Animal Rights vs Medical Research

When it comes to research for medicine, researchers have found the need to use animals in order to find out how the chemicals would affect humans. Now, when it comes to medical research, laboratory animals have been getting harder and harder to get. Many animal rights activists are finding ways in order to decrease the number of animals being harmed. It seems counterintuitive that medicine is being created to help humans but at the same time harming animals in the process. There could be another way to find out the results of medicine rather than testing these harmful toxins on innocent animals. Many have said if they knew a certain type of medicine was injected into an animal they would not have gone through with the injection. On the other hand, people look back and are glad the medicines have gone to any extent because without these findings, they would not have been alive for many more years

Animal rights activists have been speaking out about the unnecessary treatment of animals for medical research. Researchers have the ability to use a different technique that prevents animals was being harmed. Their bodies are being left to ……. It seems counterintuitive that medicine is being created to help humans but at the same time harming animals in the process. There could be another way to find out the results of medicine rather than testing these harmful toxins on innocent animals. What makes researchers continue damaging animal’s bodies when there is a cheaper and easier way.

Regan (3), Tom. “The Case for Animal Rights.” Springer. Springer Netherlands, 01 Jan. 1987. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.

o   Toxicity test that are used on animals are against their rights.

o   Medical research, such as cancer, is not against their rights.

o   In order to get the law to protect the rights of animals, we must believe a change can happen.

o   We allow the research to happen because we are viewing them as resources.

“If We Don’t Use Animals, Wouldn’t We Have to Test New Drugs on People?” PETA. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.

• Just because medicine is tested on animals, does not necessarily mean that it is safe. It cannot accurately say what it means for humans.
• “In addition to saving the lives of countless animals, alternatives to animal tests are efficient and reliable. Non-animal methods usually take less time to complete, can be conducted at a fraction of the cost of the animal experiments that they replace, and are not plagued with species differences that make extrapolation difficult or impossible.”

o   Talks about how other options are available

“Animals in Medical Experiments.” PETA. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.

o   “monkeys are addicted to drugs, cats are deafened and have holes drilled into their skulls, sheep and pigs have their skin burned off, and rats have their spinal cords crushed”

o   The effects of a few tests show the outcomes of what the animals are left with.

Society, New England Anti-Vivisection. “Animals in Science /….” Product Development and Drug Testing. New England Anti-Vivisection Society, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.

o   Use animals for testing because they are “little humans”.

o   False, the past decades have shown that the opposite is true—animals respond differently and unpredictably.

o   No anesthesia or analgesics

o   Tests usually used:

o   Draize test-“measures the eye irritancy of chemicals and other products by dropping concentrated amounts of a test substance into an animal’s eye (often albino rabbits, who are docile and inexpensive) and then assessing the eye’s reactions using a subjective numeral score to indicate the level of eye damage and injury—i.e. degree of swelling, redness, ulcerations, etc.. In addition to redness and ulcers, rabbits also experience bleeding and blindness in these experiments. In most instances, the conscious animals are immobilized in full body restraint stocks and remain anaesthetized for up to 14 days for evaluation”

o   traditional LD50 (lethal dose 50 percent) test forced animals, often rats and mice, to ingest chemicals to determine the dose that resulted in the death of 50 percent of the animals

ARGUMENT:

• there are different ways to test chemicals and medicines rather than on animals
• there are easier and cheaper ways

o   why are they not being used?

• funding/money issues?

COUNTER ARGUMENT:

• animals are a useful “resource” to figure out the results of certain medicines
• have a chance of having the same effects as humans
• researchers prefer this method than any other

OUTCOME:

The outcome of this paper will include me figuring out a reason why animals are continuing to be used for medical research, when there is no reason for them. The outcome of their “research” only harms then when there is a solution for them not to be used altogether. I hope the figure out the reasoning why they further use this method.