Animal testing is a way of experimenting products and drugs to see if it is safe for human consumption. Animal testing should not be used for scientific or commercial testing. An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United States alone (peta.org). It is cruel and inhumane to experiment on innocent animals because there are so many alternative methods and ways to test drugs and products. These could replace animal testing altogether. Animals are very different than humans. We have very similar genes to animals, however the way those genes are expressed is what makes us different. According to navs.org, the different expression and differing combinations of genes separates species and humans. Testing on animals can lead to inaccurate and irrelevant results.

The way researchers treat animals before and during experiments is appalling. Their studies involve water and food deprivation to study the digestive process, inhalation of very toxic fumes, and being in complete physical restraint for days. Some studies also include holes drilled into the animal’s skull, infliction of burns and wounds to study the healing process, and their spinal cord being crushed. The Draize Eye Test (used by cosmetic companies) evaluates irritation caused by shampoo and other products. This involves immobilized rabbits being incapacitated in stocks with their eyelids held open by clips for several days. They are forced to leave the product in their eyes, unable to blink the product away. The USDA reported that 97,123 animals suffered pain during experiments while being given no anesthesia for relief (peta.org). How could a human being force so much pain and torture on so many animals simply for research?

Also, what scientists and researchers seem to ignore: animals suffer just as much as humans do. According to idausa.org, any vertebrates (or animal with a backbone) have the same nerves that humans do. These nerves are called nociceptors which goes up the spinal cord and into the brain which triggers the sensation of pain. Any suffering is undesirable, whether it be in humans or animals. Discriminating against animals because they do not have the cognitive ability, language or moral judgement is no more justifiable than discriminating against human beings with severe mental impairments.

  Animal testing can be very vital to researching cures and vaccines, however. According to pro-test.org, the Foundation for Biomedical Research, animal testing has played a key role in virtually every major medical advance in the last century. Practically every present-day protocol for the prevention, treatment and cure has involved some type of animal research. The pain and suffering of animals is what can help find these cures.

  However, just because a product or drug goes through animal testing does not mean it is safe. In the 1950’s the sleeping pill Thalidomide was tested on animals prior to its release. It was tested on pregnant rats, mice, guinea pigs, cats, and hamsters. There were no birth defects in these animals. The drug went on to cause more than 10,000 human babies to be born with severe deformities. According to Dr. Thomas Haurtung, about 100,000 chemicals that go through testing, only about 5% are actually safe. The arthritis drug Vioxx was tested on over six species and it was tested over eight times. It ended up killing more people than Americans that died in the Vietnam War.  On top of all of those deaths and impairments, animal testing with drugs has reached over $1 billion. Researchers around the world are wasting time, money, and lives on animal testing.

So what can we do to stop this cruelty with testing? Scientists have been working on many solutions to be cruelty-free. For example, skin irritation and corrosion can be easily measured by using three dimensional human skin equivalent systems like EpiDerm and SkinEthic. These are artificial models of human skin that can predict irritation through computer-based Quantitative Structure. Its accuracy is between 90-95%. There are also other alternatives to animal testing which include: computerized patient-drug databases, virtual drug trials, computerized models and stimulations, stem cell and genetic testing methods, and non-invasive imaging systems like MRI’s and CT scans. We can even test on humans without affecting the entire body system. Micro dosing is when humans are given very low quantities of a drug to test the body on a cellular level.

It is 2015. We have the technology to be cruelty free and not need to test drugs and commercial products on innocent animals.