Safety first. Testing products is a great way to make sure that what people are using is not harmful to them, but how do we truly know if it is safe? Companies are testing their products on something we are completely different from. Animals and humans are very different and can react differently to the same product. Animal testing causes more harm than good. It is also a huge waste of money, the experiments are always flawed and they are never completely safe. Drugs that pass animal tests are not always safe. The Thalidomide tragedy is a great example. In the 1950s to 1960s, Thalidomide which is a sleeping pill was marketed as an off-label drug that most pregnant women used. with fail, 10,000 babies were born with severe deformities. The major deformity that most children had was phocomelia, which is the shortened, absent or flipper-like limbs. Next is an arthritis drug called Vioxx. This drug had a protective effect on the animal test subject's heart, but ended up giving more than 27,000 heart attacks. According to David Graham’s testimony to the US Senate Finance Committee he said, “Nearly 60,000 people probably died from that drug. That’s as many of our soldiers that were killed in the
According to Senator Jeff Flake, In 2016 alone over $7.3 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted on studies involving animals. PETA even found $56.4 million of government funds are spent on animal experiments. For example, the cost of an animal test for skin corrosion is $1,800, yet for the alternative it costs $500 to $850. Another example is the cost of an animal test for non-genotoxic cancer risk which is $700,000, yet for the alternative it costs $22,000. The animal test is $678,000 more than the alternative. One of the best alternatives is the synthetic liver. Created by the Biotechnology company Empiriko, this “liver” can predict the liver’s metabolic reactions to drugs making it quicker, more accurate and