Persuasive Essay On Animal Testing

Animal experimentation has been an easy and ethically acceptable way to research and test medicines and treatments for humans since the time of the ancient Greeks. Animals opened the door for the scientists and philosophers of old to learn things about the human body that were previously explained with magic and superstition. Naturally, science has come a long way since the ancient Greeks. Today, we have a whole host of medical resources at our disposal, which begs the question: Do we truly need animals in medical research anymore? Not only that, but the practices with animals at thousands of labs across the United States have been notoriously vague for years. It has only been in the last fifty years that people have begun to question the necessity

One answer to this question that many are not aware of is the funding behind labs. Billions of government dollars, which stems from taxpayer money, is sent towards animal research every year. However, pharmaceutical companies pay just enough more that many testing facilities are considered privately run operations, and cannot be fully regulated by the government (Williams and DeMello 213-214). This means that while the American public is virtually funding these labs, the people have no say in what goes on. Not only that, but some labs refuse to let the public know what goes on behind their closed doors. Many universities, such as the University of Missouri, charge hundreds of dollars to release veterinary records and cage logs. Texas A&M out and out denied public requests for their records, and when the Beagle Freedom Project sued the university over it, the Texas Attorney General supported the university’s claims (Schweers 1). Additionally, working in labs has a detrimental effect on humans. Scientists and technicians who research using animal testing have significant amounts of stress, depression and guilt as oppose to people in other professions, especially those who take part in killing the animal. High blood pressure and substance and alcohol abuse as coping methods are commonalities among these workers (Williams and DeMello

Frankie Trull, President of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, writes that “Thanks to the work of scientists and physicians at Duke University, an experimental new treatment for glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM – an aggressive tumor that kills about 12,000 people in the U.S. each year – is saving the lives of patients” (Trull 1). The key word in this quote is “experimental”. Many of these treatments are experimental indeed, meaning that they have nasty side effects and do not always cure diseases. In fact, 9 out of 10 drug trials fail: all of which have been tested on animals prior to the clinical trials (Burrell 1). Animals do not have remotely similar body systems as humans. Xenotransplantation is the act of transplanting nonhuman animal organs into humans, and it is a failure that proves how incompatible the body systems of animals and humans are. Xenotransplantation has been attempted three times: with a chimpanzee heart, a baboon heart, and a pig liver. All three times, the human patient died just hours after surgery (Williams and DeMello 211-212). A further analysis of the matter reveals that “The FDA reported that 106,000 people each year die from adverse effects of drugs that had been found safe on animals” (Schweer 1). An example of this can be found in the drug Vioxx. The anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx was found safe