Is Animal Research Necessary?
Many hundreds of years ago ,we knew little about the human body. Some people wanted to examine the inside of it to find out how it worked. But for religious reasons, it was not acceptable to cut up bodies, so they used animals instead.
Today, animals are used in many different kinds of experiments. Drug companies need to know if a new medicine will work and be safe, so they make a contract with scientists to test it. Scientists can’t test it on patients because it may make the patient worse, so they test it on animals. Those animals are then killed, and their bodies are examined to see the effect of the medicine. Animals are also used to find out about diseases. They are given a disease and then watched to see if the disease follows any trend. Often, they die from the disease, but even if they live, they will be killed and their bodies examined
Another use of animals is for basic medical research. For example, in order to study lack of sleep, mice are placed on a small block in a bucket of water. If they sleep, they slip into the water and wake up, and then climb onto the block again. The mice have to stay awake. Animals are also used for training in medical schools – students practice on their bodies.
In recent years, experimenting on animals has become an issue that more and more people feel very strongly about. Scientists claim they need to do animal testing. In my opinion, this is simply not true. Most of these tests are not needed and cause unnecessary pain to animals. Animals, like people, have rights. Animals testing is wrong for several reasons. First, computer models can check the safety of new medicines just as well as animal testing. Second, animal bodies are not the same as human bodies, so using them in tests does not give good information about medicine for humans. Third, it is wrong t cause pain and death to animals. It is cruel to take baby animals from their parents to be used in tests.
People must refuse to use products made by companies that do animal testing. We need to go to the places where companies do animal tests and force the employees to set the animals free. Sometimes, we have to break the law. It is time to end animal experiments.