Animals testing

Should Animal testing be legal?

Should animal testing be legal? It is a question that many of us ask ourselves. Did you know that the The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in 2016 that 71,370 animals suffered pain during experiments while being given no anesthesia for relief, including 1,272 nonhuman primates, 5,771 rabbits, 24,566 guinea pigs, and 33,280 hamsters. Furthermore, Elon Musk, the founder of and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX decided to open a new a neuralink Animal Testing Lab for a startup that he had cofounded last year. Because of that, hundreds to thousands of more animals will die a year. Animal testing should be illegal since it is very expensive, and it causes taxes increasing, and many times, the substances that are being tested on animals are flawed and needed to be tested more than one time, injuring animals every time companies are changing the substance, and then doing it all over again. All countries should ban this use of animals.

Animal testing should not be legal since it is very expensive. According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), “… $56.4 million of government funds spent on animal experiments… failed to provide any useful results“ (PETA 1) This means that the government had given and allocated a lot of money to animal testing, yet we do not see many changes in the medical world. This is consistent with the fact that animal testing is very expensive since the government is funding the animal testing, by taking taxes from your own money. Where do you think they take those $56.4 million dollars? From the taxes they take from the people in the US. They give the taxes that the citizens pay, to animal testing. It is not just hurting the animals, it is hurting the US citizens’ economic stability. Even when the government allocates the money to animal testing, we barely see any change in the medical world.

Another reason why animal testing should not be allowed is that many of the substances that are being tested are flawed. “87% of the studies failed to randomize the selection of animals (a technique used to reduce ‘selection bias’).”(Carol Kilkenny,1) This means that 87% of the studies failed in animal testing. 87%. That is a lot. Many tests have failed and taken animals’ lives for basically scientists failing again and again p, killing animals again and again, until they succeed, though we still do not see much change in the medical world. “… failed to provide any useful results.”(PETA, 1). Another example is from the BBC, ” We have 4 possible new drugs to cure HIV. Drug A killed all the rats, mice and dogs. Drug B killed all the dogs and rats. Drug C killed all the mice and rats. Drug D was taken by all the animals up to huge doses with no ill effect…” This was written in a letter from the pharmacologist William D H Carey, as he tried to demonstrate the importance of animal testing to the British Medical Journal. The point is in that— look how many animals have been killed and injured. It affected so many dogs, rats, and mice. They tried the drugs again, and killed more animals. For many experiments it takes more than just some animals. Lots of animals’ lives are being taken because of those experiments. As the experiment is more flawed, more animals are killed and injured. Animals are not objects that the human species own, and humans do not have the rights to take their life from them like that.

Those who believe that animal testing should be legal may argue that animal testing is always correct and always give positive tests that will work for humans as medicine. However, clearly, many of the chemicals that are used on animals have different effect on humans. “Aspirin is somewhat helpful to humans, but can be very dangerous to some non-human species.”(Aysha Akhtar MD MPH, 1) This illustrates that chemicals, like aspirin, have different and dangerous effects over humans and over animals. Some chemicals may be dangerous to animals and good for humans, or dangerous for humans and good for animals. This is consistent with the fact that not all chemicals are good to try on animals and give to humans, and some tests may be wrong. It will not 100% work as a good medicine or chemical for humans if it was good on animals.

Animal testing should not be legal. The expensive price tag, and the fact that many animal tests are flawed are two reasons why animal testing should be illegal. Animal testing is cruel and inhumane. Something should be done against this. Email right now to your city council, protest against it, animals are not humans’ species possessions.

Work Cited

Article
“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) found $56.4 million of government funds spent on animal experiments… failed to provide any useful results.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), “Tell Congress: Cut Funding for Cruel Experiments on Animals,” support.peta.org (accessed Oct. 18, 2017)
Article
“Aspirin is somewhat helpful to humans, but can be very dangerous to some non-human species.”
Aysha Akhtar, MD, MPH, Animals and Public Health: Why Treating Animals Better Is Critical to Human Welfare, 2012
Article
“87% of the studies failed to randomize the selection of animals (a technique used to reduce “selection bias”)”
Carol Kilkenny et al., “Survey of the Quality of Experimental Design, Statistical Analysis and Reporting of Research Using Animals,” PLOS One, 2009

Article
We have 4 possible new drugs to cure HIV. Drug A killed all the rats, mice and dogs. Drug B killed all the dogs and rats. Drug C killed all the mice and rats. Drug D was taken by all the animals up to huge doses with no ill effect…
BBC,”Experimenting on Animals”,2014.