Hello, fellow Whyvillians. A few weeks ago an article hit the Times that swept me off my feet -- the piece by Merchant about animal cruelty. By coincidence, we were doing debates as a final project at school and my topic just happened to be on animal testing! Right away I wanted to write something, but I just had too much going on at the time. But now here I am.
It's amazing how much you learn when you have that motivation to win that debate! I've learned so many facts... for instance, I found a website that described how some of the tests that animals have to go through. In a toxicity test, the researcher will record the amount of material that will kill a percentage of a group of lab animals. A liquid is forced into the animals' stomach linings, and through holes slit in their throats.
So many Americans are against animal testing. In fact, 75% of them are against animal testing, but yet we still let it go on! Estimates of the number of animals tortured and killed in labs annually are from 17 to 70 million. This information is collected from the Animal Welfare Act, but the act doesn't cover mice, rats, and birds, which are used in about 80-90% of all experiments! It's hard to even imagine how many animals are being killed!
And there are many alternatives! If the primary concern is saving lives, you could fight for health insurance, promote proper nutrition, vaccines, and other basic preventative health care measures. There are also ways to completely replace animal testing by using cell and tissue, corneas from eye banks, and sophisticated computer and mathematical models. The Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine says that these sophisticated methods are more accurate, less expensive, and less time consuming than animal testing.
Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) are used in essentially every field of human and veterinary research. Scientists have found an alternative to MAbs (animals are used to make them) and the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland have banned the use of animals in MAb production. It is saving millions of animals every year! So why doesn't the States switch to a better method of testing?
Imagine you were one of the lab animals. You were born in a cage but can't exercise your natural instincts. While having surgery (perhaps without anesthesia) you are lucky to have painkillers afterwards. You could even be part of an scenario in the future where you are fed and taken care of but will still be killed in the end or be used in another experiment. Or you may be killed because you are the wrong sex or breed or are "surplus". The researchers treat you as garbage, not a living thing. You are the object of study, not the subject.
Just now I was reading Nyctohylo's article and I finally realized that I missed something. He said, "Scientific experimentation that is performed by adults is for a good cause, though. It allows scientists to test their possible "cures" for major diseases, and since there is a probability of horrible side-effects, it would be dangerous to attempt this on human beings. (Would you really give yourself up for scientific experimentation, when there was a possibility you would die, or live a disabled life for the rest of your life? Seriously?) If you said no, then do you think others would? You cannot expect others to do things when you will not. I could be completely morbid and say that the diseases help lower our world-wide population, but that would just be wrong."
But there is a terrible flaw in his reasoning. There is a difference between animals and humans, everyone knows that! So what works on animals will not necessarily work on humans!
I've read up about this subject. Hundred upon thousands of people die or are disabled for life because they use medications that worked on animals but turn out to hurt humans!
Yet, the government and stubborn politicians will not give up on animal testing. The alternatives are more effective and also less expensive... so why aren't they being used?
I hope that you have learned something. And whenever you hear about animal cruelty, I hope you will remember the words of Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple: "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites, or women created for men."
Ciao!
ChinaDawl
Editor's Note: Fabulous article, ChinaDawl! We always like to see writers do serious research and bring real data to their arguments. In the future, though, could you please make sure you refer to where you get your information? We don't know if these facts came from Time Magazine, a physician's pamphlet, the encyclopedia, or what! It's always good to state your references, so everyone can double-check on your stats if they wish.
