Animal Testing

Animal Testing

Willie Perry III
November 16, 2010
Mrs. Evans

Final

Animal Testing

“There’s no easy walk to freedom, anywhere,” Nelson Mandela. This freedom that Nelson Mandela speaks about is relative to all living creatures, including animals. This is why I believe that animal experimentation should not be permitted. What if this was human experimentation? This is because animals are apart of life, and life is what makes the world. Animals are one of God’s creations, and people are destroying that. It can cause infections if the animals get out. There are laws against hunting animals, but what the government is not realizing is that by letting scientists experiment on those animals that they are trying to save, they are killing them just as fast. Animals are living, breathing creatures and should not be treated as if they were expendable; they feel pain just as we do. If animals were here just to kill off, they would not have been created in the first place. There are other sources one could use for experimentation. What these scientists fail to realize is that if it worked on animals it does not mean that it will always work on humans. We are true hypocrites, we talk about saving the animals from abusive owners but we do more damage then we can ever think of. People are willing to save the trees, but people are not willing to save these defenseless animals? If not us who will be the one’s to tell their story.

Animal testing dates back to the early writings of the Greeks in the third and fourth centuries BCE, with Aristotle and Erasistratus being among the first to perform experiments on living animals. In 1655 physiologist Edmund O’Meara is recorded as saying that the miserable torture of vivisection places the body in an unnatural state. In 1822 the first animal protection law was enacted in the British Parliament, followed by the cruelty to animal act in 1876. The first laws specifically aimed at regulating animal testing. In the 1880s and 1890s, Emil Von Behring isolated the diphtheria toxin and demonstrated its effects on guinea pigs. He went on to demonstrate immunity against diphtheria in animals in 1898 by injected a mix of toxin and antitoxin. Throughout the 20th century researchers that used live animals has lead to many other medical advances and treatment for human diseases.

If this was human experimentation everyone would be all for shutting it down, but since it is not really affecting them it does not matter. Mankind is truly selfish. Most people believe why help when it has nothing to do with me. Why you ask, because if it was you you would feel a whole different way about this.

God is the creator of all things and one of those happens to be animals. So if humans use animals as their guinea pigs for experiments, they are basically altering what God envisioned as perfect. Also, more and more animals are becoming extinct, and scientists aren’t helping that fact by killing animals with experiments. Animals feel emotions just as we do as people, so would you want to be experimented on as if you are nothing, I’m sure you wouldn’t. Think about this, if we did not have animals around what would people have used for their experiments then, hmm? I am sure that we could find a much more effective and less harmful way to do them.

If these animals were to somehow get out of these facilities at which they are in they can spread fatal diseases. These animals are being injected with deadly viruses and diseases, and sometimes even things that nobody ever heard of. Some of which of these viruses are incurable. If just one of these viruses gets out it could cause worldwide death and panic. Or how about the food you eat, if any of these animals were infected with something you ate it and cold become ill from it. For example, mad cow disease; it caused lots of people to become ill. And how about swine flu, it did not just come out of any where. It spread from one animal to another before it reached us.

People do not think, i.e. The “So Called” Government and its “So Called” laws for protecting animals. These laws only refer to hunters, but they do not include the more than harsh scientists that put them through all kinds of treatment daily. If the government wants to protect animals why not fully protect them, not only from getting shot, but from getting treated like nothing and scientific slaves for the rest of their short lived lives. You wonder why you see fewer animals in the world and on your city streets; on no not because of hunters 9 times out of 10 they are being used as experimental subjects.

True, animal testing leads to many different cures and cosmetic products. If not for animal testing lots of different medicines would not be hear today, and lots of people could have been dead by now. Cancer research and aids research all started with testing on animals. Also, animal testing is being used to find cures for different viruses and diseases today, but this still does not make it right.

Animals are living creatures, and the world is made of living beings. The food on our plates and the clothes on our back are made from some part of an animal, so if not for them we would starve and be naked. Most of our forms of entertainment deal with animals, i.e. sea world, the circus, an aquarium, and etc. If you have a watch dog that dog is an animal, so animals protect you from things that can harm you, so why can’t you protect them from something that is harmful to them, ask yourself that question.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2006 about 87,000 animals were used in experiments that would cause pain and/or distress that could not be relieved by anesthesia. Think of how these animals must feel being ripped away from there homes to be torched daily with diseases; and getting picked at and poked day after day after day. Picture this, one day you are in your home getting ready for bed, you go to sleep and wake up somewhere that is not your home and you are getting stuck and poked. You would not like that would you? Well that is how they feel when you take them from their homes and families. In the UK, researchers anesthetize the animals and kill them without them recovering to consciousness.

Why use animals, there are other things that can be used for experiments. Plants can be used instead of animals to be experimented on. In good of mankind and because of the economy, some people are willing to be guinea pigs, to get a few dollars, so scientists can use them in their experiments. Scientists can just change their test all together; they could find another way of doing it, without doing experiments using living creatures. Alternative ways are out there so why not use them.

These experimental drugs and products may be tested and worked on animals, but it may not work on people. Animals and humans are very much different, what is harmful to them may not harmful to us. What is harmful to us may not be harmful to them. Is beauty worth the price of beautiful creatures?

Animals are an essential part of our life and if we are experimenting on them, which will slowly kill them off, we are slowly depriving ourselves of the beauty of the world and the necessities of the world. You would not want someone to one day come to your home and take your family pet away would you? We should quite treating them as if they are purposeless and expendable, and start treating them as if they were apart of the beauty which makes the world. Without animals the world would be a dull lifeless place. Why let people exploit the lives and rights of animals just for the sake of science. It is not right to go along pretending that they do not understand what is happening to them. Stand up for the freedoms of those who can not stand up for themselves. If you were them you would want someone to help you, so why not help them. This is why I believe that animal experimentation should not be permitted.

Refrences

"Animal Testing." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Oct. 2010.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing.

Borade, By Gaynor. "Animal Testing Facts." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. .