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Alana Phillips
Professor Walpole
ENC 1101
5 August 2014
Animal Testing:
How long is enough?
Time and time again the helpless mice are tortured, and forced to inhale toxic fumes.
They’re thrown into barren cages with probably over twenty other mice; cramped, they begin to attack each other or take their own lives due to the high level of stress. Animal testing has been going on for centuries, but how long is enough? These animals are treated like nothing more than just disposable laboratory equipment and each year, over 100 million animals die in US laboratories. Animal testing should be completely outlawed because it is unreliable and expensive, cruel and inhumane, speciesism and unfair .
Animal testing is always being questioned whether or not it’s actually reliable, but the truth is it’s not. For example, the arthritis drug Vioxx appeared to be safe in animal studies, but was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after causing over 60,000 deaths in the U.S. alone
(“Limitations and Dangers”). Many scientists forget about the important factors that still need to be taken into account. Any experiment conducted must be unbiased and uncontaminated or else the results are deemed to be inaccurate. In one study, researchers discovered that not only is stress a common factor for mice in labs—just having a researcher present can alter a mouse’s behavior—but they also experience “sympathy pains” for the mice surrounding them

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(“Limitations and Dangers”). Another issue that proves animal testing is unreliable because of the difference in the anatomy between humans and animals. Acetaminophen, for example, is poisonous to cats but is a therapeutic in humans; penicillin is toxic in guinea pigs but has been an invaluable tool in human medicine; morphine causes hyper­excitement in cats but has a calming effect in human patients; and oral contraceptives prolong blood­clotting times in dogs but increase a human’s risk of developing blood clots (“Problems with Animal Research”).
Minus the inaccuracy of animal testing the US Government still continues to pour billions of taxpayer’s money into these experiments. It would be hard to explain to the growing number of unemployed people struggling to survive — and the families losing their homes — that the federal government is still giving money to vivisectors to find out over and over again that drugs and cigarettes are still bad for you (“The High Cost”). Many laboratories and investors are dependent upon this multi­ billion dollar industry to continue whether or not it’s benefiting the people. As an example of such financial motivation for its continuance, consider for example that in 2010, The Jackson Laboratory—“a leading mammalian genetics research center”—sold
2.9 million mice for a profit of $98.7 million (“Limitations and Dangers”). This is what becomes ethically wrong about animal testing, it’s more about the money than the cause so why should we continue to torment these animals who simply wish to live in peace.
In addition to being unreliable and expensive, animal testing is simply cruel and inhumane. In research and testing, animals are subjected to experiments that can include everything from testing new drugs to infecting with diseases, poisoning for toxicity testing, burning skin, causing brain damage, implanting electrodes into the brain, maiming, blinding, and

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Animals deserve to live a natural life, not one in constant fear.
They experience ongoing mental and physical suffering from the endless boredom, confinement, fear, and emotional stress