Biological

Every year about 115 million animals are subjected to experiments to benefit human beings, these experiments include inhaling toxic gases, applying corrosive substances to their skin and eyes, infecting them with HIV, or removing part of their brains, most of these experiments do not even have biological purposes, in many cases, they are tests of the environmental impact of chemicals. In other cases, there are safety tests of cosmetic or household products. Moreover, non-human animals are used in military research. Imagine if your pet had to be subjected to these treatments, it is not fair to experiment on animals, it is not fair for us to put our needs over other species that have no way to defend themselves. We shouldn’t possess that kind of power. 

There are various biological points of view regarding this topic, However, before getting into this subject, we have to talk about how the process of animal testing works and the regulations that scientists have to follow in order to conduct these experiments.  

During the processes carried out in laboratories, animals are exposed to the different substances that are going to be tested, they are forced to eat, inhale or have them rubbed onto their skin or injected into their bodies. Then , they are monitored and tested until scientists can look at the effects on their tissues and organs. Whatever the purpose is, the procedure is similar, these animals are basically bred to be experimented on, as if the only purpose of their life is for people to test on them. They are kept in cages until they are needed, then , during all these processes they are either anesthetized to see their reaction or held captive and monitored until any symptom is shown.

What happens after the experiment is different depending on the animal, some animals are euthanized using a gas that is inhaled and results in rapid death (The animal may be put into a chamber where it will then inhale the gas) An example of a gas used is carbon monoxide. Another method used to euthanize an animal after it is used for testing is a sedative or anesthetic. In fact, such methods are used in water to euthanize fish that have been used for animal testing. There are other methods used that may sound rather barbaric but actually result in a very fast death for the animal. These methods involve physical force such as decapitation or breaking the animal’s spine. Often, this is the method of choice for smaller animals. Yet another option is brain irradiation. This allows a researcher to still keep brain tissue while causing rapid death to the animal. Typically, this method of euthanization is appropriate for rodents. Although not widely used, gunshots are also used to euthanize animals after testing. Electrocution is used as well, particularly for larger animals such as cattle or sheep.

People do not often realize that the animals that have been used for these tests can not go back to the wildlife, it is too hard for them to adjust to a different environment and their reaction can affect other animals. 

The purpose of conducting any type of experimentation is mainly to determine the safety of a medical product that is later going to be provided to human beings, when testing a substance in animals, scientists measure how much of a drug tested is absorbed into the blood, how a medical product is broken down chemically in the body, the toxicity of the product and its breakdown components (metabolites),  and how quickly the product and its metabolites are excreted from the body. Animals are monitored throughout the whole process, and scientists are in charge of recording all the variables that they experience, either if it’s positive or negative. 

The Humane society international, an organization that works around the globe to promote the human-animal bond, rescue and protect dogs and cats, improve farm animal welfare, protect wildlife, promote animal-free testing and research, respond to natural disasters and confront cruelty to animals in all of its forms, has listed some of the common animal procedures that can be found, this being:

• Forced chemical exposure in toxicity testing, which can include oral force-feeding, forced inhalation, skin or injection into the abdomen, muscle, etc.
• Exposure to drugs, chemicals or infectious disease at levels that cause illness, pain and distress, or death
• Genetic manipulation, e.g., addition or “knocking out” of one or more genes
• Ear-notching and tail-clipping for identification
• Short periods of physical restraint for observation or examination
• Prolonged periods of physical restraint
• Food and water deprivation
• Surgical procedures followed by recovery
• Infliction of wounds, burns and other injuries to study healing
• Infliction of pain to study its physiology and treatment
• Behavioural experiments designed to cause distress, e.g., electric shock or forced swimming
• Other manipulations to create “animal models” of human diseases ranging from cancer to stroke to depression
• Killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means.

All procedures, even those classified as “mild,” have the potential to cause the animals physical as well as psychological distress and suffering. Often the procedures can cause a great deal of suffering. Most animals are killed at the end of an experiment, but some may be reused in subsequent experiments.

There’s been different debates arguing several information related with animal testing.  For instance , when being asked about the usefulness of animal models , some people argue that  Scientists have been able to advance their knowledge of human and animal health and disease dramatically by studying model organisms also, Antibiotics, insulin, vaccines, organ transplantation and HIV treatments have all been developed with the help of experiments involving animals. However, many people have claimed that animal models differ in multiple aspects from human organisms, this could eventually have negative outcomes on both of the populations. Furthermore,  Humans and animals don’t always react in the same way to a drug.

The reason that some medicines do not make it to market is that despite passing tests in animals they then fail in humans, this then drives up the cost of developing new drugs, to clarify, animals and humans have had different evolutionary paths for millions of years, creating different features that adapt in  various ways , in other words, it shouldn’t be a surprise if  a drug that works in an animal  often doesn’t work in a person.

Another doubt that has been question by many  is related to the necessity of animal testing, for aprroching this topic, we are going to label the information that agrees with this prectices and the one that disagrees. Many scientists have declared that diseases such as asthma and cystic fibrosis involve the study of a whole living animal . They have also mentioned that “Until there is a cell that can be studied individually and can exhibit human-like responses, animals are necessary”. In addition to the previous information,  animal testing also ensures the prevention of any risk when using a drug this helps to reduce side effects and human fatalities. On the contrary, people  that represent the opposition towards this topic state that the suffering and pain caused to animals is no longer needed with the drastic computer and mathematical advances that have  arised in the last years , as a matter of fact, human tissue and cell cultures and more focused clinical studies can also show us what happens to our bodies during disease.

The priority we give to every human being is important as well as the  understandings we have made that can lead us to prevent the use of animals for our benefit, is archaic to believe that there are no new solutions with all the progress tht we have done since the beggining of animal testing.  The solution relies on the system and the people that carry out these procedures , More funding should be put into developing alternatives to experiments using animals. Lindsey marshall stated the following when adressing the accurancy of animal testing , “Animal research certainly fails animals, in terms of the distress and suffering caused, and just as importantly, animal research often fails people, too, in terms of the slow, unproductive route to useful treatments. More than 90 percent of drugs that have passed animal trials for safety and efficacy are not successful in treating the human disease for which they are intended, surely, we can all agree that replacement of animals in testing and research is morally, ethically and scientifically the only way forward.”