Do Animals Save Us or Do We Need to Save Them?

For years, animals have served humans for a great number of purposes such as transport, clothing, and company. One that is believed to attract a great deal of heated debate is animal testing. According to the Humane Society International (HIS) website[1], it is estimated that more than 115 million animals worldwide are used in laboratory experiments every year for purposes of research into basic biology and diseases. Some of these purposes are to assess the effectiveness of new medicinal products and to test the human health and/or environmental safety of consumers as well as some industry products such as cosmetics. Nevertheless, animal experimentation is not very much approved by our society nowadays as new alternative testing methods have been arising to replace the need for animal in experimental practices. Given the controversy of this topic, there are some advantages and disadvantages of animal testing we can consider.  

Throughout time, it has been considered that animal experimentation has some beneficial aspects to take into account. To begin with, animal testing has helped many researchers to find medicine and treatments for some human diseases. As reported by The California Biomedical Research Association (CBRA) (2012), nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals. Some examples of these encounters are the discovery of insulin through the removal of a dog’s pancreas, or even the discovery of a vaccine for hepatitis B by cause of chimpanzees testing. Other examples of the contribution of animal experimentations in major advances are the understanding the treatment conditions of breast cancer, brain injury, childhood leukemia, cystic fibrosis, malaria, multiple sclerosis and tuberculosis, among others (CBRA, 2012). Furthermore, it has also been believed that animal testing is beneficial to human society as animals are appropriate research subjects because some of them are very similar to human beings in many ways. According to ProCon.org (2016), chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar our species. This means that they share too many of the same conditions and illnesses, which include cancer, heart diseases and diabetes. As a result of these findings, it has been stated that alternative methods of testing might never simulate humans or animals in the same way, and because of this, animals are currently the best options to find the best cures and treatments for animals.

However, animal testing may not be as profitable as it seems, as it also has some disadvantages to look at. First of all, animal experimentation procedures tend to be very expensive as the animals must be fed, housed, taken care of, and treated with drugs and some treatments for recovery. Additionally, according to Khan (2015), animal testing may occur more than once, and this procedure can take months of experimentation, which means that additional costs have to be part of the initial budget. Secondly, animal testing can be considered unfavorable too in the sense that, although animals are very similar to humans, the reaction of a drug in an animal’s body can turn out to be quite different from the human’s body, taking into account that animals might be submitted to stressful environments and therefore they will probably not react in the same way as if they were in their natural environment. In this sense, experimenting on animals can provide another disadvantage, which is that animal tests may mislead researchers into ignoring potential cures and treatments. As animal tests do not turn out to be 100% accurate, some scientists may be ignoring potential cures and treatments for some human diseases. For instance, some chemicals that are believed to be harmful to animals can be very valuable when tested in humans. An example of this can be aspirin, which is considered dangerous for some animal species but when used in humans can have good healing properties. Because of this, in a 2006 report, Neurologist Aysha Akhtar states that "A source of human suffering may be the dozens of promising drugs that get shelved when they cause problems in animals that may not be relevant for humans” (p.p. 155)

            On the whole, animal experimentation has some favorable aspects to appreciate and some unfavorable others to criticize. First, these procedures are considered beneficial to our society as they are backed up by scientists and contemplated by them as essential to find new treatments and medicines indispensable for us, for animals and humans are very similar in their DNA. On the other hand, animal testing can be considered negative if seen as the costly procedure it is, since it takes a great amount of money to carry out these experiments, for animals have to be taken care of for a long time. Additionally, these months of experimentation can become fruitless as it has been proved that animals and humans do not always react to drugs in the same way. Nevertheless, if we are to judge these procedures, taking into account the advantages and disadvantages presented, no matter what position we decide to take, it is important to recognize that nowadays there are other methods that can replace animal testing, such as computer modeling, research with human volunteers or even human-patient simulators. Whether they are more appropriate or more accurate than animal experimentation, is up to each one, but we cannot still be living in a conformist society that thinks that animals are in this world just to satisfy our needs; we need to realize the power of our actions, and realize that we are the only ones that can prove that we truly are the species with the highest IQ.

[1] http://www.hsi.org/campaigns/end_animal_testing/qa/about.html?referrer=https://www.google.com.co/

References

Humane Society International. About Animal Testing. Taken fromhttp://www.hsi.org/campaigns/end_animal_testing/qa/about.html?referrer=https://www.google.com.co/

California Biomedical Research Association. Why Are Animals Necessary In Biomedical Research? Taken from http://www.ca-biomed.org/csbr/pdf/fs-whynecessary.pdf

Khan, F.A. (2015). Biotechnology Fundamentals. United Arab Emirates. Dubai. CRC Press.

Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing? ProCon.org. Taken from http://animal-testing.procon.org/