Animal TestingTraditionally, animals have been used to ensure the safety of our consumerproducts and drugs.
Yet around the world, scientists, regulators and animalprotectionists work together to develop alternatives to their use. The use ofanimals in the life sciences dates back to ancient Greece and the earliestmedical experiments. To learn about swallowing, physicians cut open into thethroat of a living pig. To study the beating heart, they cut open into its chest.
For centuries physicians and researchers used animals to enhance theirknowledge about how the various organs and systems of the bodyfunctioned, as well as to hone their surgical skills. As long as animals havebeen used in experiments, people have expressed concerns about suchresearch. Questions about the morality, necessity, and scientific validity ofanimal experiments have arisen since those ancient physicians first began tostudy bodily functions. Alternatives are methods, which refine existing tests byminimizing animal distress, reduce the number of animals necessary for anexperiment or replace whole animal use with vitro or other tests. Whilevivisection has received more attention and funding, clinical andepidemiological (studying the natural course of disease within humanpopulation) studies have had a much more profound impact on human health. In fact, clinical and epidemiological evidence linking smoking to lung cancerwas established long before warnings of the dangers of smoking werereleased to the general public.
Because animal experimentation failed to eachthe same conclusion, warning labels on cigarettes were delayed for years!During this time hundreds of people died from lung cancer because the resultsof animal experimentation were considered more valid than studies of humanpatients. Animal based research is the science of the past. There are anumber of alternatives available to modern researchers, which are lessexpensive, more reliable, and ethically sound. They provide results rapidly,experimental parameters are easily controlled, and their focus on the cellularand molecular levels of the life process provides more useful informationabout chemicals and drugs. High Productive Volume Tests, test a minimalamount of a product on an abundant amount of animals.
Two – hundred babyrats, just three weeks old are placed in wire – bottomed stainless – steelcages. Twice daily Monday thru Friday, laboratory workers pull the smallmammals from their cages, force steel clamps into their mouths to hold theirjaws apart and swab their teeth with an anti – cavity dental chemical. Afterthree weeks, the workers kill the baby rats by cutting off their teeth. Theprocedures are called Biological Tests for Tests Flouride Dentifrices and:Determination of Animal Carries Reduction – puzzling terms to most of us. But the meaning is deadly to animals.
The officials who order this test workfor the U. S. government ‘s FDA has made exceptions for manufacturers,including Tom’s of Maine, that wanted to market new toothpastes withoutany tests on animals. If some companies can manufacture safe, effective anti -cavity toothpastes without using any animals, why can’t all dental productcompanies stop killing animals? Philosopher Jeremy Bentham sounded therallying cry for animals everywhere: The question is not, can they reason, norcan they talk, but can they suffer? The Animal Welfare Act sets standardsfor the housing, handling, feeding, and transportation of experimental animals,but places no limitations whatsoever on the actual experimental conditionsand procedures continue to challenge, whether human beings have the right touse animals for any purpose. The HPV Program sounds so important,right? Wrong! Because no resulting action will be taken against the chemicalsinvolved in this program.
Instead of protecting the public from hazardouschemicals, the EPA will inform us of how quickly mice and rabbits died whenforce – fed a chemical, or how many mouse pups were stillborn after theirmother was force – fed massive quantities of already known toxic chemicals. Every medical advancement has not been a result of animal testing. Resultsderived from animal experiments have had a very minimal effect on thedramatic rise of life expectancy can be attributed mainly to changes inlifestyles, environmental factors, and improvements in sanitation. Manymedical school’s in the U. S. do not use animals in the training of medicalstudents.
They include: NYU, University of Michigan, and SUNYStonybrook. Actually, most of the medical schools which do use animalsallow students the option of foregoing the animal labs. This is because theyclearly acknowledge that such labs are not necessary for the training ofdoctors. When a newly released drug hits the market, regardless of howmany animal tests have been done, those individuals who first use it arehuman guinea pigs.
Animal tests are not good indicators of what will occurin humans. It has been due, in large part , to the tension between researcherswho view laboratory animals as essential to their work and individuals whooppose animal tests that the modern alternatives movement has evolved. Themovement began quietly, in 1959, with the publication of The Principles ofHumane Experimental Technique by British researchers W. Russell and R. Burch. Russell and Burch advocated the three R’s of replacement,reduction, and refinement.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, their philosophy hasenabled researchers and animal welfare advocates to come together with acommon goal: to find scientifically valid alternatives to animal tests. Inconclusion, as proven by the Tom’s of Maine Co. , and with the approval ofthe FDA, products can be marketed without the immoral practices of animalcruelty. As a form of life, animals acquire natural rights, one being the right tolive, not to be exploited and exposed to pain. As best said by animal activistJon Evans: To inflict cruelties on defenseless creatures, or condone suchacts, is to abuse one of the cardinal tenets of a civilized society – reverencefor life.Speech and Communications
