‘During the past fifty years scientists experimenting with thousands of animals have found 700 ways of causing cancer. But they had not discovered one way of curing the disease.’
Quote from Dr. J.F. Brailsford, M.D., P.H.D., (Birmingham, Evening Dispatch, January 10 1956)
In addition to this, the vivisection industry promises that through vivisection they will be able to find cures for illnesses. They also say that without vivisection people would die of plagues and illnesses. Moreover, vivisectors claim that medical science’s great advances could not have been discovered without experimenting on animals. The majority of the public believe this because they are desperate to find cures for illnesses and are left to choose between a child and an animal. Nevertheless, vivisectors are only trying to deceive the public. They are trying to hide the fact that vivisection is not needed to cure human illnesses. Below are just a few of the discoveries made without vivisection:
- Discovery of the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease, the No.1 cause of death in Americans.
- Discovery of the relationship between nutrition and cancer, the No.2 cause of death in Americans.
- Discovery of Penicillin.
- Production of Humulin, an artificial copy of human insulin.
The above discoveries were made through experimentations based on human models and not animals. This shows that vivisection is not the only way to make advancements in human medicine. Furthermore, using human models is more reliable than using an animal. Animals are a different species and are less complex than humans. So when discoveries from animal experimentations are applied to humans, there can be many side effects on the human body. This is another reason why vivisection should be abolished. Vivisection is not reliable. It is not safe.
So far, I have explained why vivisection is not needed to make advancements in medical research. But what about the use of vivisection in cosmetics? Every year thousands of new cosmetics, personal care and household products are introduced into the marketplace. Almost all of them have been animal tested at some stage of their development. These products have gone through a long and complex testing process which leaves millions of animals mutilated, burned, poisoned and gassed. Below are just two of the tests that animals have to go through:
- The LD-50 test consists of a group of animals being forced to ingest or inhale varying amounts of a substance. In mot cases the substance causes pain in the animals. Furthermore, the test is only complete when half of the test subjects die. As for the other half, they are killed and then analysed to determine which organs were affected by the substance.
- Another use of vivisection in testing cosmetics is The Draize test for the eye and skin irritancy. In the eye irritancy, solutions of the products are applied directly into the eyes of conscious rabbits. This test usually lasts for seven days and the rabbits may suffer extreme pain. At the end of the test period all the animals are killed in order to examine internal effects of the product. The Draize test for skin follows the same procedure except the product is applied on shaved skin of the animal.
The other side may also argue that the use of vivisection in cosmetics and other products is the only way to ensure the safety of the products under customary use. However, thanks to advancements in modern technology, there are now non-animal methods for testing cosmetic products. These methods are safe and reliable yet they save the lives of animals. Below are a few of the most commonly used non-animal product safety tests:
- Computer and mathematical models - this method can predict the irritancy of test substances by using the substances physical and chemical properties.
- Epipack Test – this test uses sheets of cloned human skin cells to estimate a human’s reaction to a skin irritant.
- EpiOcular – this test uses artificial human tissue which is similar to the cornea, to test for irritancy of the eye by a product.
My evidence shows that vivisection is not needed in the testing of cosmetics and therefore this is another reason why vivisection should be abolished.
Another point to be brought up is that vivisection is animal cruelty. This is because the animals are the ones who receive physical and mental pain through experimentation on them. I don’t know what you call this but I call it animal cruelty. The only way to stop this cruelty on animals is to abolish vivisection. Below are just a few examples of animal cruelty through vivisection:
- To study the result of head trauma, primates were strapped in machinery and received high impact blows to their heads which left them with severe brain damage.
- To examine severe burns on live tissue, pigs were restrained and then burned alive with flamethrower until the burnt flesh could be removed in large pieces.
- To measure the recovery from injuries, dogs were strapped down while vivisectors destroyed the use of the dogs’ knees by cutting apart skin to leave flaps. At the end of the study all the dogs are killed.
Finally, even though so many animals are suffering through vivisection, nothing is being done about it except more money is being given to continue vivisection in the hope of finding cures. For example, the U.S. vivisection industries spend over $18 billion (Figure from www.animalconcern.com) on animal experimentation. Therefore, you must understand that a lot of money is being spent on a method that is not reliable to find human cures for illnesses. All this money could have been spent to help homeless people. It could have been used to improve schools, hospitals, libraries, yet the money is being used to kill innocent animals that die for nothing.
After all that I have said, you can see why I am against vivisection. Firstly, vivisection is not needed because it is not reliable. Secondly, animals are tortured cruelly in the experimentations. Thirdly, vivisectors deceive the public into thinking that vivisection is the only way to find cures for illnesses in the human body. Fourthly, vivisection is not needed for testing the safety of cosmetics. Finally vivisection wastes money.
By Awais Butt 10L6
