Animal Testing: A Necessity

Thomas Eggleston, Robby Post, James Wallace Debate 5, Team A: Animal rights, Animal testing Research paper 4/03/11 Animal Testing: A Necessity Animal ...
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Thomas Eggleston, Robby Post, James Wallace Debate 5, Team A: Animal rights, Animal testing Research paper 4/03/11 Animal Testing: A Necessity Animal testing is a necessity for saving lives and maintaining our society. Animal testing is, and has been, a major part of research and development and several fields, such as medical testing, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and many more. Animal testing serves as a way to collect data. This data is used to determine if the product is suitable for general use, or if it will have severe side effects. Many people and organizations oppose the use of animals to test out products for the safety. The people who oppose animal testing claim that there are alternatives that could be implemented. But such alternatives are unrealistic and not nearly as useful as animal testing. And when you get down to the meat and bones of the argument, testing on animals saves lives. Animal testing has a long and rich history. Here is just a handful: The first writings on animal testing come from third and fourth centuries BCE from the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Eras stratus. In second century Rome, Galen dissected pigs and goats and is known as the father of vivisection. The movement of blood was described in the 1600s by William Harvey. A guinea pig was used in a calorimeter to prove that respiration was a form of combustion, by Antoine Lavoisier & Stephen Hales used a horse to measure blood pressure in the 1700s. Louse Pasteur demonstrated germ theory in the 1880s by giving anthrax to sheep. In the 1890s classical conditioning was used on dogs by Ivan Pavlov. Otto Loewi used frogs’ hearts as evidence of neurological communication happens by chemical synapses in 1921. Around the same time Edgar Adrian used frogs to explain how the magnitude of a synaptic response was interpreted and won a Nobel Prize. In the 1960s David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel used cats and monkeys to study the deployment of depth perception. They were awarded a Noble Prize. And in 1996 the first successful cloned of a mammal created Dolly the sheep. If you have ever suffered from an infection and needed antibiotics, you have benefitted from animal testing. Do you know anyone, or have you, beat cancer or underwent a successful organ transplant? Those also would not be possible without animal testing. By testing on animals we can cure some of the most miserable and awful diseases that cause thousands upon thousands to suffer every day. It is okay to test these animals in order to find the field of science and society as a whole. Think about the 3 million insulin-dependent diabetics, or the 72 million people that

would be at risk from a heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure from lack of medication that controls high blood pressure. The numbers do not lie, and help to show how justifiable animal testing is. Drugs must be tested in an animal model in order to see the effects of a compound in an entire system. The testing process of these drugs in animals before testing them on humans helps researchers find potential toxic side effects, as well as understand the metabolism of drug compounds and consequent effects seen throughout the body. There are some alarming facts and examples that scream for animal testing. These should clear up any doubt in the minds of the animal activists. Some of these facts and examples are as followed: The number and variety of medications that keep HIV infections under control would not be available if animal testing was banned. Also instead of being eradicated, naturally occurring smallpox would instead continue unchecked and many others would join the two million victims who have already died from the disease since 1900. Death would almost be a certainty for the nearly 20,000 patients who receive kidney transplants each year. Doctors would have no chemotherapy to save the 85 percent of children who are now survivors of acute lymphocyte leukemia. When looking at these facts and figures, it is apparent and evident that we desperately need to be able to test on animals. The good without a doubt outweighs the bad when we look at the whole situation for animal testing. Cosmetic testing on animals is still very important to the production of cosmetic goods and making sure that the user will have minimal discomfort when using them People have been beautifying themselves since the age of cavemen. Cosmetics can improve one’s self-image. Low self-image being linked to increasing suicide rates. The focus of cosmetic testing is on ensuring that a product does not harm a person's eyes and skin. Another focus of animal testing is trying to figure out the overall toxicity and any toxicity related to ultraviolet light. One example of this would be a product that contains the ingredient retinol, which makes a person more susceptible to sun damage. As a result, the makers of these products will usually recommend a person use some type of sun protection in order to prevent damage and burning. Some of these cosmetic manufacturing companies are required by trading standards and consumer protection laws to show their products are not toxic and dangerous to public health, and that the ingredients are not dangerous in large quantities, such as when in transport or in the manufacturing plant. In some countries it is essential to use animal testing to meet some of these requirements. In some situations there is simply no other way to ensure the safety of these products without animal testing.

One of the largest industries responsible for using animal testing is the cosmetic industry. In this industry large companies rely on animal testing for almost all of their products in one stage of manufacturing or another. They must test to make sure that the products don’t irritate or burn the skin when applied. They must test that the products won’t be deadly to an organism. The tests are done to ensure our safety and to protect our health. The amount of companies that support the industry of animal testing is way more than you would believe. Most all of the mega-million dollar companies producing millions of cosmetic products a year rely on animal testing to insure their product will not harm the humans. Companies such as Neutrogena, Maybelline, Dove, and Loreal all test their products on animals. These companies have the money and ensure that these tests and animals are being treated within the standards of the Animal Welfare Act in 1966. This law requires standards of care and treatment to be applied to animals that are used in research, as well as commercial sale and transportation. These companies are using the animals for research. Would the person saying animal testing is wrong volunteer themselves to have the tests done to them? Or would they be ok with trying a cosmetic product that would burn their skin upon application? The answer is no. The defenders of animal rights often argue that the research of cosmetics on animals is not justifiable because it does not lead to any scientific advancement. People don’t see the justification in testing a skin product on a rabbit because it will make someone’s wrinkles go away. What these people are forgetting is that appearance has developed as a large part of our culture. Through magazines, television, and movie stars there has been a portrayal of what is thought of as pretty and what is not. These issues have shaped our culture into one dependent on cosmetics to help enhance our understanding of beauty. The cosmetic industry cannot shut down because what would women do then? It has to be considered that if the cosmetic industry shut down there could be a tremendous rise in issues of self-esteem among women for feeling inadequate due to the development of the social stigma of acceptable beauty.

There is a correlation between a person’s self-image and the make-up they use. By using make-up, people the world over boost their self-image. This has been developing as the social norm for decades now since cosmetics were first introduced. Most women must wear make up to feel good about them selves and in turn they are supporting animal testing by purchasing products that were tested on animals. The majority of women would tell you in a survey they were against animal testing, but I bet that same majority or higher would own a product by a company that tested it on animals. And when most women are faced with that choice, wear make up and look beautiful, or stop a test on a small animal and don’t develop the product. They will choose to wear the make up and look beautiful, because that is what has been developed as what they should do. This study was conducted by The University of Geneva in Switzerland analyzing the effects of self-esteem on suicide rates in 55 different nations across the world. They came to a conclusion that suicide ideation is triggered often times by a low self-esteem or feeling inadequate. I feel that it is rather easy to argue that animal testing to ensure the safety of the products is outweighed by self-esteem and suicide rates. We should do as much as possible to preserve an industry such as cosmetics because of the overall utilitarian benefit it offers of confidence and self-esteem. It seems rather shallow to value something as frivolous as cosmetics so much, but there really has been a developed dependency on them that has gained tremendous value in our culture and society we live in. It has even ventured past single sex use to now where males depend on cosmetics daily to provide to their lives. When someone categories something as a cosmetic they can mean a variety of things. From toothpaste to nail polish, all are cosmetics, and all are tested upon animals. Companies and products, we grew up on, have been tested on animals relentlessly for decades until the trend became to spend extra money on animal “friendly” products. In the past there was no option. Every product and everything tested on animals and there were little regulations behind the industry.

Now with the Animal Welfare Act and the amendments to the law in the 70’s animal testing can be seen as a beneficial act done in a responsible and thoughtful manner putting the interests of the humans first and then of course the animals. The cosmetic industry should not be the victim of extra scrutiny because of the transparency in the products on the market and their testing on animals. It was first placed on the label to assure people that the product was safe. It was a symbol of care from a manufacturer. They valued your well being enough that they sacrificed this animal to make sure you would be taken care of. Like I stated briefly before, there is not a wealth of human volunteers willing to be put under the scrutiny of these animals so if the industry wants to survive we must continue to test animals like they do with the standards stated forth by the government. There is a duty that these cosmetic companies now owe to their customers to continue producing items that will help boost self esteem and keep suicide rates low. We absolutely need to be able to do animal testing in order to keep advancing in the areas of science, medicine, and cosmetology. It is simply the most accurate way to learn the effects of products. As a result of these tests on animals lives are saved and pain is reduced. There are also numerous animal lives are saved, as a result of animal testing. Many of the procedures and medications that are used in modern science and medicine today would not exist if it weren’t for animal testing, and the development of future treatments would be extremely restricted and inadequate. This is something we absolutely need to do in order try and increase our chances of succeeding in life in general. If animal testing were to be banned, the cons in that decision would heavily outweigh the pros. Everyone would be affected in a very negative way if were not able to use the benefits of animal testing. The economics of animal testing is not as clear cut as many make it out to be. Understanding the economics requires a basic understanding of economics, how money is spent on animal testing, and the alternatives to animal testing are all important to understanding how animal testing fits in economically with everything else. One can easily see that, economically speaking, animal testing probably isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

The basic of economics is supply and demand. There are many variables that affect both supply and demand for a product. They include, price, substitutes, human expectation, technology, and many more. Demand deals with the consumption of products, while supply deals with the production of products. Both demand and supply are usually expressed in relation to price, as price is probably the most important of the variables that affect supply and demand. The other variables are expressed in the form of overall shifts in the relationship of price and supply and demand. For example, if a product that is supplied at a certain level for a certain price, can now be produced even cheaper because of a new technology, then the supply relation would shift, not just at the current price, but at all price levels. The shift would reflect that producers would be willing to supply more of the product at any given price. Demand works in a similar fashion. Price for a particular product is mostly determined by other competitors in to market and/or government regulation. Producers want to sell their product for as much profit as possible, so if there is a cheaper and more effective way to produce their product, they absolutely will use the new method. So, now you have background enough to start to understand why animal testing is still being used my many companies the world over. The costs that go into animal testing are numerous, as animal in of themselves are expensive. There’s the price of the animal, the price of its lodging, it eats and drinks, climate controls, clean up, pain reducers (if needed), and stimuli such as a running wheel or toy. That’s a lot of money when you consider most, if not all tests, require more than one animal. So why not go to alternatives? Surely there must be alternatives that must be cheaper! Well, there are many “alternatives” that are an most regards, cheaper. But they all have to own reasons for not replacing animal testing out right. Computer modeling is one of the biggest alternatives talked about today. And it makes sense. Computer technology is growing at an ever increasing rate. So why not use computers to create virtual models of animals? The first thing is that to create such models, tests need to be performed on animals to get the base data the models will use. There’s also the fact that we still don’t have a computer powerful enough to replicate an animal system in the virtual world. It took the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Blue Gene/L, to simulate only half a mouse’s brain. And even then, it did a poor simulation. And there’s a team designing a virtual heart at Oxford University. When everything is said and done, it will take several hours of computing for the simulation to get through just three

beats. Perhaps one day computers will be able to model a complete human system, but we are nowhere near that and still have vast amounts of data to collect. MRI scanning has helped to reduce the number of animals needed to test, but doesn’t not eliminate the tests entirely. With MRIs researchers can see into an animal’s brain and see how it “lights up” to certain stimuli. Researchers used to have to slice open the brains to get this kind of data. So MRIs in this sense actually do less to replace animal testing as they do to make animal testing more invasive. And to add to that note, MRIs are not as conclusive are many in the general public believe. There are still many out there that question what the images are really showing. In vitro testing is basically testing in a test tube. When testing in a test tube, the tests are on a micro level. This method would replace a lot of animal testing by being able to prescreen certain products and eliminating those tests. And in the cases where it’s applicable, it is more accurate, and possibly cheaper, but the validation process for these tests, comparing in vitro data against in vivo (animal) data can be lengthy and expensive. Also, the in vitro is not always conclusive as it does not test on a system. “Anybody can cure AIDs in a test tube” (author unknown), but the same “cure” in a test tube acts drastically different in a living system. This is because a test tube is not a system, is does not have a brain, a liver, a heart, lungs, bones, or a stomach. Micro-dosing is when a test subject is given a very small dose of medicine to see how that medicine moves through the body. This is a great as it can be done on humans. But it still does not give all the data. The side effects of larger amounts, and their toxicity, cannot be known with these tests. Even FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments), a respected organization, stated that, “animal studies will still be required.” There are more alternatives out there, but the four mentioned above are by far the most common. And all the other alternatives have many of the same drawbacks as the four just mentioned. And besides the scientific reasons mentioned, there’s also the economic implications. Many of the privet research firms do as much as they can to maximize profit. So if the alternatives really are cheaper, basic economics would tell you that they would be using they cheaper method. But they don’t, for a whole range of good reasons. From laws making

animal testing mandatory for determining the safety of the product to the fact that we still don’t have anything that is as conclusive as animal testing. No matter what field of research and development that animal testing is done in, there is no doubt that if provides much needed data to reduce the suffering of others. Millions upon millions would have died from various disease and disorders, while others would have been brutally scared and damaged. These animals are not being used and abused, but being turned into heroes and saviors for thousands of people and other animals every day. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

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