Why Is Animal Testing Unethical

Animal experimentation has become a highly debated topic in today's society. Some people believe that scientists should be allowed to test new drugs, medicines, and treatments on animals, but this testing is completely uncalled for. Animal experimentation should be outlawed because it is unethical, unnecessary, and unreliable.
Animal testing is unethical because animals have feelings, just like humans, but they are treated inhumanely in labs because there are not sufficient laws to control what can and cannot be done to animals used for experimentation. Research animals live unnatural, stressful, and dull lives as they are confined in small cages, all by themselves, and are deprived of food, water and attention. As if that wasn't bad enough,
Over the years, the "3Rs of Alternatives "—which was first described in the book The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique by William Russell and Rex Burch—has become the most popular way to slowly dissociate from the old, outdated ways used now. This concept reduces the number of animals used for testing, refines experiments so animals have less pain and suffering, and replaces animal experimentation with alternative methods (Stokes 1297-1298). Opponents may argue that without animal testing there would be no other options, but that is simply not true. Some alternative methods including computer modeling and in vitro testing are more accurate, more humane, and much
Opponents who support animal experimentation may argue that if scientists did not test new drugs and medicines on animals then they would have to be tested on humans, but the truth is that new drugs and medicines are already tested on humans. It does not matter how many tests are done on animals, someone will always be the first person to test a new drug or medicine. The part that makes this even scarier is the fact that, according to Andrew C. Von Eschenbach, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), "Today, nine out of ten compounds developed in the lab fail in human studies. They fail, in large part because they behave differently in people than they did in animal or laboratory tests" (qtd. in "Animal Testing Proves Unreliable"). Not only that, of the one out of ten compounds that are approved by the FDA, half have to be relabeled because new side effects were found in humans. This is a shocking statistic; it shows that the twelve billion dollars being spent on animal testing in the United States each year is all for nothing (“Animal Testing Proves