Pros And Cons Of Animal Testing

Animal testing has been around for centuries, it started out for curiosity reasons; people wanted to learn more about the internal construction of the body and animals were convenient—more so than humans. When it comes down to it, the word animal testing and animal research are interchangeable, moreover, both relate to the same meaning: the use of animals in scientific experiments. While there have been valuable results from animal testing, like the finding of milk pasteurization by Louis Pasteur, who was one of the scientists who made the first major use with animal testing. His conclusions were beneficial, however, that was back in 1880, and a considerable amount of technology has advanced since then. Technological advances have happened

There is a cheaper alternative, in-vitro testing—a process taking place in a test tube, culture dish, or outside of a living organism. Vivisection testing, or in-vivo, is exceptionally more expensive than in-vitro testing. Some in-vivo tests can take months or years to get the completed experiment results. A commonly done test is the non-genotoxic cancer test. This test uses rats and can be as much as $700,000, this normally takes 24 months to complete. However, the in-vitro method, using a Syrian hamster embryo instead of a live rat takes a shorter amount of time, and this method takes around $22,000 to complete ("Benigni, Bossa"). That may not be a significant enough difference to some, but it is the difference for a single test that is done on millions of animals each year. It is the taxpayers who pay for the wasting of funds for a project that is starting to run dry of benefits; it is the taxpayers who are being affected by this, yet, so little is known. Nonetheless, after years of researching and spending millions of dollars on these tests, the results may come out to only work in that specific animal, which ends up not being applicable for human trails once the drug is

With animal testing, it has hindered the focus of bettering the alternatives that are already out there, but it cannot rise to the surface of normality since animal testing is all that people want to believe is available. Is the amount of money, false results, and pain that an animal endures during testing worth it? When will we stop trying to re-create the past and try to move on to the newer and better alternatives that are available. We must try to use these newer medical advances, alternative research choices and find other resources to use—they are out there, we just have not given it our full attention. In order to move forward, we must stop being okay with having mediocre results that way we can use our resources and money to create something beneficial, something that can stay around for a