Animal Testing, Is It Ethical?
Animal testing has always been used for testing medicine, or consumer products such as shampoo and eye liner. In this article, it talks about the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding" by three USA agencies--the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Toxicology Program, and the National Institutes of Health, to develop and implement new methods for testing new drugs and consumer goods. This act is done because of the heightened awareness of animal cruelty, which is what animal testing is. "It was expensive, time-consuming, used animals in large numbers, and it didn't always work," says Francis Collins, director of the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute. The debate here is whether the abolishment of animal testing is necessary, if implementing new methods can be as accurate as animal testing.
The AOK that is involved here is ethics. To sustain animal testing means that you support one species using another for its benefits. Animal testing has always been accused of being cruel to the animals, taking away their freedom in order to conduct tests medicine on them. However, without animal testing, most of the medicine that we have will never be known to be safe, therefore probably wouldn’t have been mass produced to help us get rid of colds or other sickness.
The argument here is animal rights, to not let animals suffer due to human influences, but to follow this argument requires huge sacrifices. To stop animal cruelty means the abolishment of animal testing, but also the use of animals for human comfort, such as food (meat) and clothing/furniture (leather) otherwise we would be hypocritical. Because by keeping animals in farms, pumping them with hormones and than leading them to slaughter, is also a form of stripping animals of their freedom.
The new method for testing the toxicology of chemicals is to test it on human cells grown in test tubes. The chemical will be dropped onto a controlled amount of human cells and after a selected amount of time, a machine will shine laser at the cells and a computer will analyze the chemical to see if its safe based on how the cell reacts. Another reason why we should abolish animal testing, not only is it not ethical but also, "Moreover, a great deal of animal experimentation has been misleading and resulted in either withholding of drugs, sometimes for years, that were subsequently found to be highly beneficial to humans, or to the release and use of drugs that, though harmless to animals, have actually contributed to human suffering and death." (Jane Goodall 'Reason for Hope', 1999) Obviously, animal testing is very unethical, and from several spokesman, it isn't as effective as well, because an animal's reaction to certain drugs aren't always how people react to drugs. Therefore the argument for banning animal testing are logical and ethical, and that’s what I support, banning animal testing.
The issue of ethics can also be applied to industrialized animal farming. This article mentions the recent attempt passing of the agriculture-gag law, which would incriminate video taping of agricultural facilities that houses chickens and pigs. Chickens are reported to be born and raised in closed barns that houses several hundred thousand chickens, and the pigs are also raised in closed barns that is so crowded that it doesn’t allow them to turn around, let alone take a stroll. Watering, feeding, and monitoring are mechanized. Dead pigs are just tossed in the dumpster outside the barns, piling up until the next garbage collection. This description depicts a murderous business, which, sadly, is the truth. This way of raising animals is extremely unethical, and in the case of the agriculture-gag law, we see these farm barons trying to censor out the information that would be damaging to their goods.
You bring up a good point about whether animal testing is even effective or applicable in the first place, adding a "is it even worth it?" twist to the question. But it is hard to let the practice go, when we are at a loss for better alternatives to test our treatments on to improve our medicine, especially when we have been implementing it for so long. I think most of the time an Ethics issue like this comes down to whether or not it's okay to sacrifice some for the greater good - if we are too sensitive to Ethics and protection of the individual, it often becomes a liability to the collective whole.
ReplyDeleteThe area of knowledge raised in this article is definitely controversial. Adding on to the ethics issue, my question is, how much respect does the society give to different forms of life? And how to you determine being "respectful"? Should animals be given the same rights as humans? If the animals have same rights as human, then animal testing will be illegal; however, in our society, humans view morals and the society in different ways, effecting their reasoning for denying animal rights. For instance, some generalized points:
ReplyDeleteAnimals do not have souls.
God gave humans dominion over the animals.
Humans are intellectually superior to animals.
Animals do not reason, think, or feel pain like humans do.
Animals are a natural resource to be used as humans see fit.
Animals kill each other.
http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2157/Animal-Rights-Debate-RIGHTS-SOCIETY.htm
Ultimately, as humans are originated from an animal, humans are considered as animals, therefore, human and animals should certainly share the same rights ; thus, animal testing should be banned. As mentioned above, since there are alternative ways to test the toxicology of chemicals without sacrificing lives, forcing animals to give up their own lives for personal needs turns out to be pointless.
I agree with Sonnia's comment and her argument that testing on animals is seriously the only liable option we have as animals hold the closest resemblance to human beings in terms of biological build. The author's suggestion that human cells be grown in test tubes and tested that way is a very good suggestion but how can we measure the legitimacy of such an experiment. We have to remember that not only do our lives depend on these medicines, an inaccurate test results can lead our medicinal world in a whole different direction from the intended. But a way to control and restrict the number of animals killed and slaughter is to consider what kind of experiments we are using these animals for? I'm not going to go into the should we stop eating meat in general because it's extremely bad for our environment and a cruel way to live life and instead suggest that animal testing be banned for experiments used for cosmetology. The cost to the animals is too great for purposes such as enhancing the physical appearance of a human being. But like I said before, this practice is too valuable and important to give up in terms of medicinal uses. The benefits it brings to the improvement of human health and the extension of human life is too important to put aside, at least for this moment in time.
ReplyDeleteTesting experimental chemicals and products is a natural and important part of research and development in the modern world, especially so with medical research. It is perfectly true that animal testing as it stands now needs serious work, but unfortunately there are very few viable alternatives. For one, there is the fact that putting a chemical on a bunch of human cells and seeing what happens is very different to testing that same chemical on a person---the human body is such a complex system that it is impossible to simplify it, especially considering that much of the body's inner workings are poorly understood. So apart from directly testing extremely experimental substances on humans, the next best thing in terms of approximation is animal testing.
ReplyDeleteHowever the morality of this depends on how humans look upon other animals. If other animals are seen as equals, then animal testing is clearly immoral, and eating meat is equivalent to cannibalism, a practice that is frowned upon in most parts of the modern world. However, if one takes a more amoral 'survival of the fittest' approach, then the idea of animal testing becomes natural, and the automation and mechanisation of animal farming, gruesome as it is, is a natural extension of that.