Animal Wagnall, 2017). If animal testing eradicated
Animal testing is conducting experiments on animals, or testing drugs on them. It has benefited humanity greatly by putting an end to diseases. People see animal testing as horrible, but animal testing has saved billions of human lives so far by creating vaccines and antibiotics which put an end to diseases.
Some of the diseases being stopped are smallpox, polio, measles, and mumps. This means animal testing should remain legal because it is important and necessary to cure diseases and/or save lives. Going against animal testing is equal to not caring about the development of vaccines. Animal testing’s main achievement would be the eradication of major diseases around the world. Some of the major diseases eradicated due to animal testing would be smallpox, polio (Henderson, 2005), measles, and mumps. Smallpox, the disease that sticks out the most on the list is known for being a very contagious disease, and it has the most human lives taken than any other disease (Virus, Funk and Wagnall, 2017). If animal testing eradicated the disease with the biggest death toll, then animal testing should stay legal. If it were not for animal testing these diseases would be spreading person to person like a wildfire (Smallpox, Funk and Wagnall, 2017).
If these diseases were spreading today, then symptoms like skin lesions, flu like symptoms, vomiting, headache, back pain, and rashes that can leave permanent scars (WHO, 2017). Since these diseases were eradicated, humans do not need to worry about getting these symptoms thanks to vaccines and antibiotics produced by animal testing (Poliomyelitis, Funk and Wagnalls, 2017). It is also important to know if these diseases were around today they would continue their destruction and end more lives. In the end, at the rate animal testing is curing diseases nothing will be worse than smallpox. Animal testing helps out humanity besides eradicating diseases. It has also given us the ability to replace joints on humans, and it has led to the development of painkillers.
Joint replacement is very important because a total of 7 million Americans have had a knee or hip joint replacement (Kremers, 2015). If it were not for joint replacements people with bone problems would suffer even more if they could not get their bones or joints replaced. Also, animal testing has led to the development and discovery of medical equipment that can save/improve lives. For example, cardiac pacemakers, treatments for AIDs, organ transplants, and open heart surgery (Cook, 2016). Open heart surgery keeps people with heart problems alive.
Organ Transplants are also important, since around 27,000 happened in the year 2004. All those transplants helped or saved a life (New World Encyclopedia, 2017). It is a good thing doctors received the knowledge of organ transplants from animals. Doctors could learn other lifesaving treatments from animal testing. The population take these things for granted, but if it were not for these products many humans would be affected if they did not have things that can improve their lives. There are no other effective alternatives to animal testing. Scientists are trying to find effective alternatives, but they cannot.
One popular but not effective alternative scientists are looking at is invitro testing. Invitro testing, which is testing on individual cells instead of the whole animal (Laschinski, et al. 1991) has shown to be inadequate with results of limited data. Testing a cell and a body is a different thing which can change results (Tralau et al. 2012). Currently invitro testing has led to low productivity, and it has more limitations than testing on an animal.
The low productivity of in-vitro testing comes from the time it takes for enough/accurate results to come in. It can take longer than half a year for decent results to be recorded (OECD, 2011). Currently, invitro testing is similar to the thalidomide saga (a major failure in animal testing) (Gilbert 2003).
Scientists could stop using this type of testing at any moment if it were not for the low budget in-vitro testing requires. In the end, invitro testing is a downgrade from animal testing. During animal testing animals are held in decent conditions. Scientists take measures, so animals are not feeling pain or they limit the amount of animals used. For example, scientists use anesthesia 30% of the time (Holder, 2015).
Experiments that do not use anesthesia might be tests to check how animals respond to other things (like a mouse maze). Another example of animals not feeling pain is fish, they make up around 15% of animals being tested on feel very little pain due to the way they feel pain (Lovibond, 2003). There is a way to classify the amount of pain an animal feels during a test. Home Office categorizes these tests by pain and puts them into a pie chart every year. According to the 2016 graph 90% of animals feel moderate to no pain during animal testing (Magee, 2017). Statements of animals being abused are untrue, since animals only feel pain around 10% of the time.
The statement of a lot of animals being killed during animal testing is also untrue. Birds makeup 12 million of animals used for animal testing (Magee, 2017). If all of them die during a test which they do not, cats still destroy that number with an average of 2.5 billion birds killed a year (Raasch, 2013). With these statistics it is apparent that animals are held in decent conditions. Animal testing has not only helped advance human medicine, but it has also helped advance veterinary research which helps animals and pets! This means animal testing has led to amazing lifesaving and life extending treatments for both animals and humans. Animal testing has also developed surgical advances in humans that surprisingly apply to animals.
These advances would be anesthetics and surgical procedures (National Academic Press, 1991). Animal testing has also led to vaccines or antibiotics for major diseases for animals. Examples of diseases with vaccines and antibiotics would be rabies, canine parvovirus, distemper, and feline leukemia virus (Science Medicine and Animals, 2016). These are like the mumps, polio, and measles to animals. To show how horrible these diseases are some of the symptoms of canine parvovirus include bloody diarrhea, lethargy (lack of energy), anorexia, fever, vomiting, and weight loss (PETMD, 2012).
This would be a horrible experience to the owner of the pet, or the pet if the animal had one of these diseases. It is a good thing no one has to experience these feelings thanks to animal testing. If it were not for vaccines or antibiotics some of these diseases would be spreading and threatening animal lives. Another way animal research helps animals is by saving endangered animals. We have learned enough of animal psychology to help the endangered species breed and repopulate its species (PETMD, 2012).
Our learned knowledge of animal psychology has led to the survival of the American Alligator. It is obvious animal testing helps improve animal lives. It is important to remember there are two sides to an argument which includes animal testing. For example, a major argument against animal testing is calling it unethical.
There is nothing unethical, since more lives (human and animal) are saved in the long run compared to the few animals sacrificed or hurt in animal testing.
