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Is it ethical to test on animals
Is it ethical to test on animals
Is it ethical to test on animals
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Animal testing is a cruel and inhumane action that humans cause by holding different kinds of animals captive in small cells and testing dangerous and toxic chemicals on them. “More than 100 million animals are poisoned, burned, crippled,and abused in other ways in the U.S labs each year” (PETA Top Five Shocking) because they are being tested. Dangerous and toxic chemicals are tested on the animals to make sure it won’t harm humans. Some animals don’t last very long because the chemicals kill them very quickly and painfully. There are many famous brands that do animal testing like Covergirl, Aveeno, Olay, Old Spice, and even the famous toothpaste brand, Crest. The kinds of animals tested on are mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals (like horses), birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates, monkeys, and chimpanzees. That is a lot of different animals! Scientists believe that animals have traits similar to humans like the stomach and eyes which is the reason why they are tested. The way animals are tested is extremely painful. For example, products for cleaning are tested on animals like rabbits. What scientists do is rub the toxic product on the rabbits skin, ears, and they even put it in their eyes which very painful for an innocent creature like a rabbit. When you see the labels on cleaning products, you see that there are signs that warn people to not put the product near their eyes or mouth. It’s basically the results that scientists saw in an animal when experimenting on them. In the 1930’s, very little regulation existed for sales of personal care and cleaning products. Companies were not required to test the product or even do any research on how toxic the chemicals are. More than a dozen... ... middle of paper ... ... n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014 “Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing” Procon.org Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2014 “ The Times of India” India bans cruel animal testing cosmetics, activists elated. N.p., n.d. Web 04 Feb.2014 “Lone Star” Stop Animal Testing. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014 “ New York Times” E.U. Bans Cosmetics with Animal-Tested Ingredients. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014 "Animal Protection Laws of the United States of America and Canada." Animal Legal Defense Fund Animal Protection Laws of the United States of America and Canada Comments. N.p., 2012. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. Schaeffer, Crystal. "Product Testing." -The American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS). N.p., 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. "Animal Cruelty Facts and Statistics : The Humane Society of the United States." RSS. N.p., 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Kanter, James. "E.U. Bans Cosmetics With Animal-Tested Ingredients." New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Mar. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/breed-specific-legislation/fact_sheets/breed-specific-legislation-flaws.html.
The use of animals to test cosmetics is introduced in their article as well. The authors quote a vast amount of credible sources from prestigious universities such as Princeton and from well known animal rights group such as PETA. I will use this as my main source of information.
Over 100 Million animals are burned, crippled, poisoned and abused in testing Labs every year. Animals are used to test the safety of products, advance scientific research, and develop models to study disease and to develop new medical treatments all for the sake of mankind. Animals should not be used for scientific research because animal testing is inhumane, other testing methods now exist, and animals are very different from human beings.
"Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing." ProCon. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2014. .
These animals used for testing products commonly include mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs and cats. These animals are forced to test new products before they are sold to humans, and even though there are numerous valid substitutes for us to test products on, the law doesn’t require that we do. What’s even more horrifying is that no animal experiment is illegal, and therefore these ‘tests’ can be completely irrelevant to human health, and no matter how painful or cruel the test may be to animals it is completely legal. Some companies that test their products on animals include Almay, Johnson & Johnson, Clearasil, Axe, Lancôme (owned by L’Oréal), and Pantene (owned by Procter & Gamble).
Throughout history, beginning as early as 500 BC, animals have been used to test products that will later be utilized by humans (“Animal Testing” 4), what isn’t publicly discussed is the way it will leave the animals after the process is done. Many innocent rabbits, monkeys, mice, and even popular pets such as dogs are harmed during the testing application of cosmetics, medicine, perfumes, and many other consumer products (Donaldson 2). Nevertheless, there are many people whom support the scandal because "it is a legal requirement to carry out animal testing to ensure they are safe and effective” for human benefit (Drayson). The overall question here is should it even be an authorized form of experimentation in the United States, or anywhere else? The fact of the matter is that there are alternatives to remove animals out of the equation for good (“Alternatives” 1). They are cheaper, and less invasive than the maltreatment of the 26 million innocent animals that are subjected to the heartlessness of testing each year (“Animal Testing” 4). All in all, due to the harsh effects of animal testing, it should be treated as animal cruelty in today’s society.
Perfume. Make-up. Baking Soda. Sunscreen. Toothpaste. Soap. People use these products everyday completely unaware of the harm caused towards animals for you to have that product in your hands. Animal Testing is unjustified, brutal. Animal Testing tortures innocent animals every single day. I believe that animals should be given the same moral consideration as humans. Animal testing can provide false results and causes suffering and pain. It is cruel for animals to be exposed to harmful experiments and live in restricting isolated conditions as it would be for humans too. Each year, over two hundred million innocent animals are injured or killed in laboratory experiments all over the world. Of those animals, between seventeen and twenty million are used in the United States. Animals are a crucial part of society, they are our pets, our companions, our best friends. If we continue treating them as we do, what will that say about us as humans. That we have no guilt killing and injuring animals
...ts on animals. China is also in the process of decreasing the amount of animal tested products in circulation as well (“Cosmetics and House-Hold Products Animal Testing”). Even though there are alternatives to using animals in this testing, companies in the United States still continue to torture animals for the sake of beauty. There are plenty more ways to experiment with products that do not involve animals in any way, and these tests also produce more reliable information. According to Earth Protect, Tests like this are often cheaper and produce faster results than animal research ever has. For example, there is a model of human cornea tissues that can be subject to eye irritation experiments instead of a rabbit, and there are models of skin cells that can be used for skin irritation tests instead of guinea pigs (“Cosmetic Animal Testing Facts and Alternatives”).
National Anti-Vivisection Society (2012). The failure of the animal model. Retrieved from http://www.navs.org/science/failure-of-the-animal-model. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (2013). Animal testing 101 -.
Since experiments are cruel and expensive, “the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying diseases and testing products that replace animals and are actually relevant to human health” (“Alternatives to Animals”). Companies claim that this sort of cruelty will benefit the human population by testing the “safety” of the products, as they have been for hundreds of years, and although this may have been helpful in the past, scientists have discovered otherwise. “While funding for animal experimentation and the number of animals tested on continues to increase, the United States still ranks 49th in the world in life expectancy and second worst in infant mortality in the developed world” (“Animal Testing Is”). This evidence shows that while we still continue to support and spend money on animal testing, it is not working as well as we thought.
Testing animals is wrong and they are just poor helpless animals and they die every day. They are testing animals with products such as soap, household cleaners, drugs, cosmetics, pesticides and other chemicals. Drug tests that are done on animals that pass the test end up harming or killing humans. Lists of animals that get tested daily are cats, dogs, monkeys, mice, and rabbits. The researchers tested these animals with cleaners to see how it would affect them....
Animal testing has long played a part in the science of testing, and it still plays a very important role in the medical world. Testing on animals in order to create a cure for AIDS is one thing, but testing on animals for human vanity is another. Animal testing is used to test the safety of a product. It has kept some very unsafe substances out of the cosmetic world. However, in this day in age, animal testing is not the only way to test the safety of a product. Animal testing in cosmetics has decreased over the years. However, it is still used by many companies in America. Animal testing is not only cruel, but it is also unnecessary in today’s advanced scientific world.
Simple household items such as lotions, shampoos and cosmetics aren’t very expensive and are within reach for the public, yet the public is not knowledgeable of the fact that the products that they use everyday are put through a series of tests which involve the use of harmless animals. Several large commercial companies do not make products for animals; they decide that using these harmless creatures for the testing of their products, could be cause to be harmful to animals still go forward with these types of procedures on an everyday basis. Although these animals are unable to defend themselves or signs of any form of consent for the near death procedures, these companies find this as a cheap solution for testing their products before placing them on the market. There are many other alternatives to testing animals such as embryonic stem cell research. Animal experimentation is wrong and it can be avoided but companies which are greedy for money chose not to.
It still comes as a surprise to me that with all the technology in today’s society, we are still relying on animals for cosmetic research. Some people think that it is acceptable and even justified to test on mere animals rather than risk hurting people. So, for these kinds of people, animal testing makes perfect sense. However, in my opinion, animals are living creatures and have the right to live out their lives as nature intended rather than simply surviving in cages while being poked and prodded with whatever scientists fancy. I think it is depressing and sort of grotesque that I am using products that have been tested on animals that are even commonly bred as our pets. So, I began my research to find out what companies still test on animals, why they do so, and what other alternatives they could use in place of animal testing.