Imagine being captured, taken away from what you have known your entire life. You have been put in a small room, so small you can’t move. The next day, someone takes you outside, but they inject you with something that causes crippling pain, and puts you back in the room, paying no mind to the state and pain you are in. However, imagine this ten times worse and for the rest of your life. Now, as you are a human, this would be considered unlawful, and the person doing that would be jailed, but this is the reality for many animals that are tested on for experiments and products. Animal testing must be banned everywhere because it is unethical, unnecessary, and is dangerous to the environment. Expanding on this, many of the times, during experiments, animals are hurt to find out if the product is safe for humans, which is unacceptable.
Animal testing is highly unethical as it causes pain to the animals used, physically and mentally. During many of the operations, products are applied to the animals, either on top of the skin, or inside the animal, and at the time of the tests, various times many animals are not given any anesthesia to numb the pain. Research of the care of the animals during testing that took place in England during 2013 and 2014 shows statistics that say that 71% of the animals are not given proper anesthesia, which means only 29% of the animals do get anesthesia. All of the tests involve some response to the products, and so the subjects feel everything, from pain to relaxation. Also, animals are used until their death, so they are suffering the entire time both physically and the mentally from the toll of being in a small space without escape. These tests also change the animals physically and mentally, and so there is no chance of release for them and will be made to stay as long as they are alive. Moreover, these animals do not have much hope of being more cared for, as many times the Animal Welfare Acts around the world, exclude the actions taken towards animals in the lab. The harm done to animals for products testing is distasteful. Furthermore, animal testing is as harmful to the animals being tested on as it is to the surrounding environment.
Every day, labs testing on animals pump out tons of waste and toxins from the experiments and endangers the animals, which consequently damages the environment and ecosystem. The reason for the experimentation of products on animals is to see if the goods would be harmful to humans, meaning that the products can be toxic. Consequently, the release of these toxins into the surrounding environments damages the plants and animals all around them. These toxins are not the only harmful substances the labs pump out, along with this, they release waste from the animals. This also harms the environment, as the toxins and waste are taken into the soil, and then into plants which is deleterious to the plant, as it is soaked into the earth, the toxins get washed into water sources and can be deadly to anything that drinks from it. Although labs are not permitted to release animal test subjects, they may be released accidentally either as a result of a natural disaster, or another reason, and if they are released, the consequences are hazardous. One example of this is the Ōkunoshima, which is an island near Japan infested with millions of rabbits. Many people believe the cause of the numerous amount of the fluffy, adorable creatures is that there was a lab testing on rabbits, and they were released due to a natural disaster that took a toll on the island. As there are no natural predators of the rabbit on that island, the rabbits rapidly increased in numbers. Although they cannot create harm in a small quantity, now they have become thousands of small lawn mowers, eating the grass and plant life dangerously fast, to the point plants cannot keep up, creating a significant imbalance of the ecosystem. Another reason researchers and scientists are concerned about the toll of animal testing on the environment is the fact that some of the tests involve animals like primates that take a long time to create young and reach. So, this affects the number of animals in that species, and this can be harmful to species that are endangered like orangutans and gorillas. Products being tested in labs effects the environment in detrimental ways, and it must be stopped. Along with this, animal testing is entirely irrelevant and avoidable, making it more apparent that animal testing must end.
The experimentation of products on animals is also very unnecessary, and even dangerous to humans. As a result of our growing technology and knowledge in anatomy and medicine, many alternatives to animal testing have been created, and better ones are still on the way to being produced. One example of this is the extraction of specific human tissues and organs from willing participants, and apply the product to the muscle, to find the result of the product. Furthermore, the anatomy and biology of animals and humans are entirely different, from different brain connections to different types of tissue. Correspondingly, the tests of products on animals is faulty information for humans, and often do not work. Now, more and more researchers and scientists are starting to agree, as Michael O. Leavitt, the former secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says “Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.”. Many others agree along with Dr. Ronald W. Davis, a professor at Stanford University saying, “[Researchers] are so ingrained in trying to cure mice that they forget we are trying to cure humans.”. As a result of the different biology and anatomy, many of the products created become harmful to humans, an example of this is the notorious thalidomide testing. The drug thalidomide was tested on pregnant mice, and other animals to see the effect, and it seemed that it seemed to reduce nausea. Believing this would work on humans, researchers released this to the public to reduce nausea in pregnant women, the result of this was a limb-reduction defect in the babies of the women who took thalidomide. Thankfully, the product was taken off the shelves, but this only helps to proves that the testing of medicine and products on animals is hazardous. Overall, lab testing on animals is wasteful and unneeded. Animal testing must end; it causes more harm than it does good.
Since this is a more modern and advanced time, we must prevent the testing of products on animals; it is unethical, unnecessary, and detrimental to the environment. There are many other ways to find out if these products are safe, without harming animals, and the ecosystem. This means that it is not only the animals used that is suffering, but also the environment, humans, and the progression of medical science. So, when you open another bottle of conditioner, remember the harm done to the animals, and help fight against the research of products on animals.
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