Animal Testing

Animal Testing

Animal testing is a much heated debate that has been going on for years. Pro-animal testers argue that it is necessary to test medicines, cosmetic, and house hold products, on animals in order to develop a safe product for the consumers. Animal testing is the key to the many medical advances that had helped saved millions of lives. Most of the advancement in medical science in the 20th century has been directly or indirectly related through the use of animal testing. Without animal research, many would not have survived diseases that were once fatal to the human being population. The benefits of animal testing are extraordinary. On the other hand, anti-animal testers argue that every year as many as "115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the United States" (Fano, 1997, p. 35). Millions of animals are routinely cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years. Safety tests are conducted on a wide range of chemicals and products, including "drugs, vaccines, cosmetics, household cleaners, pesticides, foodstuffs, and packing materials" (Monamy, 2000, p. 98). The safety testing of chemicals and consumer products probably accounts for only about "10% to 20% of the use of animals in laboratories, or approximately two to four million animals in the United States" (Fano, 1997, p. 36). It raises issues such as the ethics and humaneness of deliberately poisoning animals, the propriety of harming animals for the sake of marketing a new cosmetic or household product, the applicability of animal data to humans, and the possibility of sparing millions of animals by developing alternatives to a handful of widely used procedures. Animal experimentation is a "multibillion-dollar industry fueled by massive public funding and involving a complex web of corporate, government, and university laboratories, cage and food manufacturers, and animal breeders, dealers, and transporters" (Orlans, 1998, p. 135). This is a very important topic and many people should be informed about what is happening to these animals. People need to be informed about the many alternatives to the use of animals in product testing as well as in biomedical research and education; therefore, we will look at both the pro and con side of animal testing and also the many different animal tests and the alternatives.

Pro-animal testers believe that because of animal testing, millions of people can safely use cosmetics, household cleaners, and even medicine. Production companies test their products on animals. They design a product and want to sell it to the public, but first need to know what will happen if it accidentally gets into someone's eyes. Fortunately, preliminary chemical analysis can be done and many toxic compounds can be found before they are tested on animals for skin irritation. They understand this toxicity mostly from previous experience with animal testing. It may have been done in the past, but anyone who relies on this data should at least understand from where it has come.

Just imagine that a pharmaceutical company has discovered some interesting protein that is expressed in human cells. How should they study it? Classic pharmacology involves sectioning an animal. "Sectioning means cutting a dead animal into very thin slices and then treating those sections with something radioactive that will bind to the novel protein" (Day, 2000, p. 67). This something can be an "antibody or a nucleic acid probe" (Day, 2000, p. 67). The probe is made radioactive so that they can later check where the protein is located in the body. Protein localization gives information about possible function, and this is a very valuable way to start. Without this first piece of information, drug companies would not know how to proceed. Once a potential drug has been found, the company can determine how much can be injected for the positive effect of the drug to be felt. The company will also know how much of the drug is required to kill the subject. If the margin is too narrow, the drug will carry a high risk of overdose. Testing on animals is the only way to find the amounts necessary for a drug to take effect yet not kill the consumers.

Another form of animal testing includes tests mostly on common household products such as cosmetics, window cleaners, bleach, and even shampoos and conditioners. Some of the tests that are performed include the LD-50 test, the draize-eye test, skin irritation test, and the skin sensitation test. The LD-50 test was developed in 1927 by J.W. Trevan. This test was used to determine the potency digitalis extract, insulin and diphtheria antitoxin. Scientists have found other methods but the LD-50 test still remains as the scientific measure of toxicity. The ease of the test and concrete data that is derived from the test has made the test a standard in toxicology studies. Another test is the Draized-eye test. This test involves placing a substance in the eye of a rodent (usually a rat or a rabbit) and observing the effects. The animals are often immobilized for this test, for example by the use of stocks. The eyes of the rodents are observed for opacity, hemorrhage, ulceration, redness, swelling, and discharge for seven days. The skin tests consist of placing a product on the shaved skin of an animal and examine the area for allergic reactions for up to three days. The results may vary from slight irritation to severe burns to ulceration. Much criticism surrounds the eye and skin tests, but until the scientific community finds better alternatives, these procedures are a must in order to make products safe for all of us. The safety testing of chemicals and products is relatively a recent development in history. "While prominent people in antiquity may have had food tasters at their side to protect them from being poisoned, and coal miners in the 19th century used canaries to warn them of pockets of dangerous gases, the widespread testing of drugs, chemicals, consumer products, and foods has been going on for less than seventy years, essentially a feature of industrialized, consumer-driven society" (Baird, 1991, p. 11).

Those that are pro-animal testing say that research on animals is important in understanding diseases and developing ways to prevent them. The polio vaccine, kidney transplants, and heart surgery techniques have all been developed with the help of animal research. Through increased efforts by the scientific community, effective treatments for diabetes, diphtheria, and other diseases have been developed with animal testing. Animal research has brought a dramatic progress into medicine. With the help of animal research, smallpox has been wiped out worldwide. Microsurgery to reattach hearts, lungs, and other transplants are all possible because of animal research.

Anti-animal