In today society, animals are usually used for many purposes like medicine, biology, education and training of doctors, for developing new vaccines and drugs, also they were used for cosmetics. Among them, testing on animal for new medicines is one of the most popular things happening around the world. Animals are the physiologically and genetically similar with humans. Therefore, it is really helpful for testing the new medicines before using for human. About 20 million animals are experimented on and killed annually, three-fourths for medical purposes and the rest to test various products.( Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez, 2007). Some are used in painful experiences. Therefore, animal welfare claims that experiment on animal should be banned. They argue that they are also living things. It doesn’t matter they are small or big. They also have right, value and people should respect on them. Although that experiment can save the human life, it can cause the pain for another creature or animal. Therefore, it is unethical. In their point of view, animals also should have same right as human. However, in my point of view, testing on animals is ethical because there are a lot of benefits for human, scientist are trying to reduce the pain for animals, and there are no other alternative methods which can benefits like animal testing, it can give the most accurate results.
According to the Becka(2013), animal testing is crucial and ineffective. There are no benefits for human. He said that 92% of the experiments which are tested on animals are unreliable and there are no benefits for human. Besides, there are many other methods which can get more benefits according to him, animals and humans have different reactions to different things. People could use computer models, cell cultures, human studies and so on. People should care about the animals.
However, in my point of view, animal testing is ethical and in is beneficial. One of the researcher Mr. Jaime Harvey, (n. d.), gives an example of testing on animals successfully of Parkinson’s disease and it saved millions of people’s lives. It is really benefits for human being. Animals testing benefits for human being are successful and benefits more than 70% ( Jamie Harvey). Nowadays, there are vaccines and drugs which save millions of people’s life. For instance, the polio vaccine is also one of the benefits of animal testing. Besides, the medicine which saves thousands of women with breast cancer was established through testing on mice. Moreover, useful drug like aspirin, which controls pain, was created based on animal testing one of the benefits. There were some diseases which harm people before using animal testing. For instance, there was such bad illness like the Thalidomide which poison pregnant women and made babies born without legs or hands. However, this illness was successfully because of tested on rats. Lastly, there is one more vaccines called Tetanus vaccines, which is possible on testing on animals. Therefore, there are so many drugs which get by testing on animals and really beneficial for human beings and therefore, it is ethical.
Some of the people disagree on animal testing because it creates pain for animals and they are also living things. According to the Jeremy Bentham (2013), animal testing make the animal burning skin, causing brain damage, implanting electrodes into the brain, injuring, blinding, and other painful and aggressive procedures. Experiments on animal need some training and skills. If they perform incorrectly, it can make pain and discomfort. Besides, they cannot move in experience because researchers make them unable to move. Therefore, not only they get pain but also they get stress day-by-day. They have to spend their life on cages. They cannot move freely, cannot stay like natural, cannot get fresh air and so on.
Although animals are suffering painful from animal testing, researchers are trying to minimize their painful by many ways. They are trying to reduce the pain by using less aggressive techniques, better medical care, and better living conditions. Besides, according to the articles of “ Pain and distress in research animals, 2013”, animal suffering can be reduce by using pain medications, training an animal to cooperate with a procedure, or simply choosing a less harmful way to perform an experiment. Besides, researcher gave the accommodation for animals which meet the animal needs. They keep the environment familiar because most of the animals seem to get well from surgery quicker if kept in familiar surroundings under the care of aware technicians. Therefore, it is important to return the laboratory animals to familiar surroundings as soon as possible after the surgical, veterinary or research procedure. Lastly, researcher can remove excessive noise or other environmental stresses in order to help in reducing anxiety. They pay attention to the animal’s environments and control the visual, auditory and so on. Therefore, animal testing can minimize the painful for animal so that it is ethical.
There are some researcher say that there are so many alternative method which can do testing for new medicines apart from animal testing. Therefore animal testing should be banned and unethical. According to the articles of “MatTek Presentations at SOT 2012”, they are using human skin, eyes, the lining of the throat and other tissues are now routinely grown in test tubes from donated human cells. Their aim is to use the human tissues instead of animals on testing in order to produce new medicines.
Even though, there are some alternative methods, it is not reliable and effective as animal testing. It cannot give the most accurate result like animal testing. As I mentioned earlier, some of the animals’ species are similar with human. The alternative methods cannot give guaranty for human safety. Besides, animal organs are the most adjustable to human body for replacement also. There are a lot of successful surgeries because of experiencing on animals. Moreover, some serious diseases like polio, rubella, chicken pox can be cured and organized by carrying out testing on animals.
Therefore, animal testing for new medicines is ethical. If we don’t use the animals for testing, it is also impossible to use human for testing. Besides, if we don’t kill animal, animals are still killing each other for their food and human don’t do that. Moreover, scientists are also trying to reduce the number of animals usage by improving the experimental technique, by improving the technique of data analysis, by sharing the information with others researchers and so on. Therefore, based on the reasons mentioned earlier, animal testing is ethical.
References
Becka, S. D. (2013). Animal Testing Should Be Banned. Retrieved April 5, 20313, from http://www.thepetitionsite.com/12/animal-testing-should-be-banned/
Bentham, J. (n.d.). Harm and Suffering. Retrieved April 5, 2013, from http://www.neavs.org/research/harm-suffering
Experimentation, A. R. (2010, July 6). Hope. Retrieved April 5, 2013, from http://www.stanford.edu/group/hopes/cgi-bin/wordpress/2010/07/animal-research/
MatTek Presentations at SOT 2012. (n.d.). Retrieved April 5, 2013, from http://www.mattek.com/pages/
Velasquez, C. A. (n.d.). Of Cures and Creatures Great and Small. Retrieved April 5, 2013, from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v1n3/cures.html