Is Animal Testing Wrong

For decades, using animals for laboratory testing has been a controversial issue. Typically, animal testing is used to test cosmetics and medicines that may be used on humans. Scientists tend to use animals for testing when there’s a chance that the chemicals used in the substances could cause harm to the person using them. It is estimated that more than 115 million animals world-wide are used in lab experiments every year. Since only a small proportion of countries collect and publish data concerning animal use for research, the exact number is unknown. The question is whether the use of experimenting with animals is morally right or wrong. Most people would agree that of course it is wrong. If these heinous acts were committed outside labs,

they would be considered crimes. Animals suffer and die every day in labs with little to no protection from cruelty. There has been laws and ethical guidelines created, but there is little enforceable regulation when it comes to them. For example, labs that use mice, rats, and birds are exempted from the minimal protections under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Even the animals that are protected under the AWA can be abused and tortured. The law doesn’t require the use of valid alternatives to animals, even if they are available. With that being said, there are a number of reasons why animal testing should be banned.
The first and main reason is that animal testing is cruel and inhumane.

Imagine not having a choice and being used for experimenting without having any say at all. For everyone, this seems like a horrible nightmare; for animals this nightmare is their reality. It is unethical to sentence animals to life in a lab cage and to intentionally cause them excruciating pain. Industries even cram multiple animals at a time in a single cage where they are all subjected to food and water deprivation, forced feeding, forced inhalation, and long periods of phsycial restraint. Through the process, animals can be burned, poisoned, given diseases such as cancer, blinded, paralyzed and brain damaged. According to Humane Society International, most are even encountered with inflictions of burns and other wounds to examine the healing processes. Also with pain to study its effects caused from these experiments. These animals are rarely offered any form of pain relief, and in some cases, may be left to suffer until they eventually die. The poor, traumatized animals used in experiments are treated like nothing more than disposable lab equipment. Like humans, they can feel pain and fear. Just because they don't have the same abilities as humans doesn’t mean their life has any less value to them. That’s why these helpless and defenseless animals should stop being taken advantage of. The world does not need another mascara, shampoo, or household cleaning product so badly that it should come at

the expense of an animals’ life.
Second, alternative testing methods exist and can now replace the need for animals.

Safer alternatives are out there, and they are becoming more accurate as technology improves. Let’s face it, this is the 21st century. As technology keeps advancing, animal testing just seems pointless in our modern world. Scientists have developed effective, non-animal research methods that are cheaper, faster, and more accurate than animal tests. This includes vitro and micro dosing testing as well as computer models. Vitro testing, such as studying cell cultures in a petri dish, can produce more precise results than animal testing because human cells can be used. Micro dosing, the administering of doses too small to cause adverse reactions, can be used in human volunteers whose blood is then analyzed. Computer models, such as virtual reconstructions of human molecular structures, can predict the toxicity of substances without invasive experiments on animals. Out of all the hundreds of techniques available, cell culture toxicology methods give accuracy rates of 80-85 percent. All these new forms of testing are the way of the future. It’s time to let animals be free instead of living these in barbaric conditions of science

laboratories.
The third and final reason, animals are very different from human beings and therefore make poor test subjects. Can we trust that animals will have the same reactions to a product as a human would? Not at all. Animals will have different reactions to things that humans can easily resolve. If people get shampoo in their eyes, they immediately know to rinse it out and they are fine. Animals do not know that and are not use to such products, thus making them completely unreliable. Especially if the problem is internal, unlike people they can’t just say that they are in pain. A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) found that nearly 150 clinical trials (human tests) of treatments to reduce inflammation in critically ill patients have been undertaken and all of them failed, despite being successful in animal tests. Some examples from thorough studies stated that 88 percent of stillbirths are caused by drugs which passed animal tests. Also, 70 percent of drugs which cause human birth defects are safe in pregnant monkeys. Paul Furlong, Professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University (UK), states that "it's very hard to create an animal model that even equates closely to what we're trying to achieve in the human."
There are many more reasons why the whole thing is unnecessary, but for the top given reasons, they prove animal testing should simply be banned. On the bright side though, cruelty-free products are on the rise. Organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, have made it easier to find products that don’t use animal testing. Some brands even use their anti-animal testing campaign as a selling point and to raise awareness. Hopefully in the future, animal testing will be a thing of the past and they will be free at last.