| Term Paper Title | Animal Testing: Necessity Or Cruelty? |
| # of Words | 848 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 3.39 |
Animal Testing: Necessity or Cruelty?
2/3/03
There has been an on going heated debate on whether experiments on animals for the benefit of medical and scientific research are ethical. Whether it is or isn't, most people have to decide whether the benefits will outweigh the costs of the experiments. These costs include: animal pain, distress and death where the benefits include the collection of new knowledge or the development of new medical therapies for humans. Looking into these different aspects of the experimentation, there is a large gap for argument between the different viewpoints.
In the US, 20 to 70 million animals are tortured and killed in experiments each year. The conditions in which they are kept are far from optimal; they are left in steel cages in isolation and often neglected and even abused by their keepers. In comparison to the actual tests that would seem pleasant. The way that LD50, or Lethal Dosage test, works is a group of animals is force fed or injected with increasing amounts of the test substance until half the animals die. It is typically a very slow, and painful death for the animals involved. They can suffer convulsions, seizures, tremors, bleeding from eyes and nose, uncontrollable vomiting, self-mutilation, and become paralyzed. Over two thousand animals can be killed for the testing of only one chemical. But it isn’t just companies testing products; some of the worst tests are done by the Military. The Department of Defense spends 172 million in taxpayer’s dollars a year, and up to 1500 animal’s lives, in a day on animal testing. These animals are shot, burnt, dosed with biological chemicals, nuclear substances, exposed to deadly viruses, subjected to eye and other surgeries without pain medication, and restrained while insects are allowed to feed on their shaven skin. This is just a few of the horrendous things animals; as a result of their place on the food chain, have no choice but to endure.
The majority of animals in laboratories are used for genetic manipulation, surgical intervention or injection of foreign substances. Researchers are producing solutions from these animal "models" and are adapting them to human conditions. Unfortunately, these animals "models" can't always be connected with the human body and create problems. Many times, researchers induce strokes on animals in order to test certain methods for curing. The downfall of this procedure is that a healthy animal that experiences a sudden stroke does not undergo the slowly progressive artery damage that usually plays a crucial rol...Read entire document
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