Animal Rights

Animal Rights

For the past few years, there has been an on-going, heated debate on whether experiments on animals for the benefit of medical and scientific research are ethical. I believe it is wrong, and that some form of cost-benefit test should be performed to determine if the action is right. The costs include: animal pain, distress, and death; where the benefits include the collection of knowledge and the development of new medical therapies for humans. Looking into these different aspects of the experimentation, there is a large gap for argument between the different scientists' views.

I believe that although animal experiments are sometimes intellectually intriguing, they are poorly suited to address the urgent health problems of our era, such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, AIDS, and birth defects. Animal experiments cannot only mislead researchers by even contribute to illnesses or deaths by failing to predict any toxic effect on drugs. The majority of animals in laboratories are used for genetic manipulation, surgical intervention, or injection of foreign substances. Researchers produce solutions from these animal "models" and are adapting them to human conditions. Unfortunately, these animal "models" can't always be connected with the human body, consequently creating more problems.

Many times, researchers induce strokes on animals in order to test certain methods for curing. The downfall of this procedure is that a healthy animal that experiences a stroke does not undergo the slowly progressive arterial damage that usually plays a crucial role in human strokes. In another illustration of the inaccuracy of animal research, scientists in the 1960's deduced from many animal experiments that inhaled tobacco smoke did not cause lung cancer. For several years afterward, the tobacco industry was able to use these studies to delay government warnings and to discourage physicians from intervening in their patients' smoking habits. We all know now that this is totally untrue, and smoking is a large contributor to lung cancer. It turns out that cancer research is especially sensitive to differences in structure between humans and other animals.

Some animals, mainly rats and mice, produce within their bodies approximately 100 times the recommended daily allowance for humans of vitamin C, which is believed to help the body ward off cancer. The stress of handling, confinement, and isolation alters the animal's mental stability and introduces yet another experimental variable that makes any results from testing even less valuable to human helping. In many cases, drugs and other substances are given to test the animals, but studies have shown considerable differences in the effects of these drugs on different species. Of 19 chemicals known to cause cancer in humans when ingested, only seven caused cancer in laboratory mice and rats using the standards set by the National Cancer Institute. This justifies that many substances that appeared safe in animal studies and received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in humans later proved dangerous to people.

Scientists, and the public who do not agree with the experimentation of animals, believe in different methods. These techniques include: clinical