Wanting Li
Professor Denise Doell
EAC 150
13 August 2010
Animal testing
22 animals die every second around the world and one animal dies every five seconds in Britain ("Animal"). Millions of animals undergo painful suffering or death as a result of scientific research in to the effects of drugs, cosmetics, and other chemical products ("Animal"). Laboratory animals are generally used in three fields: product safety evaluation, biomedical research and education. Approximately 17-22 million animals are used in research annually ("Animal"). Every year, thousands of new cosmetics or household products are sold in the marketplace. Do you know if these products have been animal testing plenty of times before they are put on the shelves? Each and every medication used by humans is first tested on animals. When people take vaccines and antibiotics, a massive amount of animals died because they are infected by the illness that scientists try to cure. The unrestricted and unnecessary animal testing should be banned because it is without any use, unethical, and expensive.
Animal testing is pointless because animals are different from people. Animals and people have similar organs, but it does not mean those organs have the same functions. Some animal tests claim that lemon juice is a deadly poison, but arsenic, botulism and hemlock are very safe ("Animal"). In reality, people can enjoy lemon juice but not arsenic, botulism or hemlock. Moreover, Dr. Richard Klaussner, the director of the United States National Cancer Institute, says “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse… We have cured mice of cancer for decades – and it simply didn’t work in humans” (Archibald). The reactions from people and animals are not the same. Few breakthroughs have been made through animal testing. There have been continuous errors and failures in animal testing. According to some statistics, only 2 per cent or 1.16 per cent of human...