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| Source: istock |
In the article we will find out to what extent is animal testing acceptable. This is an important topic to discuss because animals are often misused in the scientific field, especially rabbits, hamsters and mice.
What is Animal Testing?
An animal test is any scientific experiment or test in which a live animal is forced to undergo something that is likely to cause them pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm. Animal experiments are not the same as taking your companion animal to the vet. Animals used in laboratories are deliberately harmed, not for their own good, and are usually killed at the end of the experiment.
Animal experiments can include injecting or force feeding animals with potentially harmful substances, surgically removing animals’ organs or tissues to deliberately cause damage
forcing animals to inhale toxic gases, subjecting animals to frightening situations to create anxiety and depression. Some experiments require the animal to die as part of the test. For example, regulatory tests for botox, vaccines and some tests for chemical safety are essentially variations of the cruel Lethal Dose 50 test in which 50% of the animals die or are killed just before the point of death.
Many different species are used around the world, but the most common include mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates (monkeys, and in some countries, chimpanzees).
It is illegal in the UK and Europe to use animals to test cosmetics or their ingredients
It is illegal in the UK and Europe to use an animal in research if there is a viable non-animal method. All animal research in the UK is regulated and inspected by the Home Office. It is a legal requirement that all potential new medicines intended for human use are tested in two species of mammal before they are given to human volunteers in clinical trials. The law stipulates that all potential veterinary medicines must be safety tested in animals.
Why do scientists do Animal Testing?
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| Source: istock |
Animals are used in scientific research to help us understand our own bodies and how they work. This is necessary to develop new medicines. Animals are also used to safety test potential medicines before they are tested in people and to check the safety of other chemicals. Mice are very biologically similar to us, and are used often in these scientific experiments involving animal testing. It is important to do these tests, however, it is also very important to remain ethically considerate. An animal does not have a mind of its own, and so cannot say yes or no verbally to us, however, that does not mean we abuse our power as humans and go too far in testing on animals.
To What Extent is Animal Testing Justified?
Aside from the ethical issues they pose—inflicting both physical pain as well as psychological distress and suffering on large numbers of sentient creatures—animal tests are time- and resource-intensive, restrictive in the number of substances that can be tested, provide little understanding of how chemicals behave in the body, and in many cases do not correctly predict real-world human reactions.
Scientists justify animal use in medical research because the benefits to human health outweigh the costs or harms to animals. However, whether it is justifiable is controversial for many people. It depends upon the treatment that is done on these animals, and to what extent does it harm their wellbeing. That depends from study to study, and so it becomes difficult to compartmentalise such topics and come to a universal solution or conclusion that fits all scientific studies.
The Bottom Line
I believe it is important to perform animal testing when testing out medications, and especially on animals that have some similar biological characteristics to humans, it could be very beneficial and useful for the world. However, when it goes so far as to inflict a lot of pain upon the animal, I believe that is where we should draw the line.
Written by - Vidita Sachdeva
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