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Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?

Scientific research is a phenomenon that has been in existence since time in memorial. Scientists have been using animals for safety testing of pharmaceutical products, development in medical products and electronic devices. The animals have been used to study human diseases, injuries, growth developments, psychology, anatomy and physiological behaviors. Activists view this as an act of violation of animal rights while other individuals see this as an act of wisdom. These individuals argue that one cannot test the research products on human beings. Therefore, animals should be used for scientific testing.

Scientists mainly use specific animals such as hamsters, mice and non-human primates. In other countries like New Zealand, the use of farm animals is common, mainly sheep, cattle, pigs and dogs. It is cheap for these scientists to use animals since they will just keep them in cages and they will reproduce. This kind of treatment is opposed to the way other species like humans would be cared for. According to public health, nearly all primates that are used in scientific experiments are usually bred and born in confinement and some for numerous generations. This is because these animals that are bred rather than caught in the wild will generate more precise results. Animal testing has thus contributed in many life-saving cures and treatments.

One reason why animals should be used in scientific research is because animals have a relatively short life cycle, so they can be easily be studied thoughtout their whole life span or across the generations. The life span of other species may be too long or too short. The use of animals is also important because they can easily be monitored as well as their temperature, diet, lighting controlled and their behavior. According to welfare pulse, the use of animals in scientific research is important since it shows the levels of pain and distress in animals’ behavior, physiology and pathology.

The most important reason as to why animals are used in research is it would be morally wrong to deliberately expose human’s beings to health risks in order to observe the course of the disease. This would be unacceptable regardless of the reason behind using human beings, no matter their age, status or condition. It is difficult to find a suitable alternative for animals when it comes to animal research besides the inconveniencies that come with the use of animals, and the fact that they are similar to human beings biologically in many ways. The only solution to this is the use of better, less harsh methods. Reducing the pain the animals go through is the main concern of the animal rights activists.

Animal testing can be considered as cruel. Animal rights claim that a number of animals are acquired illegally, while a large number is used in ways that threaten the lives of the animal species. They also believe that animals such as rabbits, mice and guinea pigs are hardly counted in their totals, and that their torture starts even before the testing begins, as these animals are kept in very small plastic boxes and have hardly any room for movements. Due to the inability to move and exercise, animal rights' assertion is that these animals should not be good for testing because they are not in good shape, and they do not lead a normal life, therefore rendering them not acceptable for testing.

Testing on animals is very expensive and is a waste of our government’s money. When animals get tested on, there is usually an alternative test called the in vitro tests which are conducted by using components of an organism that has been isolated from its regular surroundings. The government pays $ 32,000 for an unscheduled DNA synthesis for an animal, while the in vitro alternative costs $11,000. A two species lifetime cancer study on animals costs from $2 to $4 million and there is no alternative test. Others can argue saying the government is not wasting their money because animals have short life cycles and the money is going to testing results needed for humans; it is costly just to feed, house, diagnose, retest, and buy the animals to be used for testing. Again, it is hard to say whether the results will be accurate or not because animals differ from human beings in a number of ways.

Animals should be used for scientific research. This is because scientific research is an exercise that is and will always be around for generations. According to the free dictionary, research is a methodical and continuous investigation aimed at establishing facts and principals on a subject to reach a new conclusion. Scientific research will be there even in the future. The use of animals started in Europe and the United states since the 1900’s especially during the Second World War (Welfare Pulse). However, it is unfair to say that people have not benefitted from animal experimentation. The tests that are done on the animals are beneficial to human beings. Animal testing remains to be the most valid way of coming up with vaccines, studying viruses and other infections that affect human beings.

Works Cited

Lyons, D. (2013). The politics of animal experimentation.

Newton, D. E. (2013). The animal experimentation debate: A reference handbook.

Sepahban, L., & Walker, S. M. (2015). Animal testing: Lifesaving research vs. animal welfare.