Animal experimentation or animal testing is widely used to ensure that products and procedures are safe for human application. It made thousands of helpful medical innovations possible. However, critics of animal experimentation argue that the use of animals in medical testing usually employ abusive and painful methods, making it highly controversial.
List of Pros of Animal Experimentation
1. Medical Innovation
Implementation of a series of animal testing, and even human testing, proves very vital in the discovery of new drugs and treatments. However, researches construe that it is more humane and practical to do the testing on animals first before on humans.
2. Product Safety
Once a medical technology becomes effective in animals, especially those with close resemblance to humans, it may be then advance to the next phase of rigorous experimentation. All of these tests are necessary to ensure the effectiveness and safety of a medical product or procedure.
3. Similar DNA
Not all animals are used. Only those with close resemblance to human DNA or characteristics are subjected to animal experimentation if the research were to discover or create products for human consumption. This is to guarantee that the outcome of the animal testing may be used to measure the effectiveness of the product on human application in the future.
List of Cons of Animal Experimentation
1. Inflicted on Purpose
Animals used in the experimentation are generally inflicted with the disease or disability on purpose so they may be administered with the treatment in question. These are otherwise healthy animals with high potential to thrive, but many of them die or become disable for the rest of their lives when the treatment is ineffective.
2. Misleading Results
Animals, like humans, show diverse reactions to diverse treatments. The difference may not be given much thought during research and thus, could result to misleading generalizations. In effect, the treatment or drug in question might prove useless if not harmful to animals, and possibly to humans.
3. Animal Welfare Act Ignored
With the passage of the Animal Welfare Act or AWA in 1996, researchers are keen to use animals that are not covered under the act. By bypassing the AWA, researchers can continue to execute animal experimentation regardless of the harm they inflict on the poor creatures.
There is no question as to the importance of animal experimentation to the discovery and manufacture of medical technologies used to cure critical illnesses. Today, there is still the dilemma of finding cures for age-old diseases and infections afflicting the human race.
There is a worldwide movement against the use of animal experimentation for the research of products that otherwise have questionable health significance as in the case of cosmetics (and even lifestyle diseases) where animals’ lives are purposely put at risk mainly to support capitalism and man’s vanity.
Since 1898, Frances Cobbe founded a movement to end animal testing in Europe. In 2004, animal testing for finished cosmetics was banned, and finally in March 2013, there was a complete ban of animal testing for new cosmetics sold in the EU.
Nonetheless, other countries continue to allow or are complacent about cruel animal experimentations. Because of this, animal rights activists and defenders continue to demand governments to illegalize animal testing, especially those used for cosmetic research and those that employ atrocious procedures.