Animal Testing
Animal Testing/Experimentation: Why not? People who would end experimentation on laboratory animals don't understand the importance it. They don't realize that we have came a long way in animal research that has benefited humans tremendously. From bettering human bodies, curing diseases, and saving lives is all due to animal testing. (Hoagland 23) It is very easy to find extreme statements for and against experimentation on animals. Publications like Frank Stilley's The $100,000 Rat and Other Animal Heroes for Human Health tend to paint a glowing picture of animal experimentation as untainted by inhumane practices and motivated by the pure selfless desire to better the human condition (Goodwin 217). There are six main reasons for animal testing. First, animals have a much simpler life span than humans. This means that they are less complicated. They are less complicated organically and psychologically. It would take years to understand a human organism. It would also take a long period of time to fully evaluate a human psychologically. If you study animals you can cut back on a lot of time (Hoagland 111). Secondly, animals usually have a shorter life span. This factor is important because the transmission of genetically
Some activists suggested that researchers should use alternatives like computer simulations. Anybody with half a brain should realize this doesn't even make good sense. Where do they think the data comes from that is then entered in the computer simulations? Researchers need to use real physiological data to feed the machines. Activists also argue that researchers should use PET scans, which can provide an image of how a living human organ is functioning, to avoid the use of animals. These activists must be ignorant to the fact that it took Lou Sokoloff, of the National Institute of Mental Health, eight long years of animal research to develop the basis of the PET scan (Goldberg 31). "In pharmacology there can be little doubt that the traditional and basic procedure of animal experimentation has been central in the development of drugs used in the treatment of diseases of known etiology - drugs such as antibiotics, antiparasitics, antiallergenics, and others. It has also led to the development and validation of drugs useful in the treatment of diseases of unknown etiology - drugs such as antiinflammatories, pain relievers, and drugs for nonspecific disorders such as heart and renal diseases. The whole field of nutrition has its foundation firmly rooted in animal experimentation, which has led to the discovery of diet essentials [such as all the known vitamins], the understanding of deficiency diseases, the interrelationship of diet and cardiovascular disease, and such recent mass programs of disease prevention as fluoridation. The literature shows that advanced surgical techniques (cardiac surgery and organ transplants to name but two of the more recent an! Maybe if these activists could realize that animal testing could improve their lives, they just might start thinking a little different. Like over in Britain, attitudes on animal experimentation shift dramatically when people were told about the potential medical benefits. Sixty four percent of two thousand and nine people in Britain, who were fifteen years old and older, disagreed with the view that scientists should be allowed to conduct any experiments on animal, and only twenty four percent agreed. Twelve percent were unsure. However, when told that animal experiments might hasten development of treatments for life threatening diseases, such as leukemia and AIDS, there was a huge swing in opinion. It changed from sixty four percent against and twenty four percent in favor to forty five percent in favor and forty one percent against. Fourteen percent were unsure (Woodman 1438). Animal rights activists assert that animal testing is essentially cruel. This argument misses the point that experiments usually want to disturb the animal as little as possible in order to study its material response to whatever is being tested. About five percent of research employs procedures causing distress or pain. For example, this kind of animal experimentation has allowed us to develop effective painkillers (Young 32). immunizations against a wide spectrum of diseases has been highlighted frequently. Some of the most noteworthy landmarks in the history of preventive medicine can be included here, such as vaccines or antioxins to combat rabies, cholera, diphtheria, tetanus, pneumaonia, polio measles, and viral hepatitis. Diphtheria, also known as yellow fever, killed thousands. If it wasn't for animal testing we would have fell victim to even more deaths. We really need to thank animal researchers for developing cures for these diseases that we don't have to worry about dying from (Miller 26). "General medical research has provided the basis for important improvements in the care, feeding and protection from infection of domestic animals. It is also significant that a large proportion of the medicaments, procedures and materials used in human medicine form the basis for, or are identical to those widely used in veterinary medicine. Laboratory animal technology, which has done mu
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Approximate Word count = 3007
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)
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