different side effects they yield. Animal

testing is an evil that should be abolished for animal and human sake. Between the

ethical issues, medical issues, and scientific issues it causes, it is not worth continuing to

support.

Firstly, from an ethical standpoint animal testing is appalling. It causes mass

suffering while yielding few usable results. Nearly 15 million animals are used and killed

for medical experimentation each year. Nearly 8 million of these are forced to go

through painful procedures. Shockingly, reports claim that 10 or more percent of these

animals go through said procedures with no anesthesia or pain medicine, forcing the

animals to suffer until they are finally given the mercy of death. Many others are given

a minimal amount to where it nearly has no effect on what they feel (Andre).

Many supporters of animal testing don’t believe that animals can feel, reason, or

suffer the way humans do. In reality, however, they can. Scientists often work on

animals such as rats and monkeys because they know the body structures (not

necessarily the CELLULAR structures) of these animals are similar to those of human

beings. If a scientist performing an experiment to test the pain a medicine could cause,

it is logically because the scientist realizes that the rat will feel pain like a human will.
Pain is an instinctual development felt by all modern mammals, and to assume an

animal cannot feel pain just because it can not make a vocal response to it is asinine

(Andre).

Finally, from an ethical standpoint, lab animals are forced to live in deplorable,

inhumane conditions for their entire lives. The cages that animals are forced to live in

provide no comfort; they are quite simply small steel crates with no padding, no access

to food, and little or no water. Animals are malnourished and often die from the

conditions of the prisons they are forced to call a home. They often are forced to sit in

their own feces and urine, and almost never receive any medical care, or much less any

time outside (Arguments Against Animal Product Testing).

Many proponents of animal testing use the argument that there is no way

around it. However, many feasible and cost-effective options have been developed. One

solution is a procedure called Eytex. It was developed to eliminate the need for the

Draize eye irritant test, a test that used to put animals through unnecessary suffering

only to test how different substances affected the eye. This eliminates the need to drip

harmful chemicals into the eyes of animals, replacing it with a simple test tube based

procedure (Arguments Against Animal Product Testing).

A second alternative is an army developed computer program known as TOPKAT.

This software nearly eliminates the need for a live test subject on its own. Both the FDA

and the EPA utilize TOPKAT to detect toxins in medicines, makeups, and other products

are currently utilizing it. A few more alternatives include Skintex, EpiPack, and Testskin.

Skintex is another test tube based procedure that utilizes the skin from a pumpkin
rather than relying on living animal subjects. EpiPack, while it works, is a bit less cost

effective, as it uses cloned and lab-grown human skin. Finally, Testskin utilizes human

skin grown inside of a bag (Arguments Against Animal Product Testing.) This tests the

irritancy of certain chemicals on the basis of real human skin. All of these tests would

lessen the need for live subjects, and would greatly remove the unnecessary burden

humans put on animal populations around the world.

On a second note, many diseases and medicines have been researched on

humans because of their inability to be researched on humans. One frontrunner is the

study of cancer. For nearly 40 years, animals have been used and billions of dollars have

been spent on cancer research using animals as test subjects. Out of all of this, however,

no cure, or even reliable treatment, for that matter, has been developed. The reason

cancer can’t accurately be researched in animals is that the complexity of an animal’s

genome almost always codes for cancerous mutations specifically to its species. Because

of this, many companies that research cancer believe they are losing the battle because

of how far back animal testing has kept us (Bantwal). If terminal diseases like cancer are

researched on humans who develop the illness, not only will it give researchers a more

firsthand look, but it will also give them a patient they can interact and associate with to

give them feedback on how the treatments are working.

Secondly, the study of the AIDS virus has been hampered by animal research.

Any progress that has been made is from studying the virus on human beings (Bantwal).

The development of protease inhibitors that have helped save the lives of countless HIV

and AIDS patients was delayed only because of misleading data from experiments
conducted on Monkeys. A famous researcher of the AIDS virus, Dr. Mark Feinberg once

said: “What good does it do you to test something in a monkey? You find five or six

years from now that it works in a monkey, and then you test it in humans and you

realize that humans behave totally differently from monkeys, so you’ve wasted five

years” (The Scientific Argument Against Animal Testing).

A third disease that has been researched on humans rather than animals is

diabetes. One researcher, Claude Bernard, performed experiments on animals in an

attempt to find the cause of the disease. His conclusions lead to a wide acceptance that

liver damage was the main cause of diabetes. However, it is now widely known that

pancreatic damage is the cause of diabetes. In 1788, Thomas Crawley performed

autopsies on the cadavers of diabetic humans, and made the link between pancreatic

damage and the disease. At a later time, Dr. M. Barron discovered that diabetes was

caused by damage to a specific pancreatic structure, the Islets of Langerhans. He also

discovered that insulin could be created from an extract of the structure. These

discoveries lead to the first production of artificial insulin by Frederick Banting in 1920

(The Scientific Argument Against Animal Testing).

On the contrary, one treatment that has been studied using humans is

anesthesia. In the mid-1800s, Crawford Williamson was a frequenter of “ether parties”.

People would smell different chemicals at these events that would knock them out or

make them woozy. Williamson soon began to conduct research at these. He took his

discoveries and developed the first surgical anesthesia (The Scientific Argument Against

Animal Testing).
 On the contrary, animal testing causes unnecessary human exposure to viruses.

For example, in two US laboratories there were outbreaks of Ebola. This deadly virus has

a near 100 percent mortality rate and causes its victims often to die an agonizing death

while bleeding from every pore in their body. These outbreaks were caused by contact

between laboratory scientists and lab animals infected with the disease (Andregg 140).

Thirdly, even in monkeys and other closely related mammals, the genetic code of

their cells differs to greatly from humans to trust research. One case of this is the

research of a drug known as TGN1412. This drug was supposed to battle the

autoimmune diseases Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis. When given to rats

and monkeys, the drug showed no adverse effects, and even seemed to aid in treating

the diseases. However, when it was administered to humans, it left them in crippling

pain, and even caused one’s man head to swell to the point where his legal battle was

known as the “elephant man trial” (Allen 150). TGN1412 is a cloned antibody that is

designed to attach itself to T-cell receptors and stop autoimmune attacks on the body.

While it did this in animals, it seemed to have attached to human cells in a way that

amplified the autoimmune effect and caused a chemical chain reaction that was nearly

unstoppable (Allen 154).

A second drug that was tested safely on animals but adversely on humans is

called Thalidomide. During the 1960s and 1970s, this medicine was safely tested among

many lab animals. It was put on the German market as a sedative drug for breastfeeding

mothers who wanted to not experience the discomfort of the children. Thalidomide was

talked up as a wonderful drug that would not cause any harm to the mother or the
child. However, the effects on the unborn children of the mothers who took the drug

were devastating. Although the drug went through safety testing on animals, thousands

of children were born with crippling deformities (Bantwal).

Another drug, Clioquinol, was released in Japan in the 1970s. It was safely tested

in animals and approved for use to prevent diarrhea. However, when humans began to

take the drug, not only did it not prevent diarrhea, it had the opposite effect! However,

the effects this drug had on the people who took it were much more devastating.

Thousands of people experienced paralysis, and many died as a result of taking the drug

(Bantwal).

On the other hand, there are multiple medicines that have been proven safe on

humans that animals cannot take. PCP, a stimulant in humans, is a known sedative in

chimps. Arsenic, while poisonous to humans, is harmless to rats, mice, and sheep.

Finally, Morphine, a common sedative, painkiller, and anesthetic in humans, is known to

stimulate goats, cats, and horses (The Scientific Argument Against Animal Testing).

Animal testing: it is not something that can simply be looked over or looked on

as a “necessary evil”. It truly causes pointless pain, suffering, and death in the name of

research that, for the most part, does not have an effect on the human population.

Though animal research groups tend to solely look at the ethical issues of animal

research, the truth behind it is that humans and other animals, even monkeys, differ too

greatly genetically to take any research performed on them as fact. For this reason,

animal testing should be outlawed in the United States and research companies should
use the afore mentioned alternatives as they are safe, cost effective, and don’t waste

money, time, or the most devastating effect of animal research, human lives.

Works Cited
Allen, Arthur. “Using Animals for Medical Testing May Be Wrong for Scientific Rather than
Ethical Reasons.” Slate 1 June 2006. The Rights of Animals. Ed. Debra A. Miller.
Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2009

Andre, Claire, and Manuel Velasquez. "Animal Testing and Ethics." Santa Clara University. 1988.
Web. 26 May 2011. <http://ww.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v1n3/cures.html>.

Andregg, Christopher, et al. “The Value of Animal Experimentation Is Exaggerated.” A Critical

Look at Animal Experimentation 2006. The Rights of Animals. Ed. Debra A. Miller.
Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2009]

 "Arguments Against Animal Product Testing." Arguments Against Animal Product Testing.
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Bantwal, Natasha. "Arguments Against Animal Testing." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on
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"Scientific Argument Against Animal Testing." Stop White Coat Welfare. Web. 12 May 2011.
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