1
Katherine Wimmer
Mrs. Milliron
English 11
May 5, 2009
Animal Experimentation: Obsolete in Today’s World
Imagine a young girl, sitting in her dinning room with her loving family. She is about to partake in her mother’s famous lasagna, when suddenly, huge creatures burst into the room and grab the little girl and her family. The leering eyed creatures stuff the innocent family into cages, too small for their bodies, and shove them into vans. As the girl’s last days roll by she watches both herself and her family being treated like “tens of millions of animals hidden in laboratories on college campuses and research facilities being dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and blinded.” (“The truth about …show more content…
This is all due to the simple fact that “animals of different ages, sexes, developmental stages and of different health status can all respond differently to experimental treatments.” (“Animal Testing”). Even with all of the perils, scientists persist on risking the health of patients by relying on animal experiments to foretoken the outcome of drugs in Homo sapiens. A major drug mishap happened in March 13, 2006. The drug was called TGN1412 it was created to treat B cell chronic lymphocyte leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis. Eight volunteers were given small doses in the Northwick Park Hospital in London. They became seriously ill and had to be placed in intensive care. Four suffered multiple organ dysfunction and one person showed signs of cancer, the last three either died or fell into a coma. (Saunders). Another example is the first attempt at heart lung transplants that were supposedly ‘perfected’ on animals. The first three humans died within 23 days. Of the 28 operated on from 1981 to 1085, 8 died peri-operatively and 10 developed a lung complication that didn’t show up in the dogs who were experimented on. Of those ten, four died and three never breathed again without the aid of a respirator. (50 Disasters). Finally, Vioxx from Merck, this drug alone killed more Americans than all the ones who died bravely in the Vietnam War, yet it was deemed safe in eight studies using six animals species (Erbe). These are not the only drugs that have cause human fatalities; many other drugs have had severe and even lethal effects in people after demonstrating safety in animal