Is animal cruelty acceptable?
One of the largest factors of unnecessary deaths of animals is animal experimentation. Do you know that the shampoo you use has probably been forced down the throats of rabbits, cats and probably even dogs? Every year millions of animals are used to test how safe and effects products such as medicines and cosmetics are. In the U.S alone millions of animals are killed in laboratories every year. In the U.S in 2009 1.13 million animals were used in experiments (excluding rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and agricultural animals used in agricultural experiments), plus an estimated 100 million mice and rats and 76,001 were subjected to pain without pain relief. Animal experimenters attempt to recreate human diseases in labs and then test them on healthy animals using deliberate and violent methods. Substances are injected into the animals, chemicals are force-fed, irritants are rubbed into the eyes and skin, and even testing of animal fetuses is involved. 50% of the animals die after 2-3 weeks of this testing, and the rest are left to suffer. Many of the substances tested are never given approval for human use or consumption. This is not acceptable as replacement techniques such as computer models are now available. Three animals are dying in labs every second of every day, by the time you have read this, over 600 animals will have died in these labs.
However there also some advantages to animal testing. One of the advantages of animal testing is that it allows researchers to develop new medications and treatments. For example, many drugs used to treat or prevent cancer, HIV, diabetes, infections and other medical diseases have resulted from tests performed on animals. Animal testing also enables scientists and researchers to test the safety of medications and other substances that humans use regularly. Drugs, for instance, may pose significant risks to humans, so testing them on animals first gives researchers a chance to determine drugs' safety before human trials are performed. While scientists are aware of the differences between humans and animals, the similarities are considered significant enough to produce relevant, useful data that they can then apply to humans. This means animal testing reduces harm to humans and saves lives.
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