Why Is Animal Testing Wrong

Mahatma Gandhi, who was an important Indian civil rights activist, once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”. Animal testing is currently a major moral issue in this century. Millions of animals are used today to get information about the safety, toxicity, and working ability of new drugs or substances that companies want to put in certain medicines or cosmetics. On one side, many people think that animal testing is cruel and inhumane because of the experiments and techniques done on the animals to get information for cosmetics or medicine. Others would say that animal testing is needed to help create life-saving treatments and medicines. Multiple medical breakthroughs have

Many animal tested products almost always fail on humans. 92 out of the 100 drugs that pass on animal tests fail in humans (PETA). This means only 8 drugs might help people. Might. One specific example of this is when all 150 clinical trials of treatments to help reduce inflammation in patients failed, even though they were successful in animals (National Academy of Science of the United States of America). Another example of failed medicine is when a sleeping pill caused 10,00 babies to be born with severe deformities even though the babies of the animals tested on had no such deformities (Science Museum). Animals are not humans. Humans are more complex and have different systems than animals. Animal testing does not always work. Also, these tests that pass still end up hurting people in the end. Drugs have many side effects that are not always show in animals. Animal testing can be very unproductive because animals are different than humans, so the medicine works differently. Also, the animals are under a large amount of stress because of how they are treated, which affects how the medicine works in their body (Murnaghan). Animal testing isn’t reliable. Many animals are tortured and killed all for medicine that most likely will not work. They are killed in vain since their deaths mean nothing to any scientific cause. If these many lives are being wasted, is it worth it? Is it worth it to kill

More advanced products have been created to replace animal testing. Products like Epiderm and Thincert can be used as a skin alternative (Rogers). Also, new computer models can predict the toxicity level of tested substances. Animals no longer have to get substances dripped in their eyes and substances rubbed into their skin. These new advances are also more reliable and more accurate than animals (OSHA). Additionally, the new alternatives are not as expensive as and more accurate than testing on animals. Why not use these products more if they are more guaranteed to work? Animal testing can be replaced by something much more logical and much more humane. Animals do not have to suffer anymore if researchers switch out animals for these new products. Also, much more money will be