Animal Testing Essay Example

Cons of Cosmetic Animal Testing

Animal testing has a long history during which it helped to make important discoveries in the field of medicine and pharmacology, prevent people from harm or even death from ineffective or inappropriate products. Without a doubt, the procedure did a lot of good for the humanity in terms of protecting and improving health of people. Thereof, it would be fair to admit that there were the times when animal testing could be considered irreplaceable as having a high aim for which animal sufferings is a reasonable price. Today, however, the following is no longer the case and there are obvious and undeniable reasons for it.

To start with, animal testing is cruel. Animals are kept in terrible conditions that presuppose constant painful and life-threatening experiments. Dripping chemicals into eyes and skin, force feeding, or killing with a lethal doses of potentially harmful for people substances are common procedures of cosmetic testing. Noticeably, many of those tests would never lead to anything useful or bring benefits for a person and expose animals to needles tortures. (“All you need,” )

Apart from that, those who are not yet eager to accept the moral side of the debate, would definitely admit a scientific argumentation of why animal testing should be abandoned. Firstly, animal testing is not as accurate and effective as one could think. The results of experiments on animals are not applicable to humans. The reasons include the fact a human body can react quite differently on a substance than an animal. The cases when people suffered life-threatening side effects that were not present in animals are numerous and well-known.

An important factor here is that animals are kept in laboratory conditions that can influence the results through the raised amounts of stress they experience, changed diet, and even temperature. (“All you need,”) Also, the prevailing majority of all the tests are conducted without any anesthesia or analgesics, which has minimal scientific value though. In addition, animal testing can provide little information as to the long-term effects on human organism, and therefore, puts humans under the threat of the appearance of unknown side effects. (“The failure of,”)

Furthermore, animal testing is costly and can be substituted by reasonable alternatives. Namely, according to estimations, testing for a single substance is likely to cost over $ 6 million and presupposes the usage of more than 8 hundred animals. At the same time, the computer-modelling techniques and in—vitro methods are much effective and less expensive. The artificial corneas or skin can be used to perform credible tests without any harm being made to the living beings. Today, the development of new technologies and the constant interest of researches who realize that animal testing is not effective from the scientific point of view expand the scope of the reliable alternative methods. The should become a new stage in cosmetic testing.

Taking all the arguments into consideration, it is completely clear that animal testing should be abandoned since it has reached the limit of its usefulness that could at least partially justify its usage. With the current development of civilization, ideas of humanism, and technologies it is hard to believe that someone can still believe that animal testing is an acceptable measure. Even more importantly, its effectiveness and reliability are the subjects of a great doubt. Thereof, this is a right time people should rethink their habit of thoughtless and careless usage of every single resource for the sake of satisfying personal needs, if not proceeding from moral considerations than from logical and scientific reasons.

References

All you need to know in 33 facts. Vivisection information network, Retrieved from http://www.vivisectioninformation.com/index.php?p=1_8_all-you-need-to-know-in-33-facts

The failure of the animal model. NAVS, Retrieved from http://www.navs.org/science/failure-of-the-animal-model

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