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Critical Thinking Paper: Why Animal Testing Should Be Banned
Maddie Martin
Green Group
4/29/18
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White walls, lab coats, blinding fluorescent lights. Machines, cages, endless pain. This is
what life is like to be an animal in a research lab. According to the New England
AntiVivisection Society (NEAVS), “every year in the United States, over 25 million animals are
used in biomedical experimentation, product and cosmetic testing, and science education” (Harm
and Suffering). The only current legislation that protects these animals is the Animal Welfare
Act, which demands a bare minimum for only a small number of animals that are tested on. The
law also has failures when it comes to enforcement and inspection (Myth of Humane Treatment).
As a result, these animals spend their lives in small cages and are put through painful and
sometimes deadly procedures. This year, California introduced a bill that would outlaw animal
testing in the cosmetic industry. The California CrueltyFree Cosmetics Act, SB 1249 “would
make it unlawful for any cosmetic manufacturer to knowingly import or sell any cosmetic,
including hygiene products...in California, if the final product or any component of the product
was tested on animals after Jan 1, 2020” (Galgiani). Other states need to take these same actions
in making animal testing illegal. Maryland must pass legislation similar to the bill passed in
California that bans all use of animal testing for commercial as well as scientific purposes
because it is expensive, cruel, and dangerous.
It is hard to see why animal testing is still used in medical and cosmetic research. Animal
testing is expensive and inefficient. The extensive effort it takes to get accurate results from
animal testing can cost thousands, even millions, of dollars. According to another study by
NEAVS, “rats, mice, and birds comprise over 90 percent of all research animals not because they
are necessarily the best and most reliable animal models, but because, in comparison to many
other species, they are relatively inexpensive to buy, easy to manage and maintain, and
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disposable without much public clamor or concern” (Limitations and Dangers). There are other
more efficient and cheap methods that can be used, instead of using animal tests that may not
even yield reliable results. A study by the Humane Society International found that invitro tests
(tests taking place in a test tube, culture dish, or elsewhere outside a living organism) were far
cheaper compared to animal tests. In an experiment on nongenotoxic cancer risk, a rat 24month
cancer research test cost $700,000, while a Syrian hamster embryo cell transformation test, an
invitro test, cost only $22,000 (Costs of Animal and NonAnimal Testing). The same study by
the Humane Society found that “some animal tests take months or years to conduct and analyze,
45 years in the case of rodent cancer studies, at a cost of hundreds of thousands—and
sometimes millions—of dollars per substance examined, for example $2 to $4 million per
twospecies lifetime cancer study” (Costs of Animal and NonAnimal Testing). These elaborate
and expensive tests are a waste of time and money.
When discussing animal testing, its is also important to consider the ethics of subjecting
poor creatures to cruel and painful tests. Some argue that it is necessary to develop medicines
that could be used to save human lives; however, the tests that animals are put through are cruel
and can cause them lasting pain and trauma. According to NEAVS, animals are subjected to
experiments that can include things such as infecting with diseases, poisoning, burning skin,
causing brain damage, maiming, blinding, as well as longterm social isolation, electric shocks,
and withholding food or water (Harm and Suffering). The list goes on. The Humane Society of
the United States has done countless exposés on some of the experiments research labs perform
on animals. One such report describes that while manufacturing and testing Dysport, a treatment
for wrinkles, the corporation Ipsen performs a test called the Lethal Dose 50 Percent. The test
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involves injecting mice with a toxin to determine the dosage amount that will kill 50 percent of
the animals. The report states that “the animals experience nausea and a wave of muscle
paralysis, leading to severe distress as they slowly suffocate to death over the course of the three
to fourday procedure” (Examples of Severe Animal Suffering in Laboratories). This is only one
example. Animals such as dogs, monkeys, hamsters, mice, and birds have been killed and
tortured in terrible ways and the tests they are put through aren’t even guaranteed to give reliable
results.
The stressful situations animals are put in during tests, as well as the biological difference
between animals and humans, can lead to unreliable test results that can harm the public’s health.
The environment of a research lab is not one of comfort, and the daily lives of animal test
subjects are full of fear. These increased levels of stress can negatively influence the reliability of
the resulting data. Aysha Akhtar, in an article on animal testing in the Cambridge Quarterly of
Healthcare Ethics, wrote about the distress and contagious anxiety found in laboratories that
“cortisone levels rise in monkeys watching other monkeys being restrained for blood collection.
Blood pressure and heart rates elevate in rats watching other rats being decapitated. These
stressrelated changes in physiological parameters caused by the laboratory procedures and
environments can have significant effects on test results” (Akhtar). Not only can the test results
be affected by stress levels, but there is a large biological difference between humans and
animals when it comes to reactions to diseases and medical treatments. Akhtar goes on to write
that “human diseases are typically artificially induced in animals, but the enormous difficulty of
reproducing anything approaching the complexity of human diseases in animal models limits
their usefulness. Even if the design and conduct of an animal experiment are sound and
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standardized, the translation of its results to the clinic may fail because of disparities between the
animal experimental model and the human condition” (Akhtar). When animals are tested in ways
that result in faulty data, but that data is still used to produce commercial medicines and drugs, it
can harm the public’s health. There are numerous occasions on which the results of testing a drug
on an animal were positive, but when distributed to the public, the drug caused severe health
problems. In an article for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, John J. Pippin
found the same thing happen with a drug called Baycol Cerivastatin, approved in 1997 and used
for the treatment of abnormal cholesterol levels (dyslipidemia). He writes that “it was withdrawn
after substantial risk for severe or fatal rhabdomyolysis (muscle wasting) was revealed in
patients. Muscle wasting was not seen in preclinical animal tests, including rats, mice, minipigs,
dogs, or monkeys; only at very high doses were indications of effects on muscle tissue seen. The
authors concluded that cerivastatin was well tolerated in all species. Postwithdrawal tests using
rat and human muscle cells in vitro revealed that rat cells are 200 times more resistant to the
drug’s effects. Eventually, more than 100 deaths were linked to cerivastatin” (Pippin). People are
being killed because of the use of animal tested drugs. Not only are the results of these tests
unreliable, they can cause severe harm to public health.
Animal testing is expensive, cruel, and dangerous. There are other cheaper, more reliable
and efficient methods that can be used. There is little current legislation that protects the animals
used in animal testing. The federal Animal Welfare Act is vague in its rules on the treatment of
these animals and does little to enforce them. The Act merely provides that with respect to
animals in research facilities, that researchers “include requirement for animal care, treatment,
and practices in experimental procedures to ensure that animal pain and distress are minimized,
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including adequate veterinary care with the appropriate use of anesthetic” (The Animal Welfare
Act). Even with these regulations in place, companies and research labs have leeway to do what
they will with their animal test subjects. “There are no laws preventing researchers from
breaking bones, withholding painkillers, forcing ingestion of poisonous substances, burning,
leaving animals in complete isolation for months—or other atrocities that in the real world
constitute blatant and egregious animal cruelties” (Myth of Humane Treatment). Maryland needs
to pass a law that makes all use of animal testing illegal. There is no moral justification for the
horrible treatment of these animals, especially when the results are often unreliable and can bring
harm to the public.
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Work Cited
Akhtar, Aysha. "The Flaws and Human Harms of Animal Experimentation." PubMed
Central, National Center for Biotechnology Information,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594046/. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
"Animals in Science/Research: Harm and Suffering." New England AntiVivisection
Society, www.neavs.org/research/harmsuffering. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
"Animals in Science/Research: Limitations and Dangers." New England
AntiVivisection Society, www.neavs.org/research/limitations. Accessed 16
Mar. 2018.
The Animal Welfare Act. United States Code, vol. 7, 1966. United States
Department of Agriculture, www.nal.usda.gov/awic/
animalwelfareactpubliclaw89544actaugust241966. Accessed 18 Mar.
2018.
"Costs of Animal and NonAnimal Testing." Humane Society International,
www.hsi.org/issues/chemical_product_testing/facts/time_and_cost.html.
Accessed 18 Mar. 2018. Table.
"Examples of Severe Animal Suffering in Laboratories." The Humane Society of the
United States, www.humanesociety.org/issues/pain_distress/tips/
campus_policy_suffering_examples.html. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
Galgiani, Cathleen. "California Legislation Would Prohibit Sale of AnimalTested
Cosmetics." Senator Cathleen Galgiani, California State Senate,
sd05.senate.ca.gov/news/
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20180216californialegislationwouldprohibitsaleanimaltestedcosmetics.
Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
"Myth of Humane Treatment." Project R&R, NEAVS, www.releasechimps.org/laws/
overview/?/harmsuffering/mythofhumanetreatment/#axzz1RFhLyld0. Accessed
6 May 2018.
Pippin, John J., and Kristie Sullivan. "Dangerous Medicine: Examples of
AnimalBased “Safety” Tests Gone Wrong." Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine, www.pcrm.org/research/animaltestalt/animaltesting/
dangerousmedicineexamplesofanimalbasedtests. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
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Annotated Bibliography
Akhtar, Aysha. "The Flaws and Human Harms of Animal Experimentation." PubMed
Central, National Center for Biotechnology Information,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594046/. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
The article shows the numerous problems when it comes to using animal testing for medical
treatments that well be used for humans. Akhtar shows the unreliability of animal testing results
and how this can lead to human harm. Akhtar uses extensive research to prove the credibility of
her work, and the claims she makes about the unreliability of animal testing are well backed by
evidence. I was able to use quotes from this article in the form of statistic and facts to provide
evidence for my thesis statement, and the claim that animal testing is not a reliable way of testing
and can prove dangerous.
"Animals in Science/Research: Harm and Suffering." New England AntiVivisection
Society, www.neavs.org/research/harmsuffering. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
The article provides anecdotes for the terrible experiments animal test subjects are put through,
as well as describes the little protection given to them through the federal government. The
article is outdated in its evidence for the Animal Welfare Act, but other than that it provides
factual evidence for how animals are treated in research labs. I quoted statistics and anecdotes
from this article as evidence to support my claim that animal testing is cruel and inhumane.
"Animals in Science/Research: Limitations and Dangers." New England
AntiVivisection Society, www.neavs.org/research/limitations. Accessed 16
Mar. 2018.
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The article describes the unpredictability of animal testing, and how this can harm the public’s
health, as well as shows the inefficiency and expensiveness of animal testing. The article uses
factual evidence and useful information on comparing animal testing to other methods. I used
quotes from this article as evidence to support my claim that animal testing is unreliable, as well
as how it is expensive and inefficient.
The Animal Welfare Act. United States Code, vol. 7, 1966. United States
Department of Agriculture, www.nal.usda.gov/awic/
animalwelfareactpubliclaw89544actaugust241966. Accessed 18 Mar.
2018.
The Animal Welfare Act is a US law that that provides rules for how animals can be treated in
labs, on farms, and in trading. It is long and hard to find details, but the information is very
useful. I used passages from this law in my conclusion to show how the regulations in it do not
provide much protection for animal test subjects.
"Arguments against Animal Testing." Cruelty Free International,
www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/whywedoit/argumentsagainstanimaltesting.
Accessed 2 Mar. 2018.
This article provides several arguments against the use of animal testing, including how it is
cruel, unreliable, and dangerous. Comprised of a list of anecdotes and statistics, with no given
sources, so the information is not entirely reliable. I did not use quotes from this article in my
paper, but I used it as a basis for part of my thesis, as well as a starting point for things to
research further.
Capaldo, Theodora. "Animal Data Is Not Reliable for Human Health Research."
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Live Science, www.livescience.com/
46147animaldataunreliableforhumans.html. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
The article discusses how animal testing is unreliable, other methods that could be used. The
article provides links to other sources, useful anecdotes and statistics, and factual evidence. I did
not use quotes from this article. I used it to figure out background information, develop my
claims and thesis statement, and as a starting point for further research.
"Costs of Animal and NonAnimal Testing." Humane Society International,
www.hsi.org/issues/chemical_product_testing/facts/time_and_cost.html.
Accessed 18 Mar. 2018. Table.
The table provides the names of tests done, both as animal tests and invitro tests, and compares
the cost. The table is factual, and provides sources. It is to the point and useful. I used sections of
the table as evidence for my claim that animal testing is inefficient and expensive.
Doke, Sonali K., and Shashikant C. Dhawale. "Alternatives to Animal Testing: A
Review." Science Direct, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S1319016413001096. Accessed 18 Mar. 2018.
The article describes the disadvantages of animal testing and the alternative methods that can be
used. The article is a bit repetitive and lengthy, but has claims that are well backed by evidence. I
did not use quotes from this article, but rather used it for background information and to help
develop my thesis and arguments.
"Examples of Severe Animal Suffering in Laboratories." The Humane Society of the
United States, www.humanesociety.org/issues/pain_distress/tips/
campus_policy_suffering_examples.html. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
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The article provides instances of the cruel treatment of animals in testing labs, showing how
much pain and trauma the animals experience. The article is factual and has useful anecdotes. It
also includes credible sources.I used quotes from this article as evidence to support my claim that
animal testing is cruel.
Galgiani, Cathleen. "California Legislation Would Prohibit Sale of AnimalTested
Cosmetics." Senator Cathleen Galgiani, California State Senate,
sd05.senate.ca.gov/news/
20180216californialegislationwouldprohibitsaleanimaltestedcosmetics.
Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
The article summarizes the California legislation introduced in February that ban the sale of
animal tested products. It describes who introduced it and what it would do. The article provides
helpful information on what the legislation is about. I used quotes from the article in my
introduction to show how California is taking steps in the right direction and Maryland needs to
follow suit.
Krause, Rachel. "Will California Be the First State to Ban Sales of
AnimalTested Products?" Refinery29, www.refinery29.com/2018/02/191953/
animaltestingsalesbancalifornia. Accessed 2 Mar. 2018.
The article describes the California legislation that would ban sales of animal tested products and
includes interviews on what the legislation would do. The article provides links to sources cited
in article, factual and helpful. I did not use quotes from this paper in my article, but used it as
background information and a starting point for further research on the California legislation.
"Myth of Humane Treatment." Project R&R, NEAVS, www.releasechimps.org/laws/
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overview/?/harmsuffering/mythofhumanetreatment/#axzz1RFhLyld0. Accessed
6 May 2018.
The article describes the limitations of the Animal Welfare Act and how loose the rules
surrounding animal testing are. It provides instances where companies have found a way around
regulations and have mistreated animals. I used quotes from this article to how little protection
there is currently, and why we need more enforced and specific rules for animal testing.
Pippin, John J., and Kristie Sullivan. "Dangerous Medicine: Examples of
AnimalBased “Safety” Tests Gone Wrong." Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine, www.pcrm.org/research/animaltestalt/animaltesting/
dangerousmedicineexamplesofanimalbasedtests. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.
The article provides instances where animal tested products proved harmful to public health and
the reasons for these unreliable test results. The article is credible, provides sources, and includes
useful anecdotes. I used quotes from this article as evidence to support my claim that animal
testing is unreliable and dangerous.