The Negative Aspects of Animal Experimentation

Imagine your dog, your cat, or even your favorite animal being hit by a car. The tests that animals are put through during research are not much different. Every year millions of animals are forced to endure pain and suffering while being put through cruel and unnecessary tests (Newkirk 1). Animal experimentation should be illegal because there are other options for research, it is cruel and unfair to the animals, and because the results are not always accurate.

There are several other ways to conduct experiments that do not use animals. Instead human tissue and living cells can be used to test new drugs and their chemical toxicity (Hayhurst 36). The cell cultures are placed in test tubes, assay plates, or other experimental containers and injected with a small amount of a drug. The cells create an artificial environment exactly like the environment inside a human’s body. Organs from humans or animals can also be used along with bacteria, fertilized chicken eggs, and from embryos (Day 98-99).

Animal cells are more commonly used for testing than human cells are. Some human cells cannot be cultured in labs. Also there is a limited supply of cells from humans. The human cells used only come from tissue that is left over from surgery or from cadavers. A single animal can supply a large amount of cells as well as many different kinds of cells. These cells can be used for toxicity testing and to evaluate the risk of the drug. When cell cultures are used the dosage required is only a very small amount, which prevents the drug from being wasted. The dosage can also be carefully controlled and measured resulting in more accurate data (Day 99).

Organ cells can be used to predict toxicity in target organs such as the l...

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...drug had been given to mice, rabbits, rats, and monkeys, and all of them showed no bad effects (Allen 1).

Within minutes the volunteers were writhing on the floor in agony. The drug was designed to dampen the immune response, but instead it supercharged theirs, unleashing a cascade of chemicals. All six of them were sent to the hospital. Several of them suffered permanent organ damage. One man’s head swelled up so badly that the case was referred to as the “elephant man trial” (Allen 1).

Every year millions of animals are used to test products before they are used on humans. People use these products without thinking about the animals that the suffered and died for their benefit. They are selfish, and they never stop to think about the other options for testing, the cruelty of the experiments, or whether or not the test results are even accurate.