I’ve often wondered if it was truly appropriate to subject an animal to testing in order to come to conclusions in medicine and science. At the same time I understand that humans are of a higher conscience and it would be morally wrong to put a human through pain and infliction that could have long lasting damage. If we didn’t have animals to test on treatments would never be known for the improvement of human lives. So what do the experts think?

When experimenting on an animal, certain procedure needs to be carried out. While the animal is put through rigorous testing, laboratories are required to make sure experiments are performed in as humane of a way as possible. They follow what is known as the three Rs’: Replace, Reduce, and Refine.  The first step of replacing is first seeing if there is an alternative to using animals for an experiment. Instead, things such as cell culture, modeling, or human volunteers are considered. If these are not plausible options, then testing goes to animals. Researchers look to see if they can use the least amount of animals possible. Those performing an experiment will discuss with other researchers and asked if they’ve done any of the experiments that the current researchers want to do. By sharing what experiments are being done by different groups of researchers allows for open dialogue to make sure that the same experiments aren’t being done, since that would put more animals then necessary through harsh experiments. This is what is known as reducing. Lastly, a step known as refining is taken.  This means making the the animals as comfortable as they can to reduce the amount of pain or stress they may be feeling. How is this done? Researchers will provide medical aid and a more home-like environment.

Animal research is used for four specific reasons. The goal is to increase our knowledge in the science community, have a better understanding of diseases, figure out solutions or treatments to prevent such diseases from happening, and to believe it or not improve the lives of humans, the environment, and animals! Animals have similar structures in their anatomy and biological processes to humans so by watching how their bodies work can give us the insight needed to protect ourselves if something harmful spreads and how to combat such difficulties to our way of living. Since animals and humans have identical traits in their body’s structure, this mean the same diseases can attack a human just as much as an animal. In fact, both species share a multitude of illnesses. In knowing that researchers are very careful in selecting what animals to use for testing based upon what they can contract that is the same as humans. For instance, rabbits are known to get atherosclerosis, emphysema, and birth defects like spina bifida. Since humans get these types of complications themselves, it makes sense to use that specific animal to find out how to handle the problem. The same can be said for using cats for experimental purposes that relate to visual impairment issues. Dogs are looked at for things including diabetes, cancer, blood disorders, especially haemophilia.

This all sounds like great reasons to have tests done on animals, but many would disagree. PETA  (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) would argue otherwise. Members of this organization say that the harsh reality is many of these animals are actually injected with diseases that they normally would not be susceptible to. According to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine , points out that many animals are subjected to harsh treatment of being tested with diseases just to see what would happen, rather than for the purpose of actually having a disease compatible with what humans could receive. This is a concern as many people not involved in this field of animal research and testing are led under the impression that everything should be looked at in a positive light as that is how the “media, experimenters, universities and lobbying groups exaggerate the potential of animal experiments to lead to new cures”.

PETA and the Royal Society of Medicine aren’t the only ones that feel this way. Several British universities as well as Yale School of Medicine seem to agree that animal testing is pointless. They take on the perspective that a lot of what we know about diseases stems from human research such with what we know about smoking and cancer, cholesterol, heart disease, and even AIDs. Included in their argument is that at some point a human will have to participate in a trial to see if a treatment works so using animals first would be unnecessary. While I understand  what they are trying to say, it is actually a highly flawed statement to make. The purpose of testing on these animals and reaching a treatment to attack against a disease is what gives us initial hope that it will work on humans. If researchers just went straight to testing on humans without knowing before hand that a certain medicine has the potential to work, than more humans would be at risk for greater damage to their health.

In the end, there begs the question of do we sacrifice a small portion of the animal population for the greater good of human life or should there be greater regulations in place as to what to do with animals? The debate still carries on and in my personal opinion finding animals that can contract the same kinds of diseases and illnesses as humans are absolutely important to look at. On the contrary, while it’s to see how an animal reacts to a disease it’s hard to grasp that animals are often times injected with something they never had before ultimately stripping them of their health.

Sources:

http://animal-testing.procon.org

These Answers to Arguments for Animal Testing Prove It’s Bad Science

http://theirturn.net/683/

http://www.yourgenome.org/debates/should-animals-be-used-in-research