Pros And Cons Of Animal Testing

Can you imagine yourself as a small, frightened animal being poked, probed, sleep-deprived, starved, and then placed in a small cold, steel cage bleeding from having a chunk of your skin ripped out? This is what many animals go through every day of their lives for the sake of animal testing. Animal testing has been around since at least 500 B.C. when Greek scientists used animals to understand how various body organs functioned (Animal Testing Pros and Cons, 2014). Animal testing should be banned because it is cruel to animals, it is not always accurate, costly research and technological alternatives to animal testing now exist.
The phrase “animal testing” is well-known to most people, and one often sees products in the store that are advertised
There are many horrific forms of cruelty to animals which include: forcing chemical exposure in toxicity testing, which can includes oral force-feeding, forced inhalation, skin or injection into the abdomen, and/or muscle. Also, animals are exposed to drugs, chemicals or infectious disease at levels that cause illness, pain and distress, or death. Genetic manipulation, such as adding or “knocking out” of one or more genes is often performed on animals. Other types of experimentation require that researchers restrain animals in painful ways for the purpose of observation or examination. In addition to prolonged periods of physical restraint, many animals experience food and water deprivation, surgical procedures without anesthesia, and the infliction of wounds, burns and other injuries in order to study pain physiology and wound treatment (Humane International
However, this is far from the truth. In the 1960s, there was public outcry over the use of animals in scientific experiments. In response, the government created the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 as a way to regulate animal testing and protect animals. This federal law set minimum standards of care and housing for animals such as, dogs, cats, primates, rabbits, hamsters, and guinea pigs for both animal dealers and laboratories. Also, the laboratories were required to be registered. This law was extended to protection to all warm-blooded animals in the laboratory. Ironically, this law only applies to a small percentage of animals used in testing. The AWA reports that approximately 1.28 million animals per year are used in animal testing, gravely underestimating the number of animals used in experiments each year. The reason why? Certain types of animals are exempt from reporting. In fact, 95% of animals that are used in experiments are not protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which excludes birds, rats and mice bred for research, and cold-blooded animals such as reptiles and most fish” (Animal Welfare Institute). Thus, most animals used in research are not reported and statistics on the number of animals used each year in testing can be misleading. If these animals are not reported to the Animal Welfare Act, then they are not protected by the AWA legislation and their