Medical Testing On Animals (538 words)

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Medical Testing
On Animals
Animals have been used in medical research
for centuries. Most of the animals used for research are rodents – rats,
mice, hamsters and gerbils. Some dogs, cats and a variety of goats, ferrets,
pigeons, monkeys and rabbits are also used .The struggle against this tyranny
is a struggle as important as any of the moral and social issues that have
been fought over in recent years. Animal rights are an emotional issue-second
only, perhaps, to the bitter abortion debate.” For decades the value of
animal research has been grossly overrated. Although researchers have depended
on animal test data to achieve medical advances, there should be other
means of research because testing on animals is cruel, inhumane, and often
unnecessary.

The American Medical Association believes
that research involving animals is absolutely essential to maintaining
and improving the health human beings. They point out, that virtually every
advance in medical science in the 20th century, from antibiotics to organ
transplants, has been achieved either directly or indirectly through the
use of animals in laboratory experiments. They also emphasize that animal
research holds the key for solutions to AIDS, cancer, heart disease, aging
and congenital defects. Lastly they insist that, the result of these experiments
has been the elimination or control of many infectious diseases. This has
meant a longer, healthier, better life with much less pain and suffering
for humans. For many patients, it has meant life it self.

However, there should be other means of
research because the whole process of animal research remains cruel and
inhumane. Animal rights activists have gathered a large amount of information
that has closed down many laboratories that violate anti-cruelty statutes.

In the past, research labs have had to be subsequently suspended due to
animal cruelty. Reports involving horrifyingly painful experiments on monkeys
and the filthy laboratories the animals must live in. Animals limited to
living in tiny metal cages in which they can barely move. From the capture
of primates in the wild, to the “factory-like” breeding of mice and dogs,
to the confinement and isolation of cages – research is inherently cruel.

Animal research is often unnecessary, history
has shown that many important medical advances have been made by clinical
research and close observations of human patients, not animals. There are
countries that don’t use healthy animals to train veterinarians or teach
surgical techniques. In England they use only sick or injured animals and
do most of their work on animal cadavers. Humans can give informed consent.

Monkeys and dogs can’t. Many AIDS patients have said they are willing to
try out new drugs so why not let them. In most cases the drugs will need
to be tested on humans before the FDA will approve them anyway and it is
a known fact that not all drugs work the same on humans as they do on animals.

Most of what we do to animals we would
never do to people. We understand that people have certain rights that
keep them from being experimented on by other people. What we don’t realize
is that it is impossible to justify rights for humans, who are a type of
animal, and deny rights to non-human animals. Animals have a right to life
just as humans have a right to life. Human morality must expand to acknowledge
and respect the rights of non-human animals.