Animal Testing Paper Essay Research Paper Animal — страница 2

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of organ transplantation, hip replacement, chemotherapy, cardiac pacemakers, coronary bypass surgery, ongoing efforts to understand and treat AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease, and more. Animal research has played a role in many advances in veterinary medicine, including the development of vaccines for rabies, parvovirus, and distemper. Various devices and treatments developed through animal research such as pacemakers, hip replacement, diabetes treatments, dental care, and chemotherapy are used in veterinary as well as human medicine. Some animal research is aimed at developing alternatives to animal use so that fewer animals will be needed in the future. Not all research is conducted on laboratory animals. Pet owners looking for the best or newest treatment for their ailing dog or

cat may agree to take part in a clinical study similar to the human clinical trials that test the effectiveness of different drugs or treatment methods on people with pre-existing conditions or diseases. Research on such matters as nutrition, housing requirements, or social behavior can help improve living conditions for captive and domestic animals. Some kinds of animal research may contribute to habitat restoration and conservation efforts for wild animals. Arguments against animal testing may also question the morality, the necessity, or the validity of these studies. That is, whether we have the right to perform such tests, whether we need such tests, and whether the tests actually tell us anything useful. Animal rights advocates argue that sentient animals have a right to

their own life; they are not ours to do with as we please. In its broadest form, this argues against using animals or animal products in any way. That means maintaining a vegetarian diet, not wearing leather or fur, and, at its most extreme, not even keeping animals as pets. A more moderate animal protection or animal welfare viewpoint is concerned more with our responsibility toward animals, that we have a moral obligation not to cause them unnecessary pain and distress. This stance does not necessarily argue against all animal testing. Arguments against the need for animal testing may take at least a couple of forms. Some may consider the object of the testing to be trivial. Is it worth blinding rabbits so we can have a new kind of mascara? Another argument is that we don’t

need to use animals, we can use non-animal alternatives or computer simulations or test on human volunteers. Every year, millions of animals suffer and die in painful tests to determine the safety of cosmetics. Substances such as eye shadow and soap are tested on rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, dogs, and other animals, despite the fact that the test results don?t help prevent or treat human illness or injury. Cosmetics are not required to be tested on animals and since non-animal alternatives exist, it?s hard to understand why some companies still continue to conduct these tests. Cosmetic companies kill millions of animals every year to try to make a profit. According to the companies that perform these tests, they are done to establish the safety of a product and the ingredients.

However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which regulates cosmetic products, does not require animal testing. Some of the tests used on animals are eye irritancy tests, acute toxicity tests, and skin irritancy tests. Another form of objection argues that we can’t rely on the results of animal tests anyway. Humans are different from other animals, so the results of animal testing may not apply to us. Just because one species reacts to a given drug or chemical in a particular way doesn’t necessarily mean another species will respond the same way. Furthermore, the argument goes, animals kept in unnatural conditions, or animals in pain or distress, aren’t going to give accurate or consistent results anyway. There are numerous cases that highlight the absurdity of assuming

that humans and animals have a biology sufficiently similar for experimentation to yield useful results. For example: morphine calms humans but excites cats, cortisone causes birth defects in mice but not in humans, penicillin kills guinea pigs and hamsters and aspirin poisons cats. If the results of tests on animals had been relied upon we would not have penicillin or digitalis (a drug used by heart patients but which was withheld for a long time because it was found to raise the blood pressure of dogs). We would also be without chloroform (once a common anesthetic but not used initially because it was toxic to dogs) and aspirin (which causes fetal deformities in rats and is toxic to certain animals). Certain steroids, adrenaline, insulin and some antibiotics are also toxic to