Should Animals Be Used in Scientific Research

Pro’s o Finding drugs and treatments to improve health and medicine. There are already some lifesaving medical breakthroughs that are the result of animal testing, like open heart surgery, organ transplants, effective insulin, vaccines for deadly diseases, … o It is the most accurate way to learn the effects of substances in a living body o Ensuring the safety of drugs and other substances o Human harm is reduced and human lives are saved but also animal lives are saved because of animal testing. o Many of the medications and procedures that we currently use today wouldn’t exist and the development of future treatments would be extremely limited. o Many argue that the lives of animals may be worthy of some respect, but the value we give on their lives does not count as much as the value we give to human life. o Using cell cultures can only reveal side effects on a molecular level and cannot unfortunately, reveal side effects like organ failure, rashes, tumors, or cardiac arrest like animal testing can. o Using computer models cannot always predict unknown variables that can be discovered with animal testing. o Animals may not have the exact same philology as humans but animal testing is accurate enough to test whether a substance is even safe enough for human trials.
Cons
- The costs-
The housing of the animals, feeding, carrying, treatments, controlling the environment, is very expensive
Animals used for testing are usually obtained from specific breeding facilities and come with a high price tag.
- Morality -
Animals have the right to live their own life; and we are not allowed to meddle with them just because we can.
It is not worth euthanizing animals for the benefit of mankind.
The animals are mostly euthanized after research or others are wounded and live their life in captivity
- Necessity/validity –
The drugs tested on the animals will never actually seem to have approval and have benefit to humans.
Sometimes it is not important enough to sacrifice an