Essay, Research Paper: Animal Testing

ANIMAL TESTING
Question: Which personal care, non-pharmaceutical products are required by law to be tested on animals?
Answer: None
Yes that is right. There is NO law that requires companies to test their personal care and household products on animals before selling them to consumers!
Just picture this. Captured from the wilderness with his mother a young chimpanzee all of about 6 months is imprisoned in a cage, in a dark lonely room. Strange people (at it seems to him) with white cloaks circle him day to day poking him with long sharp sticks. A long tube that was drilled into his head runs along until it reaches a kind of box. A cramping pain starts in his leg. He tries to move it, but to no avail. The metal bars prevent any kind of movement. All that keeps him going through the day is a measly piece of bread, a cup of water, and knowing that his mother is in the next room. At night, all can be heard is the long wailing of the chimpanzee, and his mother replying to her son s cry of pain. But one night the young chimpanzee wails alone, his mother is not responding to his cries. He wonders what happened to her. Now at night he doesn t bother wailing for her, his big brown eyes just stares into the darkness.
Animal testing is a cruel process in which scientists expose animals to painful, cruel the unnecessary tests often without the use of pain killers. Animal tests are done in order to help a company find out the possible harmful effect of their products on humans. Take for example the Draize test. Rabbits are chained down to a bench and their eyes forced open. Next the scientist pours their new test product (e.g. shampoo) into them, to find out how irritating it is. The innocent rabbit cries and squirms, because (as everyone knows) shampoo stings if put into eyes. This is just one of the many cruelties that animal testing brings upon animals.
Each year millions of animal are examined, blinded, scalded, force-fed chemicals, genetically manipulated, and otherwise hurt and killed in the name of science. Substances that we use every day such as eye shadow, soap, furniture polish , may be tested on rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, cats and many other animals These tests are mainly used to test the degree of harm of the product and their ingredients on the human body.
This is challenged by the point that animal testing is a scientific necessity field in order to save lives. A little boy is born with the major pumping chamber of his heart missing. His life was saved by a series of new techniques first developed on animals. Animal research will be involved in the search for a cure for the most deadly diseases. So when presented with this story what would you choose, animal or human? If given the choice, how many people would choose the lives of 100 lab rats over one human. Should people suffer or die because of some animal rights activist says that animal testing is cruel?
Here are a few facts that help to prove that animal research is important to human beings. If it were not for animal testing:
+ Polio would kill or cripple thousands of unvaccinated children and adults a year.
+ Most of the nation s one million diabetics who depend on insulin will not be insulin dependent, they would be dead.
+ Millions of people would risk death from heart attack, stroke or kidney failure from lack of medication to control the high blood pressure.
There are a lot of alternatives to animal testing such as computer software. Technology is so advanced these days that the press of a button will simulate a live rat or chimpanzees. Scientists could use a computer simulation of animals while doing their research .
Another alternative is the use of invertebrate animals. An Invertebrate is an animal which has no back bone or skeletal structure just a nervous system. 90% of the animal species that are known have been identified as invertebrates. Invertebrates are another type of living system which can be used to replace the more commonly used laboratory animals. The fruit fly is been used for genetic study for a long time, because it is proven to be reliable.
Similarly plants can also be a great use as an alternative. Plants grow from seeds they have a life, may it be short or long. That means they are living systems. They have the same building blocks (molecular structure) as humans, so scientists can use invasive procedures in order to find out the effects of their products on plants, which will be more or less the same as on humans.
There are a lot of alternatives to animal testing such as computer software. Technology is so advanced now a days that a press of a button will simulate a live rat or chimpanzees. Scientists could use a computer to abuse the animals while doing their research .sharing of animals can dramatically reduce the number of animals being used for experiments. For example . If COMPANY A did a test on a chicken, found the results then shared them with COMPANY B, then we would reduce the number of animals being tested by 50%!
Finally the reusing of animals for experiments is another option. But when it dies the use the organs and skin tissue for further research would reduce the number of animals used.
Through the points that I have made I would conclude that the testing of animals by humans, in the name of science, is a cruel and unjust practice. These animals are examined, blinded, scalded, force-fed chemicals, genetically manipulated and just plainly mistreated. The opposing view is that animal testing is required in order to save lives. Just take the story of the boy with the heart problem, he was saved by new procedure first discovered while doing experiments on lab animals.
But I feel that man should find alternative means in discovering more about the world than using helpless creatures!