In global societies, discussions concerning the use of animals in medical tests for research are uncomfortable and controversial. Modern technology often broadcasts horrific photos of procedures being conducted on helpless creatures accompanied by claims of untrustworthy results and skewed statistics. In the long run, animals will continue to be used for testing in laboratories until the value of the practice is diminished. “The benefits of animal research have been enormous and it would have severe consequences for public health and medical research if it were abandoned “ (Festing and Wilkinson, n.p.). This paper will present information regarding whether animal testing is necessary and will argue that the practice 1) is needed to test natural and synthetic substances for toxicologic reactions by living creatures, 2), requires living creatures because there are not adequate replacements for animal testing, and 3) takes great measures to provide ethical treatment of the test subjects.
Background
In an effort to promote the safe consumption of products and to advance scientific theory, approximately 26 million animals act as test subject for research (Animal-testing.procon.org). To date, awards for Nobel prizes in the Physiology and Medicine have been bestowed 98 times; of those researchers, 75 reported they used animals in their experiments and four others used vital information from other studies that used animal testing (Scutti). However, the practice is not a recent one.
Records shows that the use of live animals, including humans, in medical experimentation has taken place since 500 BC or even prior to that date (Scutti). Research for purposes of discovering anatomy to place in Greece; Galen of Pergamum recorded the functioning of the cardiopulmonary system during the 2nd century in Rome. Before using surgical techniques on humans, Arabian physician Ibn Zuhr practiced them on animal during the 12th century. Unfortunately, these practices took place without the use of anesthesia, which was not invented until the middle of the 19th century.
Medicine was not the only science that uses animals prior to humans in the pursuit of advancing knowledge. Long before humans experienced space flight, animals were sent into orbit (Animal-testing.procon.org). In America, the space program tested the effects of weightlessness in 1948 and early space flights sent monkeys aloft in the early part of 1940; sadly, the monkeys did not survive. The first monkey to live after going into space was in 1941, but he died a few hours later from heat stress (Messer and Garber). In 1998, over 2000 animals, snails, rats, mice, fish, and crickets traveled on the space shuttle Columbia with seven humans for testing of the effect of space travel on neurology.
Toxicology Testing Requirements
One of the primary reasons for using animal in medical research is to test for adverse toxicological effects from the introduction of substances into their systems (Toxicology.org.). The data obtained from these types of experiments permit toxicologists to determine which dosages of a drug are safe for administration to humans and to develop antidotes in case the patient experiences an overdose. For instance, although all living creatures on Earth require breathing oxygen to survive, a newborn baby that is given too high a concentration may experience damage to its lungs or eyes. Another example shows that digitalis is a very effective drug to help patients regulate their heartbeats, but an overdose may lead to a heart attack. Animal research allows for toxicologists to determine which doses are effective and which are destructive.
Aside from dosages, scientific experiments on animal prevent administering harmful medications to humans (Monamy). A tragic example was seen when there were inadequate animal trials for the drug thalidomide, which was prescribed for nausea experienced by pregnant women (Encyclopedia Britannica). As a result, thousands of children were born with deformities of their arms and legs; only 40 percent lived (Pippin and Sullivan). Retroactive testing showed the same birth defects in laboratory animals such as rabbits, marmosets, baboons, and rats.
Therefore, toxicologists use animals to determine effective medication dosages for humans, antidotes in an incident of overdose, and which drugs may be harmful to a living organism after they are theoretically safe. This has been found to be the safest method to prevent harm to human subjects in clinical trials.
Opponents to the use of animal testing state there are alternatives to the use of animals for the reasons of toxicology. They propose that alternative options such as computer chips, computer chemical analysis, and artificial human skin will result in the same information without experimentation on a living creature. Unfortunately, when the results of non-animal options are compared to using live animals, the results of the alternative methods are not always adequate. There has been some success using alternative options in the primary stages of research, but they require technology transfer for use in other laboratories than the ones in which they were developed (Gruber and Hartung). Groups protesting the practice of animal testing state that animals do not have enough physical similarities to makes experimentation on them relevant. However, some animals display as much as 98 percent similarities to humans in physical processes. Mice are genetically 98 percent the same as humans and chimpanzees share 99 percent of DNA with people (Janegoodall.ca). In additions, allegations have been made that research continues on some diseases after research has already been complete, as in the case of the Ebola virus and human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Scientists respond that new strains continue in diseases that are already being treated and that newly discovered conditions require continuing research for treatment.
A poll conducted in 2011 by Nature science journal of around 1000 scientists in the field of biomedicine reported that over 90 percent believe using animal test subjects is essential to research (Cressey). Practically every important breakthrough in medicine in the last 100 years has been from research using animals for testing (California Biomedical Research Association). Diabetics safely use insulin after pancreases in dogs allowed development of the drug. Polio affected 350,000 patients around the world in 1988, but the creation of the polio vaccine dropped that number to 223 diagnosed cases in 2012. The Director of the University of Texas, Chris Albee, states that the use of chimpanzees was critical to the discovery of the vaccine for the treatment of Hepatitis B and research is ongoing for a vaccine to treatment Hepatitis C, a disease that is fatal for 15,000 people in America every year (World News).
In addition to humans, animals benefit from medical research. If not for vaccines for canine parvo virus, infectious hepatitis virus, anthrax, distemper, and other diseases, millions of animals would have perished (Animal-testing.procon.org). The California condor, Brazilian tamarins, and the black-footed ferret were facing extinction from disease and are no longer. When Australian koalas were endangered due to chlamydia, the development of new vaccines saved the species. For these reasons and more, the American Veterinary medical Association is an advocate for animal testing.
Options for Using Animals for Testing
Animal rights groups debate the use of living creatures for medical research when there are other ways to test of immunocompetence; these include test tube protocols, computer programs, genetic testing, maintaining databases on patients with diseases, x-ray imaging, and even giving humans small doses of a medication (Neavs.org). Granted, petri dish cultures and computer software surrender some information for research scientists, but in order to evaluate a medication’s truly biological process, a functioning circulatory system is needed (Monamy). The presence of an organ system allows for drug effects and side effects. Even with supercomputer technology at the current state, it cannot mimic the impact of chemicals on brain function or an endocrine system. Animal research is needed to supplement the data obtained from other sources.
There are some procedures that are accepted for testing in vitro without using an animal after birth. For example, the production of monoclonal antibodies still requires research for standardization, but the process would preclude the use of ascites mice (Gruber and Hartung). Replication of the tests is not an issue, and quality control and validation are desirable due to researcher introductions dependent on many variables. There are actually four challenges to implementation of alternatives to animal testing. First, scientists are confident in the applicability of animal testing even though the relevancy is many times overstate; physiological differences may be minimized, variation has become apparent in inbred strains, animal experiments are often not validated, the experiments had insufficient numbers of subjects, and limitations are frequently not reported. Second, documentation of the methods used in the experiments is insufficient to allow for the development of adequate databases. Consequently, variations in methods exist that decrease reliability and validity of the experiments. Third, the numbers of scientists aware of alternatives to animal testing are small; education and promotion of alternative research methods require programs, installation of chairs in universities, and college courses on the subject.
Ethical Treatment of Testing Animals
It may seem to be a contradiction in terms to put the topic of testing medical research on animals in the same discussion with ethics. Morally, there is no right or wrong judgment for subjecting any helping living being to experimentation. From the very first science research centuries ago, experimenters knew it would be unethical to practice invasive surgeries and procedures, medications, and even current manipulation of genetics on humans without employing as many safety procedures as possible. This included trials with animals first, since warm-blooded mammals are similar to Homo sapiens (Fano). According to the dictate of The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, researchers are not allowed to use humans for experimental tests until animal trials have first determined them to be safe (US National Institutes of Health).
However, steps have been taken to provide for the most ethical treatment of laboratory animals in the course of uncovering vital information to proceed to safe human trials. For instance, the purpose for the research must be sound, the least amount of trauma must be used, and facilities are trying to incorporate animals into their research as little as possible by using alternate methods (Nasonline.org). In America, the Animal Welfare Act states that an “animal” is defined as "any live or dead dog, cat, monkey (nonhuman primate mammal), guinea pig, hamster, rabbit, or such other warm blooded animal” (Awic.nal.usda.gov). Opponents to animal testing, however, note that the legislation does not address the animal bred specifically for laboratory use such as birds, rats, and mice. Also not included are cold-blooded animals such as reptiles and farm animals; these creatures constitute 95 percent of the test subjects for experiments (Animal-testing.procon.org).
In the United States, every facility conducting research is required to have at least three committee members to oversee animals involved in research. At least one of the three members must be a veterinarian and another can have no association with the facility other than being on the committee. The Animal Welfare Act has requirements concerning housing and transport of animals, but does not consider the types of procedures allowed. However, government funding for research facilities through the United States Public Health Service does cover gaps in the Animal Welfare Act (Grants.nih.gov). Researchers minimize distress and pain through the use of The Institute for Laboratory Animal Research’s The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals created by the National Research Council; it states "the avoidance or minimization of discomfort, distress, and pain when consistent with sound scientific practices, is imperative “ (US National Academy of Sciences). Each proposal must also demonstrate the practices involving animal subject have solid scientific principles. It has been found that animal test subject produce more reliable results when they are living without stress and in comfort, so it is in the interest of the scientists to provide for the welfare of the animals in their testing (Nature Genetics).
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) organized in 1981 to oppose animal testing. The members believe that the practice is cruel because the test subjects have their lives negatively impacted and prematurely terminated without having the ability to grant consent. A PETA activist worked for the Institute for Biological Research in Silver Spring, Maryland and photographed restrained monkeys and monkeys self-mutilating from stress, releasing the images to the public through the organization. As a result, Edward Taub, the director of the research facility, received over a dozen charges of animal cruelty. The Harvard Medical School closed its primate research center in 2015 under public pressure, but the Director of the Oregon National Primate Research Center, Nancy Haigwood, stated that at minimum the decision would slow advancements in the AIDS and degenerative nerve research conducted at the site (Johnson). Scientists may even have left Boston for facilities continuing the use of primates in experiments.
In conclusion, medical experiments have used animals for centuries, but recently countries around the world have responded to demands for more ethical treatment of animals in laboratories. A survey found slightly more than half of the participants wished there were an alternative, despite upsetting photos and details presented by activist groups (Sculli). The majority of scientists and physicians acknowledge that significant strides medicine has made as a result of animal testing was not possible through any other means. The European Union had banned the importation and sale of cosmetics tested on animals since March 2013 (Kanter); India has also stopped using animals for testing in cosmetics development. While research facilities have reduced the number of animals used for advanced studies by sharing information and using alternative methods when possible, the use of animals in basic research has actually increased as new areas of science open up requiring data (Gruber and Hartung). Advocates against animal testing acknowledge there have been significant gains in human and animal medicine from past research, and legislation has been passed to promote the best possible treatment of animal test subjects.
The benefits of using animals in medical research outweigh the negative influence on the lives of the test subjects. There is no way to measure the morality of the practice and scientists continue to seek alternative methods to the use of animals. Opponents to animal testing have viable arguments against using living creatures, and as a result, improved in vitro testing, advanced computer software, and other options are advancing. It is hoped that in the future, no living creature, whether animal or human, will be needed for experimentation for medications or treatments. In the meantime, however, research procedures are conducted as safely, humanely, and stress-free as possible.
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