SHOULD ANIMAL TESTING BE BANNED?

Should animal testing be banned?

Should animal testing be banned?

Animal testing has had an important role in the development of many chemical substances in the course of research. Used as a predictor of human reactions, the animals are sacrificed so that companies and scientists may find what types of effects a particular substance will have on a living organism. The proponents of animal testing have traditionally pointed to studies, which they contend, prove that synthetic, non-animal testing options are not as successful as using animals. However, the studies they cite were often performed by the very laboratories that profit from animal testing. This data should be taken with a grain of salt until everything can be verified or disproved by sources that are more objective (Regan 1).

In addition, there have been many cases where animal testing has yielded results that were later found to be in conflict with actual human reactions. For years, animal experiments on rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, monkeys, and baboons all revealed no link between glass fibers and cancer. Not until 1991, due to human studies, did OSHA label it carcinogenic, in other words, a cancer causing agent or substance. In another instance, surgeons thought they had perfected radial keratotomy, surgery performed to enable better vision without glasses, on rabbits, but the procedure blinded the first human patients. It was later discovered that the rabbit cornea is able to regenerate on the underside, whereas the human cornea can only regenerate on the surface. Then there are some particular drugs: Clioquinol, an antidiarrheal, passed tests in rats, cats, dogs and rabbits, but then had to be withdrawn all over the world in 1982 after it was found to cause blindness and paralysis in humans. The dose of isoproterenol, a medication used to treat asthma, was calculated in animals. Unfortunately, it was much too toxic for humans. 3500 asthmatics died in Great Britain alone due to overdose. It is still difficult to reproduce these results in animals.

Finally, the field of antibiotics may have been much different if animal testing had been used. Despite the ineffectiveness of penicillin in rabbits, Alexander Fleming used the antibiotic on a very sick patient when he had nothing else to try. Fortunately, Fleming's had not yet done the initial tests on guinea pigs or hamsters because it was later discovered to kill them. Howard Florey, the Nobel Prize winner credited with co-discovering and manufacturing penicillin, stated "How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never been granted a license, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized" (Martin 4).

Now while there have been obvious benefits to animal testing, these faults have been combined with the ethical and moral arguments to bolster the counter argument. The most recent developments have been the widespread searching for alternative testing methodology. While no protester would contend that there is not a definite need for the chemical research being done, advancements in areas such ...