Essay On The Pros And Cons Of Animal Testing

Besides animal testing, there are different alternatives then testing on animals. “In the Feasibility of Replacing Animal Testing for Assessing Consumer Safety: A Suggested Future Direction” written by Julia Fentem, Mark Chamberlain and Bart Sangster talks about how animal testing is usually done and gives some broad alternatives for animal testing. Since the 1960s, researchers wanted to develop alternatives to animal testing. The term “alternatives” is the three “R’s” of reduction, refinement, and replacement. The test of animals was primarily carried out for diagnostic purposes, assessments of safety and efficacy, and the purpose of research (Fentem 2). In the next article, the three “R’s” will be described in much more detail. The main …show more content…
For the safety of humans, these tests consist of drug exposure, and plasma concentration (Guidance for Industry 1). Animal testing is useful because the animals test the drugs and make sure it is safe for human use. The next article “Safety and Testing” talks about the different kinds of clinical trials used for drug testing. New chemical or drugs still have to be tested and is required by law. Tests begin with the acute toxicity test and it is used for the exploratory development of a brand new drug. Rodents are used for this test and they are used because this gives the researchers the minimum data necessary for comparisons on different species (Safety and Testing 1). The animals that are given a single dose of a compound is called the acute toxicity test. This test is used so the researchers can determine the safe dose or the deadly dose. (Safety and Testing 2). The next test is the repeat-dose toxicity testing, and this test gives the researchers an idea of how they react in the body. The organs in the animals are studied for toxic effects. This is important because it shows which drugs are toxic and what drugs are not. Animals are very important in these tests because the animal could determine if the drug gets to the market. The starting dose is determined for human clinical trials. If the drug gets past this test, the next …show more content…
In animal testing, there is a questionable accuracy of these tests. These tests are not always accurate because they are not always done correctly and the results would be skewed. The testing of animals is cruel and inhumane. The tests are cruel because they are put into horrible conditions and are mistreated poorly. The LD50 test and the Drazie test is cruel and inhumane. These tests are extremely painful to the animal and death is the final result. There are different alternatives to animal testing, but still continue to use animals as test subjects. Some of the alternatives are computer modeling, and in-vitro testing. On the other hand, animal testing can help save lives and find different cures for humans. These tests have come up with a cure for diabetes by taking the pancreas out of a dog. Without that, we would not have medicine for diabetes. Another pro of animal testing is humans and animals are almost identical in many ways. Mice are ninety-nine percent genetically identical to us so it would make sense to test on them. One last pro is the animal tests drugs for humans to make sure they are safe to use. Animals have to go through different trials to ensure the safety of drugs. There are some good things for animal testing and some not so good. If animal testing comes to a stop, then they will stop finding cures, and if we let it go then more animals are suffering during