Why Should Animal Testing Be Banned

Animal testing is a highly controversial topic and it raises a moral dilemma about whether it is ethical to harm animals in order to improve human lives, with many people strongly demanding that this practice be banned. In this essay, I shall argue that animal testing is justified since the benefits resulting from it outweigh the harms and thus should not be banned. Firstly, scientific research involving animals has had an essential importance in developing new medicines. According to the California Biomedical Research Association, most of the medical breakthroughs in the 20th century resulted from animal testing. For instance, penicillin, one of the most important discoveries in human history, which is estimated to have saved around 200 million lives, was tested on mice. Insulin, thanks to which millions of people suffering from diabetes mellitus are still alive and lead fairly normal lives, was discovered through experiment
Although this may be partly true, in most of the cases animal do not experience any considerable pain. According to a 2004 USDA annual report, 57% of all research procedures using animals involved no more than a slight pain (i.e. injection). In 34% of the procedures, anesthesia and postoperative painkillers were used to relieve the pain. Only in 9% of the procedures, neither anesthesia nor painkillers could be used as they would have interfered with research results. Besides, in most developed countries there are strict laws regulating experiments conducted on animals. For example, in UK, animal testing is regulated under the Animals Act 1986 . The act stipulates that before starting any kind of research involving animals, a harm–benefit analysis must be done. In other words, competent authorities must estimate the likely harms experienced by the animals and the likely benefits to be delivered and then decide whether these benefit justify the