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The Benefits Of Animal Testing

In 1990 the founder of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Ingrid Newkirk told a reporter that if an AIDS cure resulted from animal research, "we'd still be against it." I appreciate the efforts that animal activists put forth on securing animal rights, emphasizing that animals are not ours to be tested on. However, when it comes to ensuring human life, I disagree. Should we not take the best lead we have to cure a disease like AIDS, which has already killed 28million people? Should we take thousands of animals and place their lives above millions of people, which they have saved and will save? Scientific effort based on animal testing is a sacrifice that must be made to pledge the safety of human health. Without these mammals for testing, scientific progress crucial to the safety and development of medicine and food will drop severely. If humanity risks such a decline in scientific progress, people around the world will face limitations on food and future medical treatments.
The most important reason humanity requires animal testing is to solve medical issues. One of the advantages of animal testing is the ability for medical procedures to be run safely and efficiently on humans after testing it on animals. Open-heart surgery, which is now the most common form of heart surgery in the U.S, required about 20 years of animal testing on cats by Doctor John Gibbon of Jefferson Medical College to assure safety and efficiency. Unfortunately, not all medical procedures pass through sufficient testing before entering the market. The Food and Drug Administration distributed a jaw implant called Vitek in 1983, without sufficient testing. This malfunctioned jaw implant resulted in thousands of people suffering from severe pain when their jaws were literally torn apart. One year later, scientists tested the Vitek jaw on canine dogs, which resulted in immediate jaw damage and erosion. Had the FDA required such testing, many painful and permanent injuries would have been prevented.
In the past, many diseases like Polio and Diabetes killed hundreds of thousands of humans. The only way scientists were able to combat these diseases was through animal testing. One of the best accomplishments made through animal testing was the vaccine for polio developed in1955, an epidemic that killed about 60,000 people a year, targeting primarily children. A doctor named Jonas Stalk was determined to find prevention not with his patients, which several scientists tried and failed, but within his lab. Injecting approximately 17,500 monkeys with the disease, he was finally able isolate the three viruses that caused polio and developed a vaccine for each that was able to prevent humans from getting Polio.
Today, people take the wellness and life span of diabetes patients for granted. Before 1969, the fear of severe Diabetes was much, much greater. According to the Nobel Prize Committee and Medical Doctor Andrew Dexter from UCLA, patients back then with sever diabetes were only spared a few more years by following extreme diets and undergoing constant pain. Luckily, two Nobel Prize winning scientist, Frederick G. Banting and John Macleod, discovered Insulin from experimenting on a dog with Diabetes and another dog without. By removing the pancreas, an organ that regulates sugar, of a dog, diabetes developed in the dog a week. However, when injecting the diabetic dog with a pancreatic formula, called insulin, extracted from the healthy dog, the diabetic dog lived a healthy life as long as it kept receiving the injection. This proved to be true in humans as well because patients who died from diabetes had a damaged pancreas. When Insulin was distributed throughout America to humans, patients with severe diabetes with only days to live recovered as long as they kept receiving their injections.
Unfortunately, scientists are unable to find a cure or treatment for every disease. Animal testing alone provides a huge potential for scientists to find a cure for today's toughest diseases like AIDS. First off, scientists require thorough information on the virus before looking for a cure. Fortunately, this was made possible by examining similar immune deficiencies syndromes in mice, cats, and monkeys. One major understanding the AIDS Foundation discovered was that the AIDS virus is a retrovirus, meaning that it can only duplicate with a special enzyme, or "helper" chemical. The majority of mammals possess these similar enzymes, each producing a different disease similar to AIDS. By understanding how AIDS works from animal models, scientists have better chance to stop the AIDS virus from duplicating. Even though a vaccine is currently eluding us, animal testing still has provided temporary treatments. The Foundation of Biomedical Research discovered blood tests that are run on humans to detect AIDS, through animal testing. Multiple drug treatments that allowed patients to live longer were also tested on animal models to secure efficiency and safety.
Animal activists who realize the importance of medical experimentation claim that alternatives, such as cell cultures or computer simulations, can be used instead. However, neither has the potential to replace animals in experimentation. Cell cultures, which are cells grown outside of its body by scientific means, are proved unreliable. Cells living in secluded areas do not function as they normally do compared to cells reacting in the human body. Humans also design computer simulations, and since no human understands every aspect of a mammal's anatomy, those simulations are often unreliable. For example how the stomach breaks down different drugs and chemicals is still unknown. Animal testing proves to be much more reliable and efficient. Primarily, animals basically share the same organs as human beings, like the lungs, heart, stomach, and liver. An antidepressant drug called Reconcile, initially subjected to dogs, was released to human use after testing on animal models. This means, according to Dr. Rausch, chairman of Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior, many chemicals and signals released by organs such as the brain in animals are very similar compared to humans.
Many of those who live with excellent health don't realize that animal testing still provides a positive effect. The food industry, for example, uses animal models to ensure the safety and production of food. Ever since the obesity rate has skyrocketed the past few years, animal testing is the only way to meet the increasing demands of healthier ingredients. For example, a certain Margarine substance, used for reducing cholesterol in yogurts and cleaning intestines, is fed to animals to see the effects of the substance on its organs. Livestock for human consumption like cattle, sheep, and chickens are vaccinated with treatments processed by animal testing that guarantees healthier and better tasting meat.
In addition to health related research, the cosmetic industry also participates in great deal of animal testing. To ensure the safety of over thousands of products like toothpaste, shampoo, mascara, lipstick, and many more, no doubt animal testing had provided a great benefit. However, the key word here is "had". Many basic ingredients used in current products almost always reappear in other products. The smoothing oils in lipstick, for example, reappear in almost every mascara product. I believe a significant reduction of animal testing in this industry should be made, but not to forget that animal testing brought such success to the industry in the first place.
If you lack prior knowledge of the benefits of animal testing, it is completely understandable you would disagree. No doubt a common, good-hearted person would let their feelings fall under the control of graphic and horrifying animal testing methods displayed by PETA. I will not deny those pictures accuracy or the fact that numerous animals die each day due to animal testing, nor will I celebrate in this suffering. However, the results clearly outweigh the consequences. A lot of people give their attention only to the animal's well being during testing, rather than realize the critical role animals play in human wellness. Without these sacrifices, human health would not only face many severe risks, but also the discovery of future cures of untreatable disease will diminish. The American Medical Process has a brief qoute that explains it all, " you can't support animal rights and AIDS research."