Animal Testing: Pros and Cons
Animal Testing
Introduction
The application of animals to test a large number of products from household compounds and cosmetics to Pharmaceutical products has been considered to be a normal strategy for many years. Laboratory animals are generally used in three primary fields: biomedical research, product security evaluation and education. (Animal Experiments) It has been estimated that approximately, 20 million animals are being used for testing and are killed annually; about 15 million of them are used to test for medication and five million for other products. Reports have been generated to indicate that about 10 percent of these animals are not being administered with painkillers. The supporters of animal rights are pressurizing government agencies to inflict severe regulations on animal research. However, such emerging criticisms of painful experimentation on animals are coupled with an increasing concern over the cost it would have on the limitation of scientific progress. (Of Cures and Creatures Great and Small)
Around the world, animals are utilized to test products ranging from shampoo to new cancer drugs. Each and every medication used by humans is first tested on the animals. Animals were also applied to develop anesthetics to ease human ailments and suffering during surgery. (Animal Experiments) Currently, questions have been raised about the ethics surround animal testing. As a result several regulations have been put in place to evaluate and control the animals being used for testing purposes. These regulations hope to ensure that such research is carried out in a humanely and ethical manner. (Testing on Animals: A Patient’s Perspective) Acceptance of such experimentations is subject to a lot of argumentation. As the statistics indicate animal testing is dangerous and harmful, but medical research must continue. We need to find other testing techniques that are advanced in order to eliminate this harmful process, till then all we can do is continue with our research.
Arguments for testing
The supporters of animal testing argue that if animal testing is eliminated, that many of the medications and procedures that we currently use today would exist and the development of future treatments would be extremely limited. They argue that humans have been assisted from the healthcare developments that have been based on the benefits of animal research and testing for many years now. Supporters for animal testing argue that research is justified because it assists in discovering ways...