Animal testing is described as any scientific test or experiment where a live animal is forced to go through a condition likely to cause them lasting harm, suffering pain, or distress. Normally, the animal used in the laboratories to perform the tests get harmed deliberately, and some usually get killed upon the completion of the experiments. Early Greek physician-scientist, Aristotle, was the first person to conduct experiments on living animals in the fourth century BC in ancient Greek (Kinter et al., 2021). Animal experiments include; force-feeding or injecting the animals with harmful substances and forcing them to inhale toxic gases, among others. However, there has been a controversy in using biomedical research for the past several years. People who value animal testing perform it since it is significant for medical advancement and consider it a compassionate way of advancing treatments. On the negative side, others argue that animal testing is unethical and inaccurate. The study examines two proponents and opponents of using animals in biomedical research. The study sought to prove that using animals for biomedical research is bad.
Some proponents believe that animal testing is good, especially when using animals in ethical situations involving the prevention of using human subjects to perform biomedical research. They believe it is not right to subject the lives of human volunteers to danger since that is considered unethical but to use animals instead. One of the main reasons they have used to support their argument is the inability to predict what will happen in the laboratory as the scientists carry out their experiment (Kinter et al., 2021). An example is an experiment on certain vaccines and drugs. It would not be wise to use human subjects because they are unsure if the trials will prove fatal. The proponents compare the fatality resulting in human lives and that of animals and prefer that animals can be used to save human lives. Furthermore, the aspect of research is not a one-time event. Some individual vaccines take a series of trials, and each of the trials might be fatal. Using human subjects every time needed in the laboratory will be an issue because every fatal trial would result in loss of life or serious damage to major organs. However, using animals minimizes such fatality because, most of the time, a single animal subject can be used for more than two trials, thus pushing the research toward closure.
In the second perspective, some medical researchers believe that animal testing is good since the animals also benefit from such testing. The vaccines the animals have so far saved several animals from various diseases, such as infectious hepatitis and anthrax, among others. The basic argument here is that the trials have not been entirely for the good of human beings. It also ensures that animals have gotten solutions to major health problems. It will be too hard for researchers to use human subjects, and yet they are trying to come up with solutions to problems affecting animals. The differences in biological structures would make the whole procedure useless. Furthermore, it is easier to use animal subjects for research on issues affecting both animals and human beings (Kinter et al., 2021). And during the whole process, not every stage requires animals. The researchers have tried to minimize the extent that they expose such subjects by replacing them with cell structures and computer modeling. Also, the animals used in several stages have their welfare considered so that they are not exposed to much pain. The nature of the research on them is also not invasive. They receive maximum care, with improved conditions such as food and shelter.
On the other hand, animal advocates believe using animals in biomedical research is unethical and are against it. Firstly, animal testing is inhumane and cruel (Macdonald et al., 2021). The Human Society International explains that the animals that undergo the testing usually get harmed and in much pain since they go through force-feeding, burn infliction, decapitation, and neck breaking, among others. Such animals suffer severe pain during the testing process. The pain is not only a result of the procedure but also the process of alienating them from their natural habitats. Most experiments are not performed in forests or fields where the animals live but in a laboratory. The designation is different from what the animal has been used to. Most of the time, they are placed in poorly or excessively light rooms. They are also exposed to conditions such as human noise and machines in the laboratory. The food they are given might not be favorable to them since they are used to the natural and raw food they hunt for themselves. The animals are also limited in their movements and therefore find it hard to associate with others. These conditions make the animals uncomfortable and end up affecting their behaviors. Even if the animals do not die from this process, they can no longer function well after returning to their natural settings. They might grow hostile towards other animals, thus endangering them.
Also, the subjection of animals in scientific and, more so, biomedical research violates their rights. Humans subjected to such trials have been given time to willingly choose to sacrifice themselves for the good of the people (Macdonald et al., 2021). However, animals have not been given such a chance. They are merely taken advantage of because they cannot vocalize their concerns. This feels so wrong because humans have given themselves the mandate to decide the fate of the animals. It should be remembered that animals have almost similar characteristics to humans. They feel, behave, and experience stresses just like any human being. Furthermore, most of the tests performed in the laboratory are not chaperoned towards investigating the good they can do. A good example is the Draize test, where substances are placed on the eyes of a rabbit. The researchers then sit back and watch the extent to which it can cause damage. Such rabbits may end up blind, and the pain resulting from such corrosion is unimaginable.
Additionally, animal testing is bad since such tests may mislead the researchers, making them ignore the potential cures and treatments (Macdonald et al., 2021). That is because some chemicals used for testing that are ineffective or harmful to the animal tend to be valuable when applied to humans. Besides, animal testing is considered wasteful. That is because it leads to prolonged suffering for the humans waiting to receive effective cures since the outcomes tend to mislead the researchers or the experimenters (Macdonald et al., 2021). The experimenters end up squandering money, resources, and time that could be spent performing more relevant research on humans. The process of collecting suitable animals for certain experiments is expensive because the researchers have to go to extreme places to get their animal subjects. The cost of traveling, shipping the animals, developing a habitat close to their natural ones, and feeding them ends up taking more resources than even anticipated. Some of the animals might stop functioning normally once they have been brought to a different setting, which impacts the overall outcome of the study. Time will be wasted because researchers will be forced to repeat the same process repeatedly.
Moreover, there is a bigger difference between the anatomy of an animal’s body and that of human beings. Their tissues might be similar but respond differently to the medicine or vaccine administered (Macdonald et al., 2021). Furthermore, there are several diseases that human beings suffer from, which are rarely witnessed in animals. In this case, the researchers usually introduce the virus to the animals and then, later on, a vaccine intended to test its effectiveness. Most of these experiments are unsuccessful because the animal’s tissues fail to respond appropriately to the diseases. Therefore, the vaccines remain untested on whether they are effective or not. As this is being done, the animal might react differently to the introduced virus, and most of them might end up dying. It is hard to understand why individuals would subject animals to so much pain and suffering, yet they are sure that the results will not be sufficient to generate conclusions. Even if such animals respond to the diseases and the drugs administered, it is still not assured that such will be a response developed in the human body. Things might go wrong, yet so many animals have been harmed during experimentation.
Furthermore, most of the animals used in the research process are killed. There are several reasons given to support this cruelty. Among them is the argument that animals might be contaminated by toxic chemicals used in the research, and once they are released to their natural habitat, they might end up endangering the lives of other species. Furthermore, scientists argue that they would want to kill the animals and retain their cells for further research. This cruelty results in the death of many animals every year after an experiment is concluded (Macdonald et al., 2021). This is unnecessary because at the verge of the advancement of technology. There are so many ways in which human tissue can be extracted and used in studies aimed at testing various vaccines and medicines. Additionally, there are donations from individuals who are affected by terminal diseases. Such donated organs are useful in ensuring that millions of animals are not subjected to biomedical research, which ends up being tragic in their lives. Furthermore, using such tissues and organs in computer testing is cheaper and saves resources that would have been wasted in looking for animal subjects. These resources can be redirected toward helping other researchers and speeding up the rate of useful discoveries made in science and medicine.
In conclusion, the study discusses why animals should not be used for biomedical testing. Even though humans tend to benefit from some successful animal research, it is considered a bad experiment since the animals’ suffering, pain, and death cannot be worth the human benefits. Besides, the testing tends to provide misleading information to the researchers, which may also be risky, time-consuming, and expensive. Animals are also denied the chance to choose their fate. They are taken from their habitats and made prisoners of humans as they get subjected to tests that result in a lot of torture of their bodies. Some tests aim to assess the damages that substances can cause to the human body. From the study, the opponents tend to outweigh the proponents, and therefore, it is not ethical to use animals in research, hence considered a bad practice.
References
Kinter, L. B., DeHaven, R., Johnson, D. K., & DeGeorge, J. J. (2021). A brief history of the use of animals in biomedical research and perspective on non-animal alternatives. ILAR Journal, 62(1-2), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar/ilab020
Macdonald, A., Hawkes, L. A., & Corrigan, D. K. (2021). Recent advances in biomedical, biosensor, and clinical measurement devices for use in humans and the potential application of these technologies for the study of physiology and disease in wild animals. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 376(1831), 20200228.
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