For the "Benefit" of Human Society: Animal Testing
... implications of this test are that it tests toxic levels for mice and rabbits, not for humans. Many of the animals die due to the volume of material injected into them, not due to the toxicity of the material. (Animal Alliance, 2004). Animals and humans are quite different and the way their bodies react to certain stimulants or in this case, chemicals, varies drastically. A test can be done on an animal and kill it instantly, but a human can actually benefit from this same substance. For example, penicillin will kill a cat but it saves many human lives. (CAAT, 2004). Many famous corporations in the cosmetics industry use animals as their primary source of safety testing. Clairol, Clorox, Sally Hansen, Cover Girl, Olay and Oral-B are among some of these companies, to name a few. (PETA, 2004). Revlon, a major cosmetics corporation, was one of the first to fund research for alternatives to animal testing. (All for Animals, 2000). Many companies are choosing to use different methods for testing their products because people are speaking up about it and exposing much of this animal cruelty to the public. As long as people are aware of the occurrences of this testing and animal liberationists speak up, advances will continually be made. If testing on animals is good for human society, can it be easily justified? Testing on animals concerning medicine and advancements in the medical field are taken more seriously than cosmetics because in some cases, one animal’s life can save thousands of human lives. In many cases although experiments are not carried out humanely, they surpass anti-cruelty statutes if they are conducted properly. Most often, officials do not have the time to visit laboratories more than once or twice a year so experimenters have a lot of freedom to carry out tests the way they want. (PETA, 2004). It can be argued that animals are necessary for medical research for the development of vaccines and treatments, but animals react much differently than humans to drugs. Animals are constantly being used to find a cure for AIDS even though these animals do not develop the AIDS virus. It is somewhat dangerous to apply data from one species to another because any one detail can vary and the whole experiment and result is misinterpreted. (CAAT, 2004). A good example of the dangers of animal testing happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s with a drug called Thalidomide. After being safety tested on thousands of animals, it came on the market as a sedative for pregnant women; however, around the world, 10 000 children of the mothers taking this sedative were born with deformities. (CAAT, 2004). Obviously animal testing is not always efficient in finding correlations between effects on humans and animals because both species differ so greatly. Another empirical example would be that of the war on cancer. So much time and money has gone into attempts at cures and treatments, much of it with animals, but cancer rates continue to rise. Obviously many factors can be mentioned to justify cancer rates increasing, but if so much effort and animal testing has gone into this research, why are there no sufficient results? Where can we draw the line concerning justification for using animals in research? If it is feasible to use animals in experimentation, is it then feasible to use infants considering they have no more intelligence than a non-human animal? If this is the case, it could be reasonable to use mentally handicapped humans with no chance of development in experiments. When experimenters maintain that their procedures are vital enough to use animals, “we should ask them whether they would be prepared to use a brain-damaged human being at a similar mental level to the animals they are planning to use.” (Peter Singer, 2002, p.83). If experimenters use animals to attempt to save peoples’ lives, they should be prepared to ask for human volunteers instead. Perhaps this is seen as unethical, but to exploit and torture animals is almost worse. Experiments that serve no direct purpose are often referred to as unethical because they are unnecessarily putting animals through pain and torture. Many procedures are done on animals even though researchers know the outcome or deem it as inconsequential. Experiments on dogs such as learned helplessness, “a model of depression in humans,” (Singer, 2002, p.45), is unnecessary. If they know it is a form of depression in humans, there is no need to test it on animals because humans and animals react differently to stimulants or lack thereof. In this experiment, dogs are administered electric shocks to discourage them from jumping between compartments in a shuttle box. After several days, the dogs stopped trying to jump away from the shocks and thus learned to be helpless. (Singer, 2002, p.45). What exactly did this experiment prove regarding human life? It seems to be quite a pointless procedure. Another such experiment was to determine the effects of heat on dogs, kittens, rats and rabbits. If one were to think about it, they would obviously assume that overheating will eventually cause damage to an animal, so why the need to heat them to death? They administered high temperatures until the animals convulsed, vomited blood and died. (Singer, 2002, p.62). These experiments resulted in conclusions such as, “the sooner the heatstroke victim’s temperature is brought down, the greater the chances of recovery.” (Singer, 2002, p.63). How can experimenters possibly justify this? It is simply common knowledge that if a being, whether human or non-human becomes too hot, you attempt to lower their temperature. Animal cruelty in this case is completely unethical and unnecessary but those who perform such experiments see it only as being their job and at night, they go home to their families and do not reconsider the horrors of their day. Animal testing is such a controversial topic because one could justify it by saying that it saves human lives, b...