Why Is Animal Testing Important To Human Life

Every year several million animals die due to animal testing in for medical, psychological, and products research. Moreover, animal testing is something that shouldn’t be continued and for it is completely wrong and cruel. Animal testing started in the late 300’s BC. Aristotle and Erasistratus performed many experiments that involved living animals. Similarly, Galen, a greek physician, conducted animals research to explore the field of anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology.

Those in favor of testing argue that animal testing increases the longevity of humanity and is a pioneer for medical research. Opponents propose safer alternative solutions, and reveal the inhumane aspects of animal testing. But, which side has a more persuasive argument? A student Shany Sun from Lynbrook High, discusses in her article, “The truth behind animal testing,” the overall benefits associated with

According to the article,”  Animal testing has also been instrumental in saving endangered species from extinction, including the Black Footed Ferret, the California Condor and the Tamarins Of Brazil”(5).  Not only can animal testing help humans, it can also help the scarcity of certain species of animals.  Animal testing is a two in one.  “ If vaccines weren't tested on animals, millions of animal would have died from rabies, distemper, feline leukemia, and anthrax” (5).  

Many see it as “ total elimination of animal testing will significantly set back the development of essential medical devices, medicines, and treatment” (Hajar 7). Animal testing is a necessary evil that has been extremely beneficial to humans and is crucial to the advancement of medicine in the

According to the Biomedical Research Association, animal testing has led to almost all revolutionary medical discoveries that have occurred in the past century (“CBRA: Fact Sheet” 2). One of these notable discoveries was that of the polio vaccine; with the polio vaccine, the number of cases diminished from hundreds of thousands to only hundreds, in the course of 25 years (“Poliomyelitis”). Another discovery, that with the help of animal testing has saved multiple lives, is that of insulin. The invention of insulin is a necessity for survival to those diagnosed with diabetes, and it’s all thanks to experiments done on animals (Badyal and Chetna 258). In addition to these, many other medical breakthroughs have occurred because of animal testing; just a few of these include the treatment of tetanus, leprosy, tuberculosis, brucellosis, and Prontosil, one of the first antibacterial treatments (Badyal and Chetna 258).

Animal testing has become a double-edged sword topic all around the world. Researchers believe that it is morally ethical to conduct extreme research procedures on animals when it is unethical to conduct on humans. Research is responsible for many medical breakthroughs and an important factor to the development of medical advances is the inclusion of animals in research. Medical research with the help of animal testing has prevented hepatitis B, measles, etc. (Karayiannis et al. 2004).

In the end animals are dying quicker due to these horrific ways and we should stop using animals to test

Even though decades have passed, there are still people who argue that animal testing is essential to saving millions of human lives; not even realizing the lack of results, the high cost, and the immortality

As stated in Humane Society International, the term animal testing “refers to procedures performed on living animals for purposes of research into basic biology and diseases, assessing the effectiveness of new medicinal products, and testing the human health and environmental safety of consumer and industry products such as cosmetics, household cleaners, food additives, pharmaceuticals and industrial/agro-chemicals.” Statistics reveal that, each year millions of animals such as dogs, cats, rats, mice, ferrets, hamsters and monkeys experience physical and mental torture due to scientific practices. This poor animals, every year, are dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and blinded in hidden laboratories all over the world, most of the time without anesthetic or pain killers. If they are not killed by the testing, the animals are brutally killed.

Throughout thousands of years, animal testing has been proven to be beneficial for the human race. While it has done a wonderful job for us, it has only injured, killed and put an enormous amount of pain on animals. The exact number of animals used in research yearly is unknown, due to official government statistics not including mice, rats, birds, fish, or other animals used for testing: some estimates put the total number to be 26 million. The use of animals for scientific research is cruel and inhumane, while both humans and animals share similar traits, they are both made up of completely different genes making them poor test subjects to begin with and may mislead or cause side effects for both parties.

Methods of testing devices exist; they are used as often as they possibly can be. However, there are still times when these materials don’t work well enough. Animal testing is only used when it is absolutely essential. Finding a way to keep humans alive and healthy is definitely one of those times of

“We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” (Immanuel Kant) Animals, ranging from the horse fly to the mouse, are used in laboratory experiments and scientific research all over the world and are often subject to poor treatment. They are critically used for research to learn more about the human body without harming the human being itself. Although many people might argue testing on animals puts them at risk, how many human and animal lives have actually been protected as a result of animal testing? Animals should continue to be used in scientific experiments to not only lower human suffering but also animal suffering [1].

The inhumane act of testing products on virtuous and uninvolved animals needs to be recalled and eliminated. This belief has caused many disputes and debates for me. Animal testing has pros and cons such as any other controversial topic. This practice has granted science with many life-saving cures and treatments, but the use of animals for finding issues in products recently became unnecessary. New sciences and abilities of medicine around the world allow a different approach such as experimenting with human cells, rather a living organism.

In spite of that, some people believe that animal testing is not essential and it should be banned because animals are different from humans physically. In addition, they believe that animal tests are a waste of time and money and there are lower cost alternative methods and more effective. Our purpose of this essay is to prove that animal testing is important and has a lot of benefits and advantages for humanity. Using animals in medical and scientific experiments is necessary, because it finds many cures and treatments, animals bodies are almost similar to the human bodies, also it benefits the animals themselves from diseases.

It is true that animal testing requires a lot of investment. Not only that money is spent on advanced technologies, it is also spent to pay for scientists’ expertise on this particular field. In order for the scientists to do their research, they need suitable equipment and substances. Every year, the National institutes of Health finances between $12 billion to $14.5 billion on animal testing as indicated in a study done by the government (Bastach, 2013). Besides, scientists need to consider the fact that animals need to be sheltered, fed and cared for to keep them alive.