Animal Testing
... use as few animals as possible and that they are treated humanely to the extent that science allows. However, the actual testing process cannot always be monitored and it is scary to discover all of the horrible, disgusting things that some testers do to animals. Navarre 2 One example is at Allergan’s laboratories. Allergan, which is the administrator for Botox, tests every batch of Botox using “the notorious LD (Lethal Dose) 50 Test, which estimates the potency at which 50% of the injected animals die. This test lasts three to four days, during which the poison paralyzes muscles as it moves through the animal’s body. Ultimately, the mice die from suffocation, undoubtedly after considerable distress” (P.A.W.S. 2004). The most commonly used animals are mice and rats. Yet there are other animals that are also used. Each year about five million dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, monkeys, and other animals die in LD tests done in the U.S. There are many different techniques experimenters use to get the substances into the animals. They can inject it with a needle into the skin, a vein, or the lining of the abdomen. The substance can be mixed with food for the animals. It can be applied to the eyes, rectum, and vagina or inhaled by means of a gas mask attached to the animals’ face. A tube placed through the animals’ mouths leading towards their stomachs or simply just forcing the substance down are two other cruel ways that animals receive the testing substance. The animals’ reactions to the substance vary. Fifty percent of the animals will die in two to three weeks. The lucky survivors will suffer from eye, nose, and mouth bleeding, convulsions, labored breathing, diarrhea, constipation, skin eruption, and abnormal posture. Yet there are cheaper, efficient, and more realistic methods to testing products, and these methods will bring the U.S. into the future without inhumane treatment of animals. The most common types of alternative methods are: in-vitro tests, computer software, and databases of tests already performed (to avoid duplication). The specific tests are Eytex, Skintex, EpiPack, Neutral Red Bioassay, Testskin, TOPKAT, Ames Test, and Agarose Diffusion Navarre 3 Method.. Eytex mixes the protein from a jack bean, which mimics the cornea, with a substance to find the eye irritancy. A pumpkin rind acts as human skin in the Skintex method. Cloned human tissue produced by Clonetics is the testing material in the EpiPack. Clonetics helps again with providing human cells that they grew to measure toxicity in the Neutral Red Bioassay test. Testskin uses human skin grown in a sterile plastic bag to measure irritancy, which is used by Avon, Amway, and Estee Lauder. Computer software takes a stand in the TOPKAT test in which a computer software program measures to...