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Project Part A: Discussion Board Posting

Animal Testing for Pharmaceuticals

Office Administration and Health Services, Georgian College

Anatomy for Health Services 2

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The topic that I have selected which is an ethical issue related to healthcare industry is

“Animal testing for pharmaceuticals”. From the research conducted on the issue, according to

BBC, it is understood to be one of the most difficult issues in bio medicine where

development of new medicine is done and tested on animals for its ensured safety (BBC,

n.d.).

There are several times where such experiments cause pain and are extremely

unhealthy as well for the animals reducing their quality of life. Such a problem is made aware

to the animal experimenters also who are in today’s era recognise it a moral issue and they try

to acknowledge the administration of medicines to be done in most humane way on the

animals.

However, like every other ethical issue, there are always two aspects to it, both

negative and positive. It is important that the experimentation on animals is done in a way

that suffering is as minimal as possible, which is one of the key arguments of researchers and

experimenters in favour of animal experimentation. But the other view on this ethical issue

highlights the fact that this is one of the practises which should always be unacceptable

because even if the medication later proves to be safe for humans, it might generate severe

conditions on animals, not to talk about additional suffering and discomfort animals go

through while the procedure is in progress. Different varieties of conditions can generate in

the animals which may change their nerves regeneration, genetic expression on

neurochemistry due to pharmaceutical experimentation.

The issue is so prominent that it is important that human decision making is done by

experimenters and bio medicine experts aiming to provide no harm to animals for

pharmaceutical usage on their physical bodies. According to the European medicines agency,
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three-R principle implementation is supported by the organisation where refining, reducing

and replacing is suggested for this moral and ethical issue (Human Regulatory, n.d.).

In the reduction mechanism, it is suggested that the data analysis technique should be

improved by reducing the experiments as well as number of animals on which they are

experiment is conducted (BBC, n.d.). It is also important to provide extra care to the animals

so that their suffering can be reduced which is possible by refining the experiment. In the end,

the replacement mechanism entails that the experiments should be replaced on animals by

using alternative mechanisms like human volunteers, epidemiological studies and computer

models (BBC, n.d.).

To conclude, I would say that the ethical measures of doing experiments on animals

must be kept in place and made a priority in healthcare industry. A lot of animals suffer from

the harsh procedures and administration of medicines designed for humans. The alternatives

to animal experimentation exist and hence, they should be used for pharmaceutical testing.

Coming from my discussion, I would like to see your opinion on this ethical issue.

 What do you think is the main problem with the animal testing and how can it be

mitigated?

 Which are the topmost prominent ethical reasons you think because of which

animal testing should be banned?

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References

Human Regulatory. (n.d.). Ethical use of animals in medicine testing. [Online].

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/research-development/ethical-use-

animals-medicine-testing

BBC. (n.d.). Animal experimentation. [Online].

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml#:~:text=Experimentin

g%20on%20animals%20is%20always,be%20produced%20in%20other%20ways