Imagine you’re snuggled up at night with your pampered, innocent dog. Now, imagine that same dog locked in a barren cage, shaking from fear of what’s to come. Typically, large doses of pesticides are injected into his body, slowly poisoning him. But today, scientist will make him run until he collapses from a heart attack, only to be slaughtered for research. Everyone is quick to join Sarah McLachlan and the ASPCA help dogs in shelters, but what about those who slowly deteriorate in labs? Each year, over 100 million animals- including mice, rats, frogs, hamsters, rabbits, dogs, monkeys, fish, and birds- loose their life due to animal testing. Scientists claim animal testing is the best way to develop medical treatments. However, animal cruelty
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Although humans and animals have several similarities, one being a living organism, their anatomic, metabolic, and cellular makeup differ. For instance dogs have a digestive tract length of 60 cm, whereas he humans have a digestive tract length of 150cm(). Also, animals vital signs are different from that of a human: body temperature, blood pressure, and pulse. Therefore, animal testing does not guarantee accurate results. A lot of experiments are flawed, resulting in unsafe and inaccurate findings. One example includes skin allergies on pigs. It can only predict human reactions by 72% , whereas cell-based alternatives predict human reactions 90% of the time(Alternatives to Animal Testing). Another test on pregnant rats allows scientist to detect 60% of the chemicals and drugs that are harmful to the developing baby; the cell based alternative has 100% accuracy. Other alternatives like in vitro testing can produce more relevant results than animal testing because human cells cad. On the flip side, just because a product is safe for animals, does not guarantee it is safe for humans. According to the FDA, 92 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal test, fail in humans(Klausner). It is time for scientist to divorce the idea of researching on animals and adapt to using methods like in vitro testing, computer models, and human tissues. Former U.S. national Institutes of Health director, Elias Zerhouni, said ,“We have moved away from studying human disease in humans. … We all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. … The problem is that [animal testing] hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem. … We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.” It is time to stop wasting animal’s lives and produce accurate results to cure
Although humans and animals have several similarities, one being a living organism, their anatomic, metabolic, and cellular makeup differ. For instance dogs have a digestive tract length of 60 cm, whereas he humans have a digestive tract length of 150cm(). Also, animals vital signs are different from that of a human: body temperature, blood pressure, and pulse. Therefore, animal testing does not guarantee accurate results. A lot of experiments are flawed, resulting in unsafe and inaccurate findings. One example includes skin allergies on pigs. It can only predict human reactions by 72% , whereas cell-based alternatives predict human reactions 90% of the time(Alternatives to Animal Testing). Another test on pregnant rats allows scientist to detect 60% of the chemicals and drugs that are harmful to the developing baby; the cell based alternative has 100% accuracy. Other alternatives like in vitro testing can produce more relevant results than animal testing because human cells cad. On the flip side, just because a product is safe for animals, does not guarantee it is safe for humans. According to the FDA, 92 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal test, fail in humans(Klausner). It is time for scientist to divorce the idea of researching on animals and adapt to using methods like in vitro testing, computer models, and human tissues. Former U.S. national Institutes of Health director, Elias Zerhouni, said ,“We have moved away from studying human disease in humans. … We all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. … The problem is that [animal testing] hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem. … We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.” It is time to stop wasting animal’s lives and produce accurate results to cure