Many of us enjoy eating steak, chicken and pork, but rather not think about how it got on our plate, likewise we want medicines, antibiotics, vaccines, surgery and diagnostic tools when we are sick, but we don't care about how these treatments are made. In many cases the fact is that scientist have developed these medical procedures with the help of laboratory animals. From antibiotics to blood transfusions, dialysis to organ transplantation, vaccinations to chemotherapy, virtually every drug, treatment, medical device, diagnostic tool or cure we have today was developed with the help of laboratory animals. Each day, dedicated scientists study animals to find new cures for diseases and conditions that are currently incurable. Discoveries and …show more content…
In the late 1940s, polio crippled and killed thousands of people around the world. After a vaccine was developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, polio was brought under control and eliminated as a public health problem in industrialized countries. Today, the disease has been eliminated from most of the world. only sixteen countries worldwide have cases of polio in limited areas (Cornell University Feline Health Center UNICEF). Today’s children commonly receive a vaccine that supply a lifetime of protection from the disease. Children are also immunized against many diseases like typhus, whooping cough, tetanus, and smallpox. Many people around the world are healthy adults because of these vaccines, which were made viable through animal research. Another example of the benefits of animal testing is diabetes. In the United States, seven percent of the population has diabetes. Over one million cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year, based on death certificate data, diabetes contributed to nearly 225,000 deaths, in 2002 alone (American Diabetes Association National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse). According to recent estimates, one in four U.S. adults has high blood pressure, this can lead to strokes, heart attacks, and heart disease(American Heart