Animal Testing On Animals

Ever wondered what goes into saving people’s lives? There are many factors in saving lives, and because of modern technology, medicine has become a big one. Drugs are analyzed over a series of tests that determine whether it is safe for use or not. Interestingly, not all drugs are tested in the same way, some aren’t even humane. Animals can be hurt when testing for drugs but if we use other alternatives, like organs-in-chips, in vitro, and humans, then we can change animal abuse and help cure diseases.
Animals can get hurt and suffer from drug testings done by humans. This fact shows that testing on animals is cruel, as it impair’ animals, both mentally and physically. Using animals for drug experiments, is unreliable, cruel, and very time

consuming. Animals do not have the same DNA as humans, therefore experiments can have different results on animals than it would have on humans. Cancer in mice has been treated and cured for decades, yet scientists still can’t cure cancer in humans. Why? Only 50% of mouse cells can be matched with human DNA, which makes mice an unreliable subject. Also, in 2016, over 115 million animals were used in experiments internationally, however, only 22 new medicines were approved by the US food and drug administration. This makes using animals very time consuming, unreliable, and even hurts them. Some drugs that can cure human diseases, can do the opposite to animals and therefore we might find a cure to a disease and just never realized it.The fact that penicillin is toxic to guinea pigs and aspirin is poisonous to cats show that animals and humans are not the same and we need to use a different source for testing our drugs on instead of using animals. Using animals in drug testings can harm both animals and humans, which proves that we should use other sources to discover cures for human diseases.
Microchips line with living human cells, called Organs-on-chips, can help scientists revolutionize how drugs are tested. Organs-on-chips have very advanced and new technology that mimics real human organs. The chips work by their ability to hold and merge different cell and tissue types that make up human organs. They have cells and bacteria put inside to try and kill the modeling disease in the chip which is a painless way to test drugs. Organs-on-chips can also reduce the use of animals and speed up drug testing. These chips are translucent, so it is manageable to see what is going on and monitor the inside of the chip. Most clinical trials for regular drugs can take several years to finish testing. The price for a basic toxicity test on chips starts around $22,000, but a rat can take over a month and cost over $50,000. When using mice a complex analysis can cost more than 1 million dollars. Thanks to the organs-on-chips we might be able to save more lives and change the medical industry forever.
Humans and technology can also help the development of drugs. For drugs to be put on the shelf, it has to be tested in humans. Since humans have to be tested on, they need clinical trials to conduct these experiments and validate that the drugs are safe. Sometimes clinical trials are the best thing for a patient to participate in. According to a poll taken in 2000, cancer patients said they participated in these trials because “they believed that the trial offered the best quality of care for their disease”. Sometimes if the drug test is too high risk for humans, they might use in vitro, a test inside a tube. Occasionally, medicines need a tester and when they can’t use humans, they use technology so that it can be acceptable to pursue a clinical trial. It is essential that drugs are tested for the people that they are meant to help, and humans can help us do that.