English language 5

Student: Darija Turković

Animal testing
Animal testing is thought to be one of the most familiar types of research when it comes to
scientific experiments. This method allows scientists taking non-human animals in their
laboratories and using them for the sake of scientific progress. Research can vary from the
most obvious ones, such as applying breeding or drug tests to animals, but also to some more
severe like participation of animals in neurobiological studies. This technique, beside from
being the most frequent in our contemporary society, was also modus operandi during the
ancient times. Even ancient Greeks performed their experiments in vivo. Tradition continued
and medicine and biology pawned their way and lined up their successful achievements
thanks to animal experiments without having to justify nature of their work. Modern society,
however, became sensitive toward all those living beings going through those experiments
and tends to occupy more and more with finding an alternative way of performing research
while still making a scientific progress.

Vast majority of pharmaceutical companies claim that animal testing is essential because
there is no other way of proving that a certain drug is valid unless it had been tried on animals
first. So let us observe an example of applying drug tests to the animals. The purpose of a
certain remedy is, let’s say, reducing or eliminating severe headache. What is obvious here is
that we are concerned with the most delicate area of the human body – brain. Supposedly,
animals taking part in this sort of medical experiments are mostly rodents, such as rats and
mice. Scientists then take their new and yet unconfirmed medicaments, give them to rodents
and keep track of their behaviour and all the changes it stimulates in their brains. Issue
arousing here is actually quite basic and obvious – how can a brain of a rodent be compared
with the brain of a human being? How can animals which lack the vast majority of human
features become template for producing a preparation that would alter the vital organ in
human body? Even if some other animals with more complex cognitive structures are used,
how can any of them be equated with the superb phenomenon ever to be seen – human brain?
Even the most prominent doctors and experts on human and animal anatomy agree that
animal testing can’t and shouldn’t be taken as relevant due to the fact that differences between
those two structures are so enormous. Moreover, they claim that more than 90 % of drugs
tried on animals are discarded because, when it comes to actual people, they are found to be
completely useless.

Ethics or moral principles are also something that one would have to bear in mind when
dealing with such delicate topic like animal testing. Animals used in such experiments are
often treated very badly and normally go through horrible torment. Angora rabbits, for
instance, are special breed of rabbits used for so called Draize test. This test implies taking a
certain acid and then pouring it into the rabbits’ eyes and tracking the alterations it evokes.
It’s not very hard to guess that poor animals normally end up blind after enduring dreadful
agony. Awful though it may seem, this test is still very popular among scientist despite the
fact that there are so many alternative ways of examining the very same area without
participation of animals.

When it comes to cosmetics, it is a well known fact that majority of cosmetic product have
also been tested in vivo. This was the case for most of the time when animal testing wasn’t
considered as controversial as it is today. Since the beginning of this century, animal testing
became prohibited in huge number of countries such as EU, Israel, Brazil, New Zealand
proving that fabrication of cosmetics can be done by using alternative ways and suggesting
that the long era of cruel and brutal animal testing should come to its end.

To conclude, I admit that medicine and biology definitely wouldn’t be as developed scientific
branches as they are today if it wasn’t for the animal testing. This was the only way of making
progress and ensuring their credibility. But what we also have to become aware of is the fact
that we’re living in the 21st century. Conducting a research by doing tests on live animals is
something that we should leave in our past. According to modern science, there are more than
450 ways of alternative solutions that can replace animal testing. Of course, not all of them
are yet examined and proved, but there certainly are some which would make a decent
substitute and perhaps even make us forget animal testing once and for all. What is left to do
is to embrace new methods and move up the ladder in order to make even more astonishing
results in the fields of medicine and biology in the future.