Animal Rights Essay Research Paper Do all — страница 2

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the development of vaccines for prevention of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and onchocerciasis. Chimpanzees are the only nonhuman animal species susceptible to these infections (Prince 115). Animal Activists are against the use of chimpanzees b/c of the decline in the chimpanzee population. In approximately the past ten years the chimpanzee population of Gabon, containing some of the best habitats, was reduced by twenty percent. There is an estimate between four thousand and five thousand chimpanzees that exist worldwide in medical institutions, zoological exhibits, roadside menageries, entertainment compounds and homes of per owners. In the United States about two thousand of three thousand confined chimpanzees exist in biochemical facilities (Teleki 119). Although chimpanzees are

the closest in relation to humans many different animals are used in research. The treatment of these animals is what many activists are concerned about. Animal Rights Activists use a variety of tactics to promote the humane treatment and wellbeing of animals. If not for them no laws would be made to protect animal rights. In the past decade the animal rights movement has taken on a more militant posture. Some procedures they use range from public demonstrations, media campaigns and boycotts to raids on medical laboratories to liberate research animals, and sending bomb threats. Some of these tactics are in question but many have helped the animal rights cause (Green 204). The number of animals used in cosmetic testing has been significantly reduced and the conditions of

laboratory animals used in biomedical research has greatly improved (Leepson 303). Although these tactics have enhanced animal rights, the animal rights movement has long and short term costs on society. The short term costs are that research becomes more expensive while the long term cost is schemes like these may slow research down which in return means human health will suffer and few treatments will be founded (304). Animal testing is very beneficial to both humans and animals. By doing research on animals, humans may find cures for diseases and new or better ways of performing surgical procedures that may save human and animal lives. The same methods that have been developed to prevent and treat diseases in humans have improved the lives of countless animals. Many of the

vaccines, antibiotics, surgical procedures, and other approches developed for humans using animals are now employed through veterinary medicine. Treatments have been developed specifically for animals in many cases such as baccines for rabies, canine parvovirus, distemper, and feline leukemia (Press 14). Even with animals advances Animal Rights Activists say other alternatives can be used in place of animals to experiment on but some researchers say that using animals is the only way to see how a substance will react in an entire body system. They say computer models are cell cultures do not provide all the information of how something will react (Masci 679). Scientists say using animals for testing is expensive and they would rather use computers or other alternatives if they

would give them the same or better results but generally mom-animal experiments are alternatives or adjuncts that are usually only useful in determining how something will affect a specific part of the human body (Press 15). Animal testing has improved human living in many ways. Surgical procedures, pain, relievers, psychoactive drugs, medications for blood pressure, insulin, pacemakers, nutrition supplements, organ transplants, treatment for shock trauma and blood disease all have been developed and tested in animals before being used in humans. Virtually every advance in medical science in the twentiethcentury, from antibiotics and vaccines to antidepressants drugs and organ transplants, has been achieved either directly or indirectly through the use of animals in laboratory

experiments, according to the American Medical Association (6). One such experiment was done on HIV using mice. Researcher recently reported success using mice transplanted with human immune cells to test the efficacy of an AIDS drug. They are hoping this animal model can help assess the potential of various drugs against AIDS. The researchers injected forty mice with HIV and in two weeks they tested the mice with PCR a genetic technique, and HIV showed up in all forty mice. Then the researchers took seventeen other mice and injected them with zidovudine twenty-four hours before injecting them with the HIV virus and for two weeks immediatly following. After those two weeks the researcher tested some of the seventeen mice with PCR and found no HIV but then they used a more