Animal Testing

"Humans are animals, so animal rights are human rights!" David Cowles-Hamar

The search for different cures to solve humankind’s many troubles, like diseases or aging, go on. Even as you are reading this, scientists the world over are trying valiantly to discover a cure for cancer, AIDS, and even the common cold. Elsewhere, cosmetics laboratories are also doing their best to test for the most effective types of long-lasting lipsticks, facial astringents and alpha-hydroxy acid (AHA) skin peels to introduce to us. It is the belief of some scientists that the use of animal to test their products would provide us with much useful information and allow for faster completion of the tests. If the animals respond to the product favourably, then, the odds for humans will be considerably raised. Thus, animals are subjected to much discomfort to see how well they respond to the treatments.

The tests that lab animals have to endure are often cruel and painful. There is an instance of a newborn monkey having his eyes sewn shut by the experimenters, and later, having those stitches undone at a later age to see how it manages to adjust to the temporary loss of sight. Another such animal experiment would be the Draize Eye Irritancy Test. In this experiment, various substances are placed into the eyes of rabbits and the eyes’ progressive deteoriation is then recorded. As anaesthesia is not administered to the rabbits during the procedure, due to the experimenters’ claim that it would affect the results, the rabbits have to endure long periods of pain, from a few hours to a few days. The results of such experiments for the rabbit are the swelling of the eyelids, inflammation of the iris and even blindness. As for the extra knowledge we gained from such an experiment, we further reinforce our knowledge that to leave shampoo in our eyes for 72 hours for blindness may result.

The LD-50 Test is yet another test which needlessly harms millions of animals every year. LD-50 stands for Lethal Dosage 50 Percent. That is, the amount of a substance that is able to kill half of a test group of animals within a specified time period when the substance is forcibly exposed to the animals. The purpose of this test is to find out the acute toxicity of certain substances and their effect on humans. The test is carried out on about 200 or more animals for a period of a number of days. The animals suffer from acute distress – pain, diarrhoea and convulsions – and animals which are not dead at the end of an experiment are often killed.

However, many scientists feel that such animal experiments are of no vital use to humans. The Draize test, for example, uses rabbits for its test subjects but the rabbit eye differs from the human eye and so results gained from such tests may only benefit the cosmetics companies themselves who are able to disclaim any responsibility should accidental blindness caused by the usage of their product takes place. For the LD-50 test, the results are also not accurate because the amount required to cause harm to the animals may differ greatly from that which harms humans, due to our different immune systems.

There are alternatives which we should consider using. Computers will be of help to us in this area. We will be able to gather information about the products through computer analysis. If this should prove to be inadequate, human volunteers would be more useful than animals. and such information is much more accurate than animal-based ones. Data should also be collected from hospitals regarding accidental poisoning cases to apply such useful knowledge in practice. Other techniques to replace animal testing include the use of cell vultures, human corneas from eye banks and corneal tissue cultures. Such measures would protect the animals from being cruelly treated and the information collected is also much more applicable. However, individuals also have a vital role to play in protecting animal rights. Purchasing products which are not tested on animals or which do not contain animal ingredients is a start. Together, we can make a difference.

(To find out more about animal testing, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has brochures on this topic, or there are also several web-sites which are dedicated to protesting against animal testing.)

NB:This article was done by me and my fren Shann for a school article...Any comments are welcome!

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