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In my point of view animal testing is the most disgusting outrageous experimentation that I have ever seen.Supporters of the practice, such as the British Royal Society, argue that virtually every medical achievement in the 20th century relied on the use of animals in some way with the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences arguing that even sophisticated computers are unable to model interactions between molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and the environment, making animal research necessary in many areas.Aristotle and Erasistratus were among the first to perform experiments on living animals. Animals have been used throughout the history of scientific research. Those in favor of animal testing held that experiments on animals were necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge. The divisions between pro- and anti- animal testing groups first came to public attention during the brown dog affair in the early 1900s, when hundreds of medical students clashed with anti-vivisectionists and police over a memorial to a vivisected dog. In 1822, the first animal protection law was enacted in the British parliament, followed by the Cruelty to Animals Act (1876), the first law specifically aimed at regulating animal testing. Charles Darwin said “You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall not sleep to-night." Opposition to the use of animals in medical research first arose in the United States during the 1860s, when Henry Bergh founded the ASPCA.
Accurate global figures for animal testing are difficult to obtain. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) estimates that 100 million vertebrates are experimented on around the world every year. In 1995, researchers at Tufts University Center for Animals and Public Policy estimated that 14-21 million animals were used in American laboratories in 1992, a reduction from a high of 50 million used in 1970. In 1986, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment reported that estimates of the animals used in the U.S. range from 10 million to upwards of 100 million each year, and that their own best estimate was at least 17 million to 22 million. The type of animals used in animal testing is Mice, Rats, Amphibians & Fish, Birds, Rabbits &Guinea Pigs, Farm Animals, Mammals such as dogs, cats, and monkeys, and many many more animals. Animals used by laboratories are largely supplied by specialist dealers. Sources differ for vertebrate and invertebrate animals. For vertebrates, sources include breeders who supply purpose-bred animals; businesses that trade in wild animals; and dealers who supply animals sourced from pounds, auctions, and newspaper ads. Animal shelters also supply the laboratories directly. In the U.S., Class A breeders are licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to sell animals for research purposes, while Class B dealers are licensed to buy animals from "random sources" such as auctions, pounds, and newspaper ads. Some Class B dealers have been accused of kidnapping pets and illegally trapping strays, a practice known as bunching, and stealing pets. In 2003 a dozen stolen pets were found in laboratories.
Animal testing causes pain and suffering, and the capacity of animals to experience and comprehend them, is the subject of debate. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2006 about 670,000 animals (57%) (not including rats, mice, birds, or invertebrates) were used in procedures that did not include more than momentary pain or distress. About 420,000 (36%) were used in procedures in which pain or distress was relieved by anesthesia, while 84,000 (7%) were used in studies that would cause pain or distress that would not be relieved. The idea that animals might not feel pain as human beings feel it goes back to the 17th-century French philosopher, René Descartes, who argued that animals do not experience pain and suffering because they don’t have much consciousness. But animals DO feel pain. Just as we do. Scientists are still not sure whether or not invertebrate species of animals, such as insects, feel pain and suffering. When I was about 7 I saw a spider pulling a fly through a tiny hole ferociously. The fly seemed very distressed. Why? Because it was scared. It felt pain.
Animals used in animal testing laboratories are kept in cruel cages. Monkeys in tubes and metal cages with a metal floor, sheep in small tiny areas were they can barely turn around, dogs in metal wired cages too small for their size and chained up.People have also gone undercover into animal laboratories and got footage of the laboratory workers beating the animals and cursing at them. There is also footage of a scientist near the animal cages and the animals were going insane with fear. Then the camera man went up to the cage after the scientist left and the animals were scared but calm.
Scientists and governments state that animal testing should cause as little suffering to animals as possible, and that animal tests should only be performed where necessary. The "three Rs" are guiding principles for the use of animals in research in most countries:
Replacement refers to the preferred use of non-animal methods over animal methods whenever it is possible to achieve the same scientific aim.
Reduction refers to methods that enable researchers to obtain comparable levels of information from fewer animals, or to obtain more information from the same number of animals.
Refinement refers to methods that alleviate or minimize potential pain, suffering or distress, and enhance animal welfare for the animals still used.
The government is trying. But I think they can try harder. I think animal testing is wrong.The suffering and death of these animals is completely unnecessary in the making of products like your shampoo, eye shadow, more shampoo and toilet cleaner. No law requires animal testing of cosmetics or personal care and household cleaning products, so manufacturers of these products have no excuse for inflicting suffering on animals. Companies that test these types of products on animals should be boycotted until they change to a non-animal-testing policy.
You may think companies that test on animals do so for your safety, but these tests usually aren’t reliable in determining a chemical’s effect on humans. Reactions can vary greatly from species to species so it is quite difficult to come to any conclusions about what a substance will do to humans by testing it on a rabbit. In fact, a product that made a test animal go blind could still be sold to you. What is the point of that? Are animals human? Do humans and animals have the same immune system? No! Laboratories even test products on FISH. Fish live in water, have a completely different immune system and don’t react to things like people do. No matter what animal they use there is always going to be a 50/50 chance whether or not the product is safe. We have so many shampoo, soap, and make-up brands. Do we really need more for your own selfish use?
“Animals are routinely cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years, although studies show that because of vast physiological variations between species, human reactions to illnesses and drugs are completely different from those of other animals. Today's non-animal research methods are humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments, yet change comes slowly and many researchers are unwilling to switch to superior technological advances. Animal experimentation not only is preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year.” -StopAnimalTests.com
"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenterswhy it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction." -Professor Charles R. Magel
“The question is not can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer? -Jeremy Bentham 1788
I, one day, hope to find a way to use human cells to test products on so animal testing will be a thing of the past. I hope to make an animal testing revolution
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