Advancing in Medical Science Through Animals

Advancing in Medical Science Through Animals

For decades, mankind has used animals to progress efficiently in scientific research. Animal testing is important for medical science and other beneficial experiments. Many citizens criticize scientists for testing on animals for unnecessary means other than medical research. Many of today's current vaccines and disease treatments would have been delayed without the use of animals. People across the globe have been saved through organ transplants by persistent research on animals. Many material products and medical accomplishments people take for granted wouldn't have been possible without animal testing.

Learning the anatomy of an animal for educational purposes can create a better learning experience. Many schools of the United States today require science courses to have animal dissections to create a better understanding of basic anatomy. School children in science classes have dissected a frog or worm to see how the body structure is similar to humans. In the medical field, student nurses and doctors learn from dissecting animals first before moving on to human cadavers. Kristien Mcdonald, of The Daily Utah Chronicle comments, "we could just do research on dead bodies" (2). Even though that's an alternative, there is a limited amount of cadavers for students to study on, so the usual alternative would be animals that are mass-produced in farms.

The testing of cosmetics and other hygiene products on animals makes the product safer for human use. Many of the top brands like Cover Girl, Gillette, Maybelline, L'Oreal Paris, and Right Guard have used animals to test the reaction of the chemicals in the product, before the final product was released to be used by consumers. The effects of the chemicals where tested on animal skin to see if any infections or rashes occur of a bad product rather than on delicate human skin. Most primates and swine have very similar epidermal texture, which provides accurate results. The animals are not harmed intentionally, but sometimes unavoidable. Human suffering is unacceptable when an animal can takes its place and still come up with accurate results.

Animals are an essential part for the research and development of vaccines and treatments of human diseases. For most of all laboratory testing, about one-third of one percent of animals used are primates. In an AMP advertisement states:

Most of the important medical discoveries such as therapies to prevent vision loss due to congenital eye defects, test the efficiency of synthetic peptides for newborns with respiratory distress syndrome, discovering the treatment hydoxyurea for sickle cell anemia, understanding the effects of HIV to the immune system, and be able to understand the physiological stress that a person with the disease arteriosclerosis wouldn't have been possible without the use of primates (AMP 1).

With these medical marvels, all animals, not just primates are needed to progress in medical science.

With animal testing being more commonly done, thousands