The Benefits of Animal Testing to Society

Animal research has been around for ages; it started in Ancient Greece and is still being used in laboratories today. Testing on animals is necessary because it has led to many medical advancements that would otherwise not exist, there is no alternative that can effectively test treatments on a living whole body system and it has benefitted animals themselves, such as the discovery of vaccines for rabies. It is hard to imagine a world without treatments for cancer, vaccines, and other crucial medicines that humans and animals rely on in order to survive.

Many treatments, medications, and vaccines would not exist if not for animal research. Medicine and treatments cannot be put on the market without extensive testing on animals, including experimentation on animal test subjects. As a matter of fact, some laws require drugs to be tested on animals before being made available for consumption or further testing, “Under U.S. law, for example, new drugs for infectious disease and other diseases must be tested first in animals for efficacy and safety before they can be approved for clinical trials involving human subjects,” (Parascandola, 23). It makes sense to require that tests be done on animals before running tests on humans because if something is not safe for an animal, it is most likely unsafe for humans as well. Animal testing has contributed to the development of insulin and antibiotics as well as vaccinations against smallpox, measles, mumps, diphtheria, tetanus, and other illnesses.

Treatments for sometimes fatal diseases such as AIDS, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis have also come about thanks to experimentation done on animals. There are several benefits of doing tests on living animals instead of using in vitro or alternative methods.

Tests can be done on cell samples in test tubes or Petri dishes, but those methods do not compare to doing tests on a whole living system. The use of alternative methods is becoming more and more common, but they most likely not take over any time soon. Using these methods does cut costs, but they do not serve as a replacement in every case. In vitro tests are necessary towards the beginning of the testing process when there is a large number of possible substances that would be useful to produce a drug,” In vitro tests on bacterial cultures and tissue cultures are necessary in the early stages of testing the very large numbers of substances that are synthesized in order to produce a single drug for use on humans,” (Huxley, 138). This would eliminate a lot of possibilities, and only a few substances will be selected through this process to be eventually tested on animals. Another key point regarding alternative testing methods is that they do not account for the complexity of the human body and its different systems. Humans are more than just a sample of skin cells or cell cultures, and not everyone reacts to chemicals in the same way. Doing tests on cell samples does not take into account the diversity within the human population. Not only does animal testing effectively test treatments for humans, but it also has led to the discovery of treatments for animals as well.

Tests done on animals have benefitted them because of the development of vaccines and treatments for common animal diseases and illnesses, especially those found in domestic animals.

A good way to try to find cures for animals is to test them on animals themselves because they are the ones with the illnesses and they are the ones who need the treatment. According to the Americans for Medical Progress organization, diseases that are common in domestic pets, birds, and agricultural animals are preventable because of animal testing, “Without animal research, millions of dogs, cats, birds, and farm animals would be dead from more than 200 diseases, including anthrax, distemper, rabies, feline leukemia, and canine parvovirus,” (Animal research and it’s benefits to both humans and animals). With this in mind, one could say that humans also benefit from these benefits to animals. We consume large amounts of livestock, and if we can prevent them from getting diseases, it also prevents us from becoming ill or losing opportunities to make a profit from the sale of livestock.

One use of animal testing that is considered unnecessary by many is the testing of cosmetics. Since technically cosmetics are not crucial to human survival or even everyday life, it may seem almost pointless to conduct tests on animals that may cause them discomfort so that cosmetic companies can make a profit. A big portion of animal test subjects is not protected by the Animal Welfare Act, which means that many or most of the animals used in the testing of makeup products are not given pain relief, and maybe killed after the tests are finished. Mice are one of the main types of animals used in laboratories for research, and many of them are bred or cloned specifically for research use.

Some might consider animal testing to be unethical because there are alternatives out there that come close to simulating the way real humans would react to chemicals used in treatments and medications. Products such as EpiDerm and ThinCert (artificial human skin) exist which can be used to test medications intended for topical use. Products like these can save animals from pain and suffering from having tests performed on them, and it also reduces research costs. The Laboratory Animal Welfare Act requires scientists to look into finding alternative methods before using animals in their studies if experimentation would cause animals to experience pain or discomfort in the process. Additionally, humans may not always react the same way to chemicals the way that animal test subjects do.

However, one result of evolution is that characteristics found in members of one species may be absent in members of another; for example, rats lack gallbladders. Furthermore, because organisms are intact systems composed of mutually interacting parts or subsystems, the interactions of one organism’s subsystems may differ from the relationships in an organism of another species. (Laboratory Animal Use, 213)

In cases where animals are different, it would not be ideal to use them as test subjects, but alternative methods cannot always serve as a replacement. Some medications cannot be tested on skin or cell samples because it is not possible to record observable behavioral data when these alternative methods are implemented. Some good examples of types of treatments that need to be tested on animals are medication for people with addiction problems and testing the tolerance of the immune system in the test subject, “For addiction research, it is impossible to gain behavioral data without working with some sort of living animal. Many drug studies require the observation of treated animals, as do experiments on blood vessels (such as angioplasty research) and immune system tolerance (for investigations of transplantation biology),” (Quigley, 29). The author makes a good point here because many people rely on medications to support their immune health, and these types of medicines cannot be marketed without going through tests and experimentation. This is where it would be necessary to use animals unless scientists can come up with some kind of a high-tech alternative that could demonstrate behaviors as well as the biological effects of different treatments. When tests are done on mice for addiction medications, the drug is planted inside the animal’s bloodstream and the animal shows a desire to continue to take these drugs which shows that animals respond to drugs in the same or similar way that humans do. Once the addiction medication is given to these animals, researchers observe them to see whether or not they prevent the subject from having the desire to take more drugs.

Researchers could be misled into overlooking potentially beneficial cures and treatments because some chemicals are toxic to animals but beneficial to humans. For example, Aspirin, Tylenol, Xanax, Effexor, Motrin, Lexapro, Adderall, Ritalin, and many other drugs are all toxic to animals but are helpful in relieving pain and treating other symptoms in human beings. This puts these drugs in danger of being shelved, “…(a) source of human suffering may be the dozens of promising drugs that get shelved when they cause problems in animals that may not be relevant for humans,” (Of Mice or Men, Allen). Just from human to human, there are a lot of variations, which is why not all medications work for everyone in the whole world. That being said, animals are not 100 percent genetically identical to humans, which can make them seem as though they are not ideal or useful for experimentation. Even something as simple and harmless as chocolate is extremely toxic to dogs, but for humans, it is completely safe for consumption. Most of the test subjects used are mice or rats, and on the outside, these animals do not seem the least bit similar to humans.

Although some beneficial drugs may be overlooked due to differences between humans and animals, test subjects such as mice are still 98 percent genetically similar to humans. In other words, most human genes have a comparable gene found in mice and they have similar organ systems to humans, “They have similar reproductive and nervous systems to humans, and suffer from many of the same diseases such as cancer, diabetes and even anxiety,” (Mouse, Understanding Animal Research). One good reason mice and rats are used in nearly 85 percent of studies done on animals in the United Kingdom is that mice do not vomit or sweat, so it is very difficult for them to get rid of toxins from their bodies. This allows researchers to fully observe the effects of different drugs. It is important to note that the amount of medical advancement that has been made thanks to animal research outweighs the amount of possibly overlooked treatments. Some of the most important contributions to human health by animal research are treatments for cancer, HIV and AIDS, migraines, diabetes, high blood pressure, organ rejection, organ transplants, Parkinson’s disease, and blood transfusions. Animals have also been instrumental in the development of pacemakers and inhalers for people with asthma.

According to Dr. Robert White and other doctors, it is important to educate the public about why animals must be used in certain tests. Animal rights activists are trying to pass laws that prohibit animal experimentation, but that would mean that many drugs such as those for treating addiction or cancer would no longer be able to be produced. Many do not realize that it is difficult to use in vitro testing as the only source of testing because that is not the same as studying a whole body system or even the human body. People are still hoping for scientists to discover a cure for cancer, but without animal test subjects, that would not be possible.

Given these points, it is hard to deny that animal testing is beneficial in many ways. It contributes to the development of life-saving drugs for humans and treatments for animals like livestock and domestic pets. Although some people might believe animal experimentation can be replaced by alternative methods such as in vitro testing, some tests cannot be done effectively without the use of a complex, living organism. The main reason for this is that researchers cannot record or observe behavioral data from cell cultures or skin samples in a petri dish. The only real alternative to doing tests on animals would be to allow drugs to be put on the market without proper and extensive testing, or to not develop drugs for humans and animals at all.

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