Animal Testing Is the only Way
Essay by review • February 24, 2011 • Research Paper • 1,108 Words (5 Pages) • 1,614 Views
If a person were to look around and observe the environment in which they live, most likely they will see a world made by humans for humans. This is no accident, human beings as individuals are the most powerful thinking machines on this planet. As an organization, human beings are the most powerful creative force the world has ever known. To think that human kind sprung off from animals is debatable but undoubtedly true. In fact, modern day chimps have 99 percent of their genetic makeup in common with humans. In a world that is so dependent on human life it is quite understandable to sacrifice the lives of animals, as test subjects, to save and safeguard the lives of human beings. Animal testing is a process by which researches us live animals to experiment on in a controlled manner. This process helps to predict what affects certain substances and materials will have on human beings. Animal testing protects many human beings from minor discomforts' to death. It is also is more economical than alternatives, and does not hurt the overall populations of animal species.
"Animal testing saves human lives", says Albert, one of the leading researchers for the polio vaccine. It helps researchers to understand the effects of certain diseases and viruses on the body to such a degree that scientists can engineer a vaccine or antidote that directly combats the problem. Albert admits that it takes many animal lives to find and create a cure, which leads some to think that these animals are being tortured, but there lives will save countless human beings in the future. So animal testing is not torture because it has a precise purpose. Causing unnecessary harm is immoral, but researching diseases on animals is necessary for the good of human kind. The Polio vaccine is a stunning example of this to the extent that people of today do not even remember how deadly Polio was. Without animal testing, Polio would still be claiming numerous lives every year. Therefore, with Polio cured and practically unheard of, researchers can study the effects of other deadly human conditions on animals like cancer, and aids. Some may say that animal testing is cruel and inhumane but the vary definition of cruelty and inhuman completely refutes there argument because the harm done to the animals is entirely necessary, not just for fun, and it's for the benefit of human kind thus it is absolutely humane. Without animal testing researchers, believe that human kind may have to wait even longer to come up with cures for diseases like aids, and cancer. Therefore, the testing of animals for purposes of scientific advancement saves human lives.
Some people concerned with animal rights claim that animal testing could be done away with through the use of new technology. New technologies such as test tube tissue experiments and computer simulations are valuable as secondary alternatives to animal testing, in fact, they are implemented on a regular basis by researchers today, but at present time, these tests cannot tell researchers how a new drug will affect the entire body. Bodily systems are too complex to compute and too unified to test by tissue. In addition, it is important to know that the bodies' natural immune system response does not come in to play through the use of either method, thus researchers cannot observe it. Moreover, the cost of such testing techniques is far higher than that of animal testing. While animals can be bread and tested very cheaply, computer and tissue testing is very expensive. Switching current animal testing operations to more expensive methods would cause consumer prices on every product that requires testing to rise. This would be extremely damaging to the average consumer as
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