The Use of Animals in Medical Testing - Essay Example

The Use Of Animals In Medical Testing The extensive use of animals in medical testing from quitea long time has raised several questions on the grounds of morality and social responsibility. Early Greek, Roman and Arab philosophers like Aristotle, Erasistratus, Galen and Ibn Zuhr conducted experiments on animals to discover the basic systems of living things and understand the human body and its organs. Without these advancements, the human race would still have been living in the stone-age. Recently, however, this practice has been subject to severe criticism from animal protection agencies and groups. In response to that, legislative actions have taken place resulting in passing of several laws in various countries around the globe to control the impact of these inhumane practices (Hajar). There is no doubt that animal testing has proved to benefit a lot to humans in terms of medical and scientific development, but these developments have been achieved at the cost of the lives of millions of innocent animals. Animal experiments are conducted by scientists to prevent many undesirable effects that result due to drugs as has been seen in history. The extent of these damages can be seen from the incidents that occurred previously such as in 1930s, a USA pharmaceutical company introduced a drug called DEG into the market without testing it on animals. This resulted in the death of more than hundred people. Soon after that, an act was passed for testing the drugs on animals before launching them into the market so that any undesirable consequences could be avoided. Another incident happened around 1960s with the chemical called thalidomide. The women who took this drug to cure headaches, insomnia and morning sickness during pregnancy ended up giving birth to malformed children. Consequently the drug had to be discontinued. These undesirable effects could have been overcome by testing these drugs (Hajar). The biomedical research should be done on animals because animals are multi organ living beings like humans. This is necessary to find out how the drug works in a whole living system because a drug does not only impact on just one organ but it mostly affects the whole body and all the organ systems. However, ultimately the drug has to be consumed by a human and that is when the reality of a drug is wholly checked, because, some drugs work best for animals while some do not. But it is still important to realize the number of drugs that fail before they reached to the humans and that animals do play a very important role in filtering out some if not all of the negative consequences at least (Blue). Another reason for the experiments being conducted on animals is that animals are biologically similar to humans in many ways and they are impacted in the same way as humans to over two hundred of the health problems.  This serves as a criterion for researchers to study animals first. According to an article from Americans for Medical research, animals are not used only for basic medical research but also for the experiments pertaining to disease cure and prevention and the treatment of injuries. Rodents make up the 95% of the research animals owing to their short life span (Americans for Medical Progress).  It is crucial to realize that the advancement of science cannot be compromised but it can be ensured that the advancement is achieved sustainably. For this reason, efforts are being put through the campaign which supports the search for the replacement of animals with some alternative non living systems, reduction in the use of animals for experimental purposes and refinement in the practices of experiments using animals (Hajar). Despite of the benefits of animal research, there has been much opposition to the usage of animal in research. Animal protectionists believe that doing laboratory experiments is cruel to animals and the benefit to humans does not justify the harm to animals. Animals are very different from humans. Thus, results extracted from testing on animals cannot be applied to humans. They have proposed new ways to test products such as testing human cells in test tubes, conducted tests using computers and simulation softwares and in some cases where there are no expected ill effects, humans can be replaced with animals. It is through the concerns shown by these activists that the number of lab animals being used for lab experiments has fallen by almost fifty percent since 1970 (Feder). New form of businesses are being developed to keep away from animal testing such as Vitro laboratory test drugs that can possibly cause poisonous harm to cells. The same company claims that when the same test is applied on animals, there is more usage of a drug, greater time is consumed and the cost is more for the maintenance and survival of animals. The issue of animal rights has become so common that there is a business incentive to move away from animal testing in today’s world. For example, companies such as Procter & Gamble and LOreal have invested heavily in developing alternative testing methods to maintain a healthy image (Feder). It can be concluded that animal testing has significantly attributed to the development of drugs in the history of medicine. Without animal testing, more human lives could have been lost than saved in the name of discovery and evolution. Animals provide a suitable ground for testing if not ideal in all cases and that lots of drugs are filtered before they can reach to human body. However continued testing has raised alarming concerns in the name of immoral and unethical practices. As a result, scientists are now employing more of non animal usage tests. The extent to which animal testing can be reduced is still a question mark as complete removal of animal testing can significantly slow down the progress in the area of medicine. Therefore, the best method can be the implementation of developmental strategies to search for alternate testing methods. This would not limit the advancements in science and at the same also cater to the moral implications associated with animal testing. Works Cited Americans for Medical Progress. "Animal Research." n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. Blue, Laura."How Much Does Animal Testing Tell Us?" Time. 17 Jun. 2008. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. Feder, Barnaby, J. "Saving the Animals: New Ways to Test Products." The New York Times. 12 Sep. 2007. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. Hajar, Rachel. “Animal Testing and Medicine.” Heart Views : The Official Journal of the Gulf Heart Association 12.1 (2011): 42. PMC. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. . Read More