Animal research or animal experiment is the use of non-human animals in scientific research. Animals testing has played a crucial role to determine the safety of products such as drugs, household items, cosmetics, pesticide products etc. before applying them to humans. However, many people believe that using animals in experiments should never be used for research purpose.
According to the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Federal Statistical Office, 2.798 million animals have used in Germany in 2014. Annual statistics of scientific procedures on living animals (2014). On the other hand, the welfare of animals has concentrated with the improving technology many countries try to find alternative methods to avoid using animals in scientific research. The aim of this paper is to represent the widespread use of animals in research, with a specific focus on evidence of the advantages and disadvantages of using animals in medical research.
Using animals in laboratory has well-known along the history. The first experiments go back to the ancient Greece when insulin has been discovered. Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated the diphtheria toxin from dog's pancreas. In fact, it had been found that the urine of a dog contain sugar which indicated the connection between pancreas and diabetes. As a result, they successfully attempt to use extract of pancreas to treat diabetes. Dimitrios and Karamitsos (2011).
The use of animals will continue in the future as
Worldwide, there has always been a plethora of issues concerning whether animals should or should not be used for biomedical research. There are some advocating for the best and most-advanced medicine for the people; with disregard for the animal’s health. They believe people’s needs should be the first concern. However, others put the animal’s health first. If the animal is not in safe conditions, then it does not matter what medicine advances might be discovered. Biomedical research is defined as “The application of the natural sciences, especially the biological and physiological sciences, to clinical medicine” (“Biomedicine.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/biomedical.). Without biomedical research on animals, modern medicine would not exist. Animal testing has enabled the findings of treatments for cancer, antibiotics for infections, and preventatives for illnesses. For these reasons, animal testing should be used in the process of developing biomedical research.
Animal experimentation, also known as animal research and animal testing, is an experimental procedure in which animals are used within academic, scientific, research, biological and commercial establishments. It is when using live animals is considered legal, protected and regulated by law, because their ability to benefit humans is very important. Moreover, people of the world have improved their understanding about their lives, their health, the problems related to health and how to solve them, how to prevent them in the future by carrying out such experiments on animals. It could be argued that scientists over the world would not have developed e.g. their knowledge about animal behavior or probability of effects of products on humans
Animal testing has contributed to many life-saving cures, treatments, and major advances in understanding and treating conditions such as breast cancer, childhood leukemia, brain injuries, cystic fibrosis, malaria, multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis, and many others, and was instrumental in the development of pacemakers, cardiac valve substitutes, and anesthetics. Using animals as research subjects is appropriate because they are similar to human beings in many ways.
Animals should not be used for scientific experiments. According to ‘Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?’ Animals are so different from human beings that research
The practice of using animals in medical research has led to significant scientific leaps in the treatment of various diseases. It is necessary for the preventing, detecting, and curing of many diseases. This research has helped with disease such as AIDS, heart disease, artificial arteries, spinal cord injuries, leprosy, malaria, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer 's disease, epilepsy, a variety of birth defects and countless others (Derbyshire). None of this would have happened without animal experimentation.
Animals that are put forward to medical experimentation contribute to cures and treatments that have saved many lives. The California Biomedical Research Association states that “nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals.” (California Biomedical Research Association). Animals that are used for these tests have contributed incredible discoveries on unimaginable areas starting on Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Heart Disease/Stroke, Diabetes, Birth Defects, and Spinal Cord Injuries. Animal testing has made medical discoveries to go from antibiotics to blood transfusions, from
The testing of animals in scientific and commercial research has been debated for many years. Some people view animals as companions or part of the family, but others think of them as a way to advance medicine by providing researchers with a means to develop better medical techniques, discovering vaccines, and helping to find a cure for a disease. Regardless of how a person may view animals, they are worthy of better protection by our government and us as a society. Although some animal testing has been successful, there are research alternatives that could eliminate the pain, suffering, and deaths that animals endure in scientific research. Therefore, animals should not be used in scientific research
As you can see with these examples, it is absolutely necessary to use animals in research; for diseases that currently exist and for the ones yet to be discovered. There is no doubt that using animals to test products and to develop lifesaving medications and surgical procedures have improved our quality of life
Animal research, also known as in vivo testing, is the use of animals for experiments. Experimentation on animals dates back to as early as 500 BC, making this form of medical education and research one of the most fundamental known to humans. Almost 400 years ago, a doctor named William Harvey used animals to discover how blood circulated in the body. This discovery is considered the spark of the scientific revolution in which many lives were saved all thanks to the help of animal testing. The modern era of animal research started about 150 years ago with the rise of physiology as a science. Today, fruit flies and mice are the most common test subjects used for animal testing. About 50 to 100 million vertebrate and invertebrate animals are used around the world every year. The source of the animals varies depending on the species of the animal and the country where the experimentation is taking place. Most animals used for experiments are bred for this purpose. Animals are used for experiments inside universities, medical schools, farms, large companies and other places that provide animal-testing services. It has been proven that almost every medical discovery in the 20th century and even up to this century used animals in some way. Many scientists reaffirm that even complex computers cannot model connections between molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms and the environment.
There is no argument that animals have played a critical role in medical research and paved the way for antidotes, cures and remedies for humans throughout history. Aristotle, who lived back in the fourth century B.C., is one of the first to be recorded as experimenting on a living animal. Back in the 1920s there was experimental testing on dogs which gave conclusive evidence to the functions the pancreas has on producing insulin. Before this, diabetes was untreatable, unmanageable and would easily result in death in humans (The Discovery of Insulin). Although testing on animals has been beneficial to us in many instances, there are several examples that prove testing on animals has hurt rather than helped the process. Many scientists argue that the physiological makeup of an animal differs strongly from that of a human resulting in different outcomes of drugs and other experiments. There has been a strong connection between smoking and lung cancer dating back to the 1960s, however all experiments done with animals failed to show
For thousands of years animals have been used as research subjects, but with the advancement of science and society, animal experimentation has morphed into a controversial bioethics topic. Animal experimentation is the use of animals in scientific research. This experimentation ranges from testing pharmaceuticals on rats to measuring the elasticity of tendons in rabbits to implanting mechanical devices in calves. And while the FDA has dozens of guidelines to keep animal testing as ethical as possible, a strong opposition to animal research (particularly mammalian research) still exists.
It is often argued by many people that using animals for scientific research and experimentation have led to several major medical breakthroughs and is a safer alternative
Animal testing is any scientific experiment in which live animals are forced to endure certain things that will likely cause them fear, suffering, and pain. Animals are deliberately harmed and usually die towards the end of the experiment. A few experiments involve, injecting or force-feeding animals harmful or foreign substances, exposing animals to situations to cause anxiety or fear, exposing animals to radiation and so much more.
Every year there are millions of animals killed for scientific purposes. The reason we use animals is because they have similar organs to humans. Researchers can gain
Each year 20 million animals are produce and breed for the only purpose but to be tested on. Fifty-three thousands of animals are used each year in medical and veterinary schools. The rest is used in basic research. The demand for animals in the United States