Animal Testing Essay Research Paper Animal TestingEvery

Animal Testing Essay, Research Paper

Animal Testing

Every second of every day of every year, an animal dies in an experiment in the united states (Last Chance for Animals.) Today animal experimentation is out of control. Animals are used in every experiment that scientist can use them for. These animals can range form sewer rats to the house hold dog. The disturbing aspect of animal testing is that most of these animals’ dies for unnecessary reasons. Shockingly most of the results gained from animal testing are unreliable or deemed useless. Businesses claim that products must be tested on animals, but there is no law requiring that new products be tested on animals. Animal testing is simply a cheap way for scientist to test products. Animal testing is an unnecessary procedure that does not need to be performed.

Vivisection, which is the procedure of experimenting on animals, began because religious groups protested against the dissection of human corpses (footnote). Most of the animals that are used in these experiments are bred specifically for experiments. Whenever there is a shortage of animals, scientist will visit local animal shelters and buy animals simply to cut them up. The type of animal that is used in an experiment can range from a bird or a dog to a rat or a rabbit.

The medical field performs many experiments on animals every year. In one case, scientist wanted to understand the effects of head trauma on humans. To accomplish this, primates were strapped in machinery and received high impact blows to the head. This damage left the primates with severe brain damage (footnote). In another experiment, doctors wanted to evaluate the amount of recovery that the knee requires when it has suffered damage. In order for scientist to collect their results, hundreds of dogs were restrained while their knees were mutilated (footnote). These animals received no anesthesia, and were killed immediatle after the experiment was over.

In yet another experiment, horses were severely mistreated to produce Premarin, an estrogen replacement drug. The urine of female horses was collect so that the hormone estrogen, which is only during pregnancy, could be extracted. Over several months the pregnant horses, or the mares, are made to stand in tiny stalls, and have urine collection bags that are attached to their legs, which cause infection due to the chaffing of the skin that is caused. The scientist even go so far as to limit the mares water intake, so that the urine will be more concentrated and less watered down. At any point in the experiment, the horses cannot produce enough estrogen or become fatigued they are immediately slaughtered along with their offspring (footnote). This would not be a problem if Premarin, which is used for the prevention of breast cancer, could be made. Climara, Estrace and Estraderm are only of a few plant derived drugs that are alternatives to Premarin. Nonetheless, doctors rarely inform their patients about Premarin, and alternative drugs.

Scientist injected different types of monkeys with the AIDS virus, and kept them caged for two years to study observe them. Although monkeys are immune to AIDS and HIV, the scientist wanted to see if the monkeys would eventually develop the disease. Experiments, such as these, are performed everyday on animals for no apparent reason at all. If a species is immune to a virus they do not need to be observed to see if they will develop the viruses. Science has already proven that fact, that is how scientist know that monkeys are immune (footnote). Some of these experiments are not only cruel and inhumane, but are performed for no apparent cause. In any case, the mistreatment of all these animals is unethical and unprofessional. First, if scientist want to study how certain injuries affect humans, they need to be studied as they happen spontaneously. When humans are afflicted with a severe injury, such as head trauma, they go through psychological stages as well as physical stages. It is hard to compare the psychological state of a human with brain damage to that of a dog with brain damage. If one would raise the question, “Is the human species different than the animal species.” One would receive unanimous yes! Humans think differently than animals, behave differently than animals, and react differently than animals. However, when it comes to animal testing scientist seem to believe that a mouse and a human are the same. This is the most detrimental aspect of animal testing. Animals do not only have different psychological functions, but different physiological functions too. Mice, rats, and rabbits, which are the most common types of animals used in experiments have different internal systems than humans. The immune system, respiratory system, and heart rates of these animals are much different from human beings. An example of this was proved during an experiment where rats were forced to breathe the smoke from 25 cigarettes a day for 14 days total. This was supposed to show the effect that cigarette smoke has on the human respiratory system. However, scientist failed to realize that the respiratory system of a rat is completely different from that of a human. Consequently, all the results that were gathered from the experiment were useless (footnote). In 1989, a study was conducted to determine the carcinogenicity of fluoride. Approximately 529 rat and 520 mice were given doses of