Animal Testing Vs. Medical Research

     An estimated sum of 26 million animals is used every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing.  They are used to test medicines and to develop medical treatments.  Animal testing is cruel and inhumane; animals feel pain just as humans do. People have been testing on animals since 500 BC; don’t you think they’ve had enough? Some of the experiments done on animals can change their genetic makeup and make hybrids of completely different animals. This shouldn’t be normal in society, but it is.

     Animal testing for medical research isn’t something new to society. For hundreds of thousands of years scientists and doctors use animals to test medicines. Since some animals, like mice and chimpanzees, share 98-99% of our DNA they are an easy subject to test the toxicity of medical products on, a study in 1998 shows that insulin was tested on chimps to see if it had any harmful side effects.

     My opinions and many others is that it shouldn’t continue to happen; animals don’t deserve to be put through tests. If the test fails, the animal could suffer permanent problems, or even death. Would you give human medicine to your dog or cat if you didn’t know what the outcome would be? I think animals should be free in their natural habitat, but instead   all they can do is sit and wait in fear of the next painful procedure that will be done on them. “All creatures are deserving of a life free from fear and pain.” –Maura Cummings.

     Now, others believe that animal testing is no big deal. Animal research has contributed to 70 per cent of Nobel prizes for physiology or medicine. Without it, we would - medically speaking - be stuck in the Dark Ages, which in fact may be true. Last year researchers in Seattle announced that they had used an electronic brain implant to enable a monkey to move its paralyzed limbs, a discovery with the potential to allow disabled people to have movement once again. So although I oppose animal testing, it isn’t all useless. But I do think there is an alternative to animal testing, why not human testing? “Because it is cruel.” well so is animal testing.