The Controversial Issue Of Animal Ethics Essay — страница 3

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laboratories to test the safety of drugs and other chemicals. The US Food and Drug Administration approved many substances that appeared to be safe in animal studies. When later used on humans they were found to be dangerous to the health of humans. A few examples of these drugs are milrinone, which increases cardiac output. While this drug raised the survival of rats with heart failure, humans on this drug had a 30% increase in mortality. The antiviral drug fialuridine was safe in animal trials, yet it caused liver failure in humans. The antidepressent nomifensine had minimal toxicity in lab animals, but caused liver toxicity and anemia in humans. Although there have been some set backs, there have also been many great advancements in medicine which relied heavily on animal

experimentation. A prime example of this is the Secor 5 polio vaccine. Albert Sabin studied this virus and introduced his oral vaccine to the US in 1961. Polio was a very deadly disease. This epidemic condemned millions of children and young adults. In 1952, 58,000 children were struck down alone (Sabin 1). Without animal research Sabin would not have had enough knowledge to invent this vaccine, and without this vaccine polio would still be claiming thousands of lives each year. The antibiotic penicillin is another example of an advancement that came due to animal experimentation. In the 1940?s Howard W. Florey and Ernst B. Chain showed penicillin to be dramatically effective as an antibiotic by the mouse protection test. Without this test the this important antibiotic may never

have been passed for human use. Another huge drug that is used in the everyday lives of many hunams is insulin. Before insulin was introduced to humans, people with diabetes typically died. Once the lifesaving drug was tested on rabbits and mice, humans were able to use it and live with the disease. The number of animals used in the US per year is outrageous (see table 3). Although the overall numbers have reduced in the in the past 22 years. This could be due to the new laws and regulations that are constantly being passed, or to the onset of alternatives. Source: Scientific American. The Numbers of Research Animals. http.//www.sciam.com/0297issue/0297trendsbox.html (16, Feb. 2000). As stated many times, animal experimentation has led to great advances in medicine, but there are

other ways to make great leaps in medicine then testing these chemicals on thousands Secor 6 of animals. The most known alternatives are known as the three R?s. They are refinement, reduction, and replacement. These three alternatives provide a way to minimize animal use and suffering. Yet doing this without compromising the quality of the scientific work being done. While having the ultimate goal always being to totally replace animal models. Refinement is one of the stepping stones that will help reach the ultimate goal. This is the modification of any procedures that operate from the time a animal is born until its death. This is to minimize the pain and distress experienced by the animal, and also to improve its well-being. The experience of pain and other stress is likely to

result in changes in the animal which has potential to raise the variability of experimental results. With that in mind it is in the best interest of scientists to ensure that the conditions in the animal house are the best possible. Minimizing the pain and distress the animal goes through, yields better results. When the experiment is over, the most humane method of euthanasia should be chosen also. The next stepping stone is reduction. This is any strategy that will result in a decreased amount of animals being used to obtain the same amount of data. Making the appropriate design and analysis of the experiment can increase the percision of the data and also enable fewer animals to be used. Doing a small pilot study could also indicate whether or not it is appropriate to go into

a major study. This would eliminate huge studies that yield bad or useless results. The last stepping stone of the three R?s is replacement. A replacement is considered a experiment that does not entail the use of a whole, living animal. Replacement methods can be used to totally eliminate animals in a study, or they will complement animal experiments. Which would reduce the overall number of animals in the project. Common replacements are computer based systems, lower organisms, and cell culture systems. The three R?s are great stepping stones to totally eradicate animals in experimentation?s. Although chimpanzee?s DNA is that best match to human DNA. So it could be wise to study and experiment on these primates. Our closest evolutionary cousins are chimpanzees. Humans and