Animal Testing
Each year over 100 million animals are killed in laboratories for testing. In animal testing, scientists perform different experiments on animals to test out products for humans. The most common animals used in testing are mice, rats, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds. Animals used in animal testing are put through physical and mental pain everyday.
Animal testing is unfair and cruel to the animals involved. These poor animals suffer through many horrific things everyday in their labratory home. The most common animal tests nowadays is the Draize rabbit eye test in which they take a rabbit with no pain killers and hold its eye open with tongs then a chemical is dropped into their eyes to see how much irritation there is. This rabbit’s are sometimes forced to sit days with their eyes open with the chemical in their eye this may cause unimaginable pain, blindness, and even death.
The experiments performed on animals aren’t always guaranteed to work on humans. Just because an experiment goes perfectly with an animal doesn't mean it will work on humans meaning that the animal tested on was tested on for no reason. Animals may have some similarities to humans but they are not exactly the same. These differences make animals poor testing subjects. Animal tests are very cruel and inhuman. Animals just like humans feel pain so when they are being cut into or their limbs are being broken and twisted the other way they feel all of it. Many animals being tested on are not given any painkillers or anesthesia so they feel everything that is happening.
While animal testing may be inhumane and very cruel, there are a few benefits. Many animals are tested on for medical purposes. Animals are often injected with vaccines to see the effects of the vaccines. Animal testing has also helped create life-saving medicines and medical techniques. For example, without animal testing, anesthesia for surgery wouldn't have been invented. There would also be no chemotherapy to help cancer patients. Animal testing has helped save the lives of thousands of people.
While those who believe in animal testing make points about the benefits of animal testing, their biggest problem is that they don’t need to test things on animals to get the same benefits. Scientists could use in vitro testing which is testing in a petri dish instead of testing on animals. Human volunteers could also be used by scientists instead of poor defenseless animals who don’t get a choice in whether they are tested on or not.
