Animal experiments are used widely around the world they are mostly used to develop new types of medicines. They are mainly used for testing the medicines for safety reasons. There are a lot of people who agree with this and many who disagree with these experiments. One person who agrees with animal testing is Lynne U Sneddon who believes” millions of animals are killed for food each year if anything research is a more worthy death” If animals die to feed humans then why cant they die to save humans life’s?
Due to these tests on animals it has helped to develop vaccines to fight against different diseases such as rabies, polio or measles and many more diseases. Animal experiments have helped to develop organ transplants, keyhole surgery and open heart surgery all of these have helped to save human life every day. Although animal experiments has helped to save human life there have also been cases of the medicines that have been safety tested on hundreds of animals to harm humans and even cause death . The most famous example of this is the Thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s and 70s.
This drug was suppose to be a sedative for pregnant or breast feeding woman and supposedly caused no harm to the mother or child. Although all of the safety testing at least ten thousand children whose mothers had taken the” wonderful dedative”were born throughout the world with severe deformities. Another case of this took place in the 1970s, clioquinol and was manufactured in Japan. It was released on the market to provide safe relief from diarrhoea. Due to clioquinol being released to the public it didn’t help to cure the symptom and actually caused diarrhoea.
There were also thirty thousand cases of blindness and paralysis and caused thousands of deaths. So even though scientists claim that animal research works and saves human life. There have been cases where animal life has been ended and also many humans lives. But there have been so many successful vaccines, drugs and life saving surgery developed against very fatal diseases to help minimize the pain and even cases where they have cured the disease completely. Some cases scientists have had to implant the disease within the animal which some people agree with as it minimises animal suffering.
Due to this method of analysing the animals with the disease scientists were able to create many life saving antibiotics. Without these medicines and antibiotics these diseases could have spread rapidly causing wide spread illness or death. Although all of this not all scientists are convinced that these tests are valid and useful. some scientists think this due to the fact that animals are not needed as much to the advancement of medicine as is typically claimed proponents of animal experimentation.
As there are different ways to find and advance the benefits found from animal testing could be produced in other ways with the same vaccines and medicines being found. Even though scientists claim that animals do not feel pain or suffering in the same way as humans they could still feel pain in many other ways which is morally wrong to cause any pain or suffering. as these animals being experimented on have been given the same diseases that humans have which causes human suffering.
Tragic disasters with many human life’s being lost, therefore with more animal life’s being lost they would be saving more human life’s. ” Animal studies are always used alongside other types of research such as cell and tissue culture. Computer-modeling, human patients and volunteers are also crucial but some questions can only be answered though research on a living animal”. DR Bella Williams. DR Bella Williams is the head of engagement at Charity understanding Animal research and believes animals have a” small but vital role”
Some people who are against animal experimentations would disagree that animals are needed to produce more accurate vaccines and medicines in health care or conduct tests on the wrong species when highly developed computers and mathematical models, human tissue, cell cultures and smarter, more focused clinical studies can show us more accurately what happens to human bodies with diseases using these computers and mathematic techniques people believe that millions of animal life’s could be saved each and every year.
“Research institutions need urgently to rethink their policies, and align themselves with more progressive science” In conclusion to this on going argument my views on animal experiments are that it is morally wrong to cause pain and suffering to animals. I believe that animals do feel pain and suffering as if animals don’t feel the same pain as humans then they still shouldn’t be tested on to cure the diseases that cause humans harm and death. Now that computer and math’s technology is more advanced there should be ways in which scientist can cure major diseases and spare animal life.