Did you ever realize that the medicine or vitamins you took had been tested hundreds of times through drugs being injected into innocent animals?
For centuries, animals have been the subjects of experiments instead of humans due to the rights being violated and the risks it may pose to human test subjects. Additionally, the psychology that animals feel no pain or have no concept of right and wrong, as they are considered to be less important than humans.
As the international law of human rights prohibits human experimentation, animal testing has been the more reasonable choice in medicinal practices. This is due to the risks and dangers of chemicals on humans.
Animal testing contributes to life-saving cures and treatments for humankind. These experiments have led to treating many diseases. For the last 100 years, nearly all medical breakthroughs have been possible because we studied and tested warm-blooded mammals that have similar anatomies to us. Such as mice, rats, monkeys, and other non-human primates that are used and sacrificed for the greater good every year to cure diseases and make our lives better. There are some diseases that are cured/ treatable entirely because of animal testing.
Some examples of the deadly diseases that scientists were able to find cures for through animal testing are: tuberculosis (TB), which infected about a quarter of the world’s entire population; (AIDS/HIV), a disease that had a lasting effect on the world and killed millions and even caused stress on economies in some parts of the world; and cancer, which is a leading cause of deaths worldwide and even affects the family members of those infected and succumbed to the virus. Though, better treatments are being discovered through animal testing.
During the pandemic, when Covid-19 ran very rampant, scientists tested genetically modified mice with the vaccine they were going to inject us with in the future. Making sure that the initial vaccine wouldn’t worsen the virus more than it already was, Nikolai Petrovsky who is a professor from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Australia said that the experiments were “absolutely essential” and that skipping that important step would be very risky and dangerous for some people. So the testing was necessary to prevent the vaccine from harming or even worsening people’s condition more than it already was.
Research tests on animals are seen as the more humane way to study medicine rather than on actual humans. Animals share many similar things with us human beings, with 98% of our DNA shared with mice and chimpanzees, which have descended from common ancestors and pretty much have the same set of organs. These mammals’ anatomies are very similar to ours, and they are very susceptible to many diseases and illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Animals are tested also because of their much shorter lifespans. For example, laboratory mice live up to two years, which is enough time for scientists to study the effects of gene manipulation. That makes them very well-suited for stuff like long-term cancer research.
Animal research benefits not only humans but also other animals. Veterinary research helped to understand the bodies of animals and even lengthen their lifespans. Also, testing on animals led to a better improvement in the health of other animals in the future. Millions of other animals are saved and would’ve died from diseases such as rabies, distemper, feline leukemia, tetanus, anthrax, and etc.
Animal testing has also been known to save endangered species from extinction; such as the black-footed ferret, the California condor and all kinds of tamarins in Brazil.
These poor animals are claimed to have been wrongfully killed after experimentation, such as but to prevent such a waste of these little lives and to make it worth much more to serve their purpose as test subjects, a limit is legally placed on how much scientists/companies could test and experiment every year as the rules and regulations are upheld in animal welfare laws. Animal Welfare Laws are to monitor the research on animals with many countries regulating the use of animal subjects. For example, the Philippines since the year 1998 it was passed, had helped and maintained the welfare of animals in facilities be strictly regulated and it was later reinforced in 2013 with even more stricter penalties, such as being imprisoned for 6 months- 2 years and a fine ranging from 1000-5000 pesos(PHP) or even both, depending on how severe the offense was to its victim. Animal Welfare officers have been established to uphold the rules and the encouragement of being a responsible pet owner have been implemented ever since the act was passed.
Animal research as good as its benefits has its flaws, Animals especially those that share very similar DNA with humans may have animal tests that may fail when in human clinical trials , researchers observed that many drugs and vaccines have failed human trials even after succeeding on animal test subjects. It was stated that 94% of these drugs that pass animal tests fail when being tested on human trials, more than 85 HIV vaccines and over 100 stroke drugs fail when finally tested on humans even after succeeding human trials. For example, nearly 150 clinical tests on drugs that are supposed to reduce inflammation that were already critical in patients have been severely undertaken and all of these trials have failed. The percentage of animal testing runs failing and not having any testing on animals shows that animal testing with or without still would be fine. If non-animal tests have similar results to tests with animals, then what is the point of animal testing if we don’t really need to have tests on animals.
Humans and monkeys may have very close DNA resemblance with us but we have a different physiology than mammals used for animal testing. In a moral perspective animal testing is cruel and twisted, most of these test subjects suffer due to force feeding, being deprived of water, and the infliction of pain that is just used to study the drugs effects on its healing process and other things that medicine affect the body of the animal, from immune system, diet, and even their behaviour. This is due to the fact that only 5% of these animals are protected by the laws of Animal Welfare. Which does not even account for the rest of the 95% that includes rats, mice, fish, and birds, all of them are not even the slightest bit protected from the abuse of the people experimenting on them.
As technology and our civilization advances, newer things thought to be impossible have or could now be achieved. For decades, scientists couldn’t find alternatives other than to test animals’ skin and bodies to study how drugs and other medication theoretically affect us humans. But fear not, there are other methods such as “vitro testing” which tests human cells or tissue in a petri dish. This method doesn’t require harm or the necessity to experiment on animal subjects and it’s cheaper and more reliable in getting results rather than animal experimentation. Since its discovery, scientists and researchers have found more possible ways to experiment drugs and medicine on cells/tissue of humans in test tubes. There hasn’t been a more efficient way to practice medicine. There is also another thing similar to this, which uses advanced 3D printers to make human skin or something similar to that kind of tissue. Being able to create normal human tissue is very cool, but the Senior scientist at a biotech company states that not only they could recreate human skin but even a model that could mimic or act like skin disease. Not only that, but human volunteers haven’t been out of the question. Human volunteers could give consent to be able to test on them and when the time they are needed comes, they become one of the options that could be considered to be further researched on to develop medicine much faster. This method seems to be much riskier, but provides more options and saves so much more time and effort to cure and eradicate diseases.
All of these human volunteers commit to this cause and because in 2007, National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences had called for a reduction in the use of animal testing, but recommending instead more usage of methods in vitro. This should encourage the method of vitro testing and computer simulations
In conclusion, Animal testing has been playing a huge role in the advancement of medicinal practices throughout history and has developed many vaccines, antibiotics, and treatments that could cure terminal illnesses to diseases/sicknesses that threaten humanity. There are still many reasons why countries still keep and use animal testing, because of how it was a reliable source to experiment on without violating human rights and avoids the endangerment of human volunteers when the drug or medicine is used on a test subject. This step is usually the most important as the medicine needs to pass these trials on animals before moving on to being tested on humans and skipping this step might do more harm than good when developing the medicine at its early stages. However, animal testing is controversial in its own right, the morality of hurting animals just to inch closer into make cures to serious disease that still would take decades for scientists and doctors to cure would be too cruel and expensive to just use some lab rats and have one use for them and to be killed right after testing. There are newer and more efficient ways to test and experiment medicine without a living being in these ever changing times. Like in a test tube with cells that have human DNA or 3d printing because of how advanced it became that it can replicate human flesh. By the 2030’s Western countries have plans to fully eliminate animal testing and this year makes it one step closer to reaching that goal by reducing animal testing by 30%. If I had to choose whether to support or to oppose animal testing, I would choose to oppose animal testing despite the contributions it had to medicine. With how costly and ineffective animal testing is, it wasn’t long before alternatives for testing and experimenting methods were discovered. These methods are cheaper and more reliable compared to animal testing, even some practices of medicine skips animal testing and goes with human volunteers. Although it sounds more risky to the person being tested on, the person seems to not be harmed in any way. But this would be very wrong logistically and morally especially if the person does not fully agree with the terms and conditions to be tested on in trials before animals.
About the Author
Alphard Briones is a 14-year old boy who lives in Canlubang, Calamba City, Philippines. Even from such a young age, he has been learning many things growing up, from spiking a volleyball to checking his way through chess tournaments. Now, he wrote this essay on animal testing about its upsides & downsides
When he’s not busy doing anything, he plays online chess in his free time. He also likes to watch anime on some occasions, and watching movies alone is another hobby that he does rarely.