Some people argue that all experimentation on animals is bad and should be outlawed. However, others believe that important scientific discoveries can be made from animal experiments. Can experimentation on animals be justified? Are there any alternatives?
Justified. Why?
- The clinical trials conducted on animals has allowed us to ensure that the products and procedures are safe for human consumption.
- Many medicines and surgical processes perfected have helped save billions of lives
- Humans being deemed as superior creatures cannot be used as subjects
- None, the pharma companies, would want lawsuits on them
- The creatures being used for tests are not exotic and are otherwise also killed in huge numbers every year as they considered as pests
Not. Yes?
- Humans have not created animals but nature, so they do not have right to inflict poor on the poor beings
Alternatives
- Human tissue cloning has earned earned some success and the new products can be tried on those.
The debate surrounding conducting clinical trials on animals is the most heated in the healthcare and cosmetics sectors. While this practice is deemed as acceptable, some raise concerns, which though can be overlooked in the favor of public good at large.
Discovery of numerous vaccines, medicines, surgical procedures, and so on, requires a trial on living beings in order to determine their impact on physiological functions, and outcomes, so it is justified to experiment on animals, as without this, medicines, procedure, or even cosmetics cannot be deemed fit for human consumption. Several ailments inflicting kidney, brain and heart, and terminal illnesses: cancer, facing humans have been treated using remedies and procedures perfected through this arrangement, saving billions of lives that would have been lost to preventable disease.
Moreover, there is little room for objections regarding these settings; the fauna used to carry out research is not exotic, or nearing extinction, but those such as monkeys and rodents that are considered to be a menace, and culled in millions by farmers, animal control boards and other agencies through either poisoning or being shot.
As far as exploring alternatives is concerned, there are few alternatives, except using cloned human tissue to evaluate the effectiveness of medical intervention on humans, which is yet to prove its credentials by virtue of being in its rudimentary stage, and needs more research to realise its potential. However, till then the invaluable human life cannot be left at its own device to fend for itself against ailments and diseases.
Overall, objections raised by the critics of animal testing fail to hold ground in the face of the need to provide effective safeguards against illnesses, infections and disabilities, and medical conditions. This must continue until a potent alternative to this system is discovered.
