University of Mindanao

Ilang Highschool
APP 1 EAPP December 5, 2021

POSITION PAPER

Is Medical Experiments on Animals Ethical?

Animals have been part of how we humans grow and evolve. They are a big contribution in the

field of science. Experimentations and tests are done to some of them for humans to generate

medicine, analyze our body’s anatomy and how it works, and how they balance our ecosystem

(Baumans, 2004). These act is also traced back in the ancient times where the royal physician of

the Roman Empire, Galen, performed physiological experiments on pigs, monkeys and dogs,

which provided a basis for medical practices also in the centuries thereafter (Baumans, 2004).

But this act has met a lot of criticism saying it is wrong to use animals as lab tests because they

also have rights and this experiments also has led to some extinction and reduction of numbers of

some species. According to PETA organization, more than 100 million animals are killed in U.S

laboratories and only 3 percent of them survive lab experiments. And I agree that using animals

for lab researches should be stopped or minimized since they unethical not only in animals but

our whole ecosystem as well

Arguments says that animals are one of the factors in medicine development and understanding

human anatomy. Though I agree with that since according to FDA, medicines like Nexium (for

heartburn, acid reflux) are tested to rats before human consumption and Humans share at least

90% of their genes with every other mammals which is why dissection practices are often done

in rats and frogs as well. But, this must have limitations too.
Though animals like rats and frogs doesn’t easily become endangered since they produce many

offspring, we still must have limitations. Many animals are no different than humans. They can

feel pain and experience pleasure. We should not abuse the power we have as humans. We don’t

know when the day comes where the animals we rely on living becomes extinct. Animals

balance our ecosystem and that’s why we must protect them. Therefore, they should have the

same moral status and deserve equal treatment as humans (Liou, 2010).

The notion that “Every important medical breakthrough is traceable to animal studies" was not

substantiated by any evidence, according to an article published in the prestigious Journal of the

Royal Society of Medicine. The vast majority of animal studies are unrelated to human health,

do not contribute significantly to medical progress, and many are carried out purely for the sake

of curiosity, with no pretense of holding promise for healing diseases. The only reason people

believe these trials benefit humans is because the media, experimenters, universities, and

lobbying groups misrepresent their ability to lead to new medicines and the role they've played in

previous medical breakthroughs. Many of these experiments cause pain to the animals involved

or reduce their quality of life in other ways.

The awareness that animals rarely serve as good models for the human body is the most

significant development in current study. There a lot of alternatives and ways that are used to test

medicines for humans that has the potential to be more reliable, more precise, less expensive, and

more humane than experimenting on animals. These are human clinical and epidemiological

studies, human tissue- and cell-based research methods, cadavers, sophisticated high-fidelity

human-patient simulators, and computational models.

Though there are instances where science really needs the help of animals in answering and

solving questions related to medication and health but we must remember to have limitations,
expand our knowledge in finding more alternatives to use in medicine testing, and respecting and

protecting them to keep the balance in our ecosystem

REFERENCE

Baumans, V. Use of animals in experimental research: an ethical dilemma?. Gene Ther 11, S64–

S66 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gt.3302371

Liou, S. (2010, July 6). The Ethics of Animal Experimentation. HOPES Huntington’s Outreach

Project for Education, at Stanford. https://hopes.stanford.edu/animal-research/

These Answers to Arguments for Animal Testing Prove It’s Bad Science. (n.d.). PEOPLE FOR

THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS. Retrieved 2021, from

https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animal-testing-bad-

science/