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The Case of Animal Testing Farah Oueidat 1
INFORMATION ABOUT ANIMAL TESTING
I. Background on the Paper:While medical science is meant to help improve human life by curing
disease and preventing deaths, it is sometimes researched on the expense
of the lives of other creatures: the animals. Indeed, animal rights are being
constantly violated through experimentations and tests which are done in
laboratories and sometimes legalized for the aim of producing medical or
toxic products. However, evidence has shown that such experimentations
can often be misleading, resulting in dangerous health effects on both
animals and humans and for a long time. In this paper, I will presenting the
case of this problem in detail in the first part, then I will talk about my
reaction on why I believe animal testing should be banned, in addition to
presenting some of the valid alternatives which can be used instead of the
abusive experimentations.
II. Introduction:Animal rights are meant to protect animals from being exploited, mistreated
or hurt for profit and personal interests by human beings. Although these
rights are present and supported in many countries around the world, they
remain to be violated by several institutions and communities that refuse to
abide by them by conducting animal experimentation. Known as animal
research, experimentation and in vivo testing, animal testing is the use of
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animals for experiments for the purpose of testing drugs, cosmetic products
and others. Around the world, there are from 50 to 100 million animals used
every year for that purpose. Examples are frogs, birds, rats, mice and
others. In the U.S, for example, there are around 80 million mice in 2001
alone. Most of the animals which are used are euthanized after the
experiment. Where do researchers get these animals? Some of these
animals are raised and prepared in the lab itself for the purpose of the
experiment, while others are caught in the wild or received from dealers.
III. Animal testing in history:It should be noted that animal testing has been found throughout history.
The earliest experiments on animals are found in the records of the ancient
Greeks in the fourth and second centuries BC. Artistotle, for example, was
among the first individuals in history to do animal testing. Also, a physician
in Rome during the second century, called Galen,used to dissect goats and
pigs and has been known as "father of vivisection." Even in the arab world,
an Arabic physician called Avenzoar during the 12th century in Spain used to
practice dissection and introduced animal testing as an important method for
surgical procedures before they are applied on human beings
IV. Places for Animal TestingResearch and experiments for animal testing are done in places like medical
schools, university laboratories, defense establishments, farms and
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The Case of Animal Testing Farah Oueidat 4
2004) According to the BBC website (2004), animal testing is usually used to
develop products such as: Household products, Agricultural chemicals,
Industrial chemicals, Pesticides, Paint, Food additives and others (BBC,
2004). This is a dangerous and unethical process which should be banned in
all circumstances, regardless of the kind of product being researched.
Dangerous evidence that shows how animal testing can actually be
negative and deadly comes from the 1960s and 1970s. It what was known
as the Thalidomide Tragedy of the 60s and 70s, a drug called Thalidomide
was produced by Germany after being testing on thousands of animals and
was considered safe (Bantwal, 2008). This drug was meant to support
breastfeeding mothers without harming them or their child. However, what
happened is that thousands of children who were born from mothers who
used this drug were actually born with deformities (Bantwal, 2008). An
additional example from actual implementation of such drugs comes from
Japan in the 1970s. At that time, a drug called Clioquinol was developed and
considered a very effective drug because it was also tested on thousands of
animals (Bantwal, 2008). Although the drug was supposed to cure diarrhea
in human beings, it proved to do the opposite: It failed to bring relief from
diarrhea and even provoked it in humans who did not have it (Bantwal,
2008). As a result of this misleading and unsafe drug, many cases of
paralysis, deaths and blindness occurred in the public. (Bantwal, 2008)
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Types of animals used in tests
This is a cage in which differet animals are put for animal testing
Some alternative methods:
There are some who consider alternatives methods for animal testing.
Governments and scientists recommend that animal testing should be
limited because of its cruelty and because it brings suffering to animals. An
important step according to some researchers is having guiding principles to
accompany the research in most countries:
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y The first principle is REPLACEMENT: It involves the use of non-animalmethods instead of animal methods whenever possible to reach the
same scientific result.
y The second principle is REDUCTION: Which allow the researchers tohave comparable levels of information from a more limited number of
animals, or receive the same information from the same animals.
y A third principle is REFINEMENT, which refers to minimize the pain,distress or suffering which animals may go through during the
experiment, therefore improving their welfare.