Animal Testing

Animal testing has had a vital role in many scientific and medical advances over the past few years and continues to aid our understanding of various diseases. However, the use of animals in research has been a topic of heated debate for decades and scientists are investing a large amount of money and effort to find an alternative. In the article “Research will examine whether other methods can replace animal testing” by Meredith Cohn published in The Baltimore Sun on March 14,2017, the author talks about a research team at the Johns Hopkins University that aims to determine how useful testing on dogs, mice and other animals is in predicting whether drugs and chemicals are toxic to humans. She claims that the research could bring an end to animal testing for ethical and practical reasons.

Using her own research and that of other researchers and regulators, Meredith outlines how some studies have found animal studies to be ineffective in predicting how drugs and chemicals effect humans. She particularly talks about how a drug trial for a promising Alzheimer’s drug failed in a large trials in the previous year. This informs the reader how dangerous animal testing could be sometimes.

The author uses logos in the middle sections. She gives the reader cold, hard facts about the number of animals being used for research every year.  According to the author, the U.S. Department of Agriculture website states that over 767,600 animals are used in research every year.

Furthermore, the author states information from an interview with Matt Bailey. In a nutshell, Bailey believes that researchers must be allowed to continue research on animals as they are crucial to medical advances and there is no comprehensive substitute for animal testing and research. But the author opposes Bailey’s belief by talking about “The Beagle Freedom Project” that sponsors several research projects like the “tissue on a chip” and “artificial nose” in her article. These examples further strengthen her argument.