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Why animal testing should be banned?

Want to measure the morality and compassion of any nation? See how it treats animals. Can
someone imagine the shampoo he/she uses on daily basis is most probably tested on some rabbit
or cat or may be some other animal? Millions of animals are used every year for testing the
different products’ safety and efficacy. These products mostly contain detrimental chemicals and
are genetically modified which is hazardous for the animals. The abuse of animals in
pharmaceutical industry is also a common phenomenon. Even the idea of testing human
medicines on animals is precluded by Ibn e Sina almost thousand years ago but this practice is
still prevalent in the industries (Bracken, M. B., 2009). Circa, 17 to 22 million animals every
year suffer only in US for testing chemicals (‘Animal Testing Should Be Banned,”2013). Lot of
animals died during these experiments and many are those who get serious mental health issues.
According to the Pew Research Poll, only 42% animals manage to survive in the product testing
experiments. In this paper, the different reasons will be discussed emphasizing on the need to
ban animal testing because of its serious consequences. The notion behind the animal testing is
archaic which is not only hazardous for them but also for the humans as well. That’s our research
question that why animal testing should be banned.

Animal testing is highly insane because they can also agonize just like the humans do.
Nobody wants to suffer either its animals or humans but discriminating animals from humans
because they lack in cognitive abilities and they cannot communicate verbally is not at all
justifiable. According to a report published by the Humane Society International, the animals
who are the subject in various experiments are kept deprived of food and water, are forced feed,
burnt and other wounds are given in order to study the healing process (Gale, 2010). Different
surveys have been conducted at various times in order to give people awareness about the
harmful consequences of the animal testing (MORI, 1999a, 2002, 2005, YouGov, 2006, ICM,
2006). Despite all these efforts, human health benefits continued to be given weightage over
animals’ welfare. US department of Agriculture reported in 2016 that approximately 73,000
animals had to suffer from severe injuries and pains during the experiments. The researcher has
conducted a small survey regarding the abuse of animals in pharmaceutical labs asking them the
number of animals who survived through those experiments and the results were alarming to
make the researcher believe that soon these harmless creatures will be extinct.

Animal testing results are not accurate as well. Many researches have found out that the
medicines who worked on animals later didn’t work on humans as humans are different than
animals (Festing, S., & Wilkinson, R., 2007). According to Dr. Richard Klausner, a former
director of the National Cancer Institute, animal testing is equally harmful for the humans
because of its inaccurate results. Cancer was cured in Mice for several years but the same
formula didn’t work for the humans. Similarly drug and food administration been reported that
almost 92% medicines that have previously been tested on animals, later failed on humans. The
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genetic, metabolic, anatomic and cellular differences among humans and animals make these
animals poor subjects for testing. Similarly, there are few medicines like Aspirin are dangerous
for animals but effective for humans. So the animal testing outcomes can be misleading as well
(Workman, P., Aboagye, E. O., Balkwill, F., Balmain, A., Bruder, G., Chaplin, D. J., & Kelland,
L. R., 2010).

A claim is made that there exist no passable alternative to make living body testing. The
living organisms like animals have complex systems which gives the researchers an opportunity
to study them and do experiments. In order to know the side effects of any medicine it is
necessary to make it travel through the circulatory system. There are other diseases like
hypertension that cannot be studied alternatively that is why animal testing is important (Kara
Rogers, 2007). But researches have proved that alternatives are available like cell culture which
may produce more accurate results than animal testing because it uses human cells (FRAME,
2005). Mircofludic Chips when aligned with human cells has the ability to recreate the human
organs. Thomas Hartung, Professor of evidence-based toxicology also makes sufficient
arguments about alternative testing systems.

Animal testing should be banned because of its hazardousness for the animals as well as
humans. It gives immense pain and suffering to the animals and many die in this process. It is
also evident that the results generated are not even accurate and can be misleading which
ultimately harms humans as well. Why to go for animal testing when we have alternates
available and which can give us more authentic results? Banning animal testing would not only
be a good measure to prevent animals from sufferings and extinction but would safe humans as
well from false medication. This world belongs to them as well. They are not here to get abused
by the humans. Collective efforts and proper law making can help the animals to be saved.

References

Animal Testing Should Be Banned Essay. (n.d.). Retrieved from

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Bracken, M. B. (2009). Why animal studies are often poor predictors of human reactions to
exposure. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 102(3), 120-122.

Double JA (2004) A pharmacological approach for the selection of potential anticancer agents.
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Festing, S., & Wilkinson, R. (2007). The ethics of animal research. EMBO reports, 8(6), 526-
530.

FRAME (2005) Human microdosing reduces the number of animals required for pre-clinical
pharmaceutical research. Altern Lab Anim 33: 439
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ICM (2006) Vivisection survey, conducted on behalf of BBC Newsnight. London, UK: ICM
Research. www.icmresearch.co.uk

Kara Rogers (2007) “Scientific Alternatives to Animal Testing: A Progress Report,”

britannica.com

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Summary. London, UK: MORI. www.ipsos-mori.com

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US Department of Agriculture (USDA) (2017) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
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Workman, P., Aboagye, E. O., Balkwill, F., Balmain, A., Bruder, G., Chaplin, D. J., ... &
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