Zerhouni's Arguments In Favor Of Animal Testing

Gloved hands reach out from the dim and sleazy room. The bewildered little chimp whimpers, backing away from the horrors that await him. The giant pair of intimidating hands proceed to reach over the putrid steel bars of the cold cage. Within seconds, the chimp finds himself immoblised under the iron like grip of the monster. He tries to defend himself, tries to escape from the towering circle of emotionless creatures. He struggles desperately, until all of a sudden, he stops. And no matter how hard he tries, he cannot move. This chimp, who is sniffling because he is frightened at the sounds of his brothers crying in pain, shaking because he sees the scalpel one of the monsters is holding and writhing because all the suppressed fury inside him questions why. Why is the fact that over 115 …show more content…
However, Dr. Elias Zerhouni stands at a completely different viewpoint. In his words, “The problem is that animal testing hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem.” That is why the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying diseases and testing products that replace animals and are actually relevant to human health.
Modernised, improved methods now include sophisticated tests using human cells and tissues (also known as in vitro methods), advanced computer-modeling techniques (often referred to as in silico models), stem cell transplants and dna microarray just to name a few. Unlike animal testing, these methods are not not hindered by species differences that make animal test results inapplicable to humans. Furthermore, these newly developed approaches are more efficient and take less money to complete, unlike animal testing which costs us over 14 million dollars each year to