115 million animals per year: that is the number of animals mistreated and unjustly abused in labs for the sake of “science.” Animal testing has been a long debated topic; however, it is still widely employed around the world as many countries have no rules or regulation. Nonetheless, as more exposure has been put on animal testing, it has been discovered that numerous inhumane and unethical acts have occurred. Animal testing should ultimately be banned due to the cruel and sadistic experimental process along with its ineffectiveness due to differences between human and animal biology.
Animal experiments have long been accepted by society as it stems back to the 17th century; however, the horrific and painful experiments that violate many ethical standards for animals demonstrate that these experiments have become controversial. Alternative solutions to animal testing have the ability to completely yield the use of animals in drug testing; however, much more action needs to be taken for this to occur. Animal experimentation is not a subject to be taken lightly as tens of millions of innocent animals ranging from house pets to wild animals are taken away from their homes and placed into cages to be tested on. Research from Santa Clara University illustrates that “20 million animals are experimented on and killed annually, three-fourths for medical purposes and the rest to test various products.'' The animals being killed due to these experiments are not the only problems that arise; the main point of controversy is how these animals are killed. The same researchers at Santa Clara University found that '' eight million [animals] are used in painful
experiments” without any painkillers. Animals are still animate object regardless of species and feel the same pain humans feel, which is why it is important to reconsider the ethics behind animal testing. It would definitely not be considered ethical or even legal to restrain and lock up a human and deprive them of basic needs. However, that is often the case for experimental animals as NPR states that they are harmed through numerous ways such as “infliction of physical injuries, infectious diseases, cancers, or psychological distress.” These injuries are often times fatal or will permanently affect the animal until death. Many times these animals involve pets such as dogs, which are meant to be running outside and enjoying the compassion of a human. Instead, tens of thousands of dogs are being ruthlessly experimented on and eventually killed. No animal deserves this cruel fate of being entrapped in a miniscule cage, being deprived of their rights and slowly facing a miserable death.
The differences in animal and human biology have proved to be a challenge when collecting results from animal experiments. Many animals have been utilized in animal experimentation due to the belief they have similar biological traits to humans; however, numerous experiments have shown that a much larger gap exists. As a result, many animal experiments have led to insufficient data causing the whole experiment to be trashed. Data from Mike Leavitt, the Health and Human Services Secretary, determined that “nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.” Millions of animals are brutally experimented on only for the experiment to be of no use to the scientific community; why spend millions of dollars and effort into an experiment that is unreliable? When assessing the severity of failed animal experiments, around 172 and 150 drug development failures have arised in human trials, which demonstrates the unreliability of animals (Akhtar). As a result of these drug failures in humans, billions of dollars have been wasted, numerous human lives have been affected, and millions of animal lives are lost with no scientific progress. There are already promising alternative solutions to animal testing such as “cell-based (in vitro) systems instead of with animals such as mice” being utilized (“Atlernatives To”). Animal testing is severely flawed, which has failed to make improvements to the field of medicine. Transitioning to cell based testing has no ethical problems and will create more dependable results.
In essence, although animal testing has been a large part of medical field, these experiments need to be stopped as the number of abused animals has not provided sufficent results. We need to stop animal experimentation as it is not only extremely unethical with hundreds of millions of animals being brutally killed, but also due to the fact that animal testing has very little implication on the effects drugs have on humans. Human welfare needs to be promoted without the expense of animals due to the numerous alternative solutions that are already developed. Next time you use medicine from the drug store, think about the millions of animals that lost their lives in vain.