While we have stopped certain things in this country such as the LD50 (lethal dose 50%) test. This required 200 species of a certain animal to be force fed different amounts of a new drug until exactly half of them died. However this test may be used in exceptional circumstances also now the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that if a new drug kills the first three animals it is tested on, further trials are unnecessary.
However British Law states that any new drug for a medicine must be tested on at least two animals and one of these must be a large non-rodent mammal. In addition laws also now state that all animals are protected from cruelty during labs tests however these controls have not stopped some scientists from abusing and mistreating animals and so the animals can end up getting very stressed.
During lab tests small animals may be kept in clear or plastic boxes about the size of a shoebox. Usually more that one animal is kept in a box with the bottom covered with wood chips or something similar with food and water hanging down for the animals to reach.
Larger animals usually live in wire cages. Social animals like monkeys often live with other monkeys, but most other large animals usually live alone to stop them fighting. Often, animals get to spend some time every day in a larger cage where they can play.
I asked some people what they thought of animal testing for drugs, research and cosmetics. I got these replies:
“I don’t have a problem with animal testing for medication, if it’s the only option and the animals are treated as humanely as possible. Research – well, depends what sort of research, what use it is, and why it’s being done – and then I want the animals to be treated as well as possible. I don’t approve of animal testing for cosmetics at all.” – From Artemis and Hazlac and Scoper
“I would like to add that I would like to see more research into possible alternatives to animal testing both for medical and research purposes.
I find testing for cosmetics abhorrent, but without medical testing my mum would either be dead or living in agony. I don’t know which is worse.” – From Gothykitten
“Hmm, I guess for the type of drugs needed for the most severe types of disease/illnesses, I could possibly not disagree with the use of animals BUT only in very ltd usage. I’d prefer things like stem cell and embryo testing instead because at least there is more chance of it being truer to humans and how we would be effected by whatever the drug is.
For cosmetics nope-surely we now know enough about all the chemicals out there not to have to do this and I am sure there are many people who would love to be paid to test these things out in the final stages once the initial tests are done-surely things like say bad reactions and stuff are already known-not talking about drugs here and what happened to those guys in the test panel-only make up.
Research-depends what type-I mean I saw a tv show on sun with Bill Bailey where dormice were used in a test to see what type of mesh tunnel would be good to create a dormouse tunnel (think it was dormouse, can’t quite remember!) and all that happened was a simple extension of their cage and some foody treats. This was used to help the wild dormice population cross over a busy road so the two isolated populations would breed and not be so genetically susceptible to stuff. Research that involves nasty chemical tests for no real reason-no of course not!” – From Jowolvo
“Personally I don’t have a problem with them being used for medicine but for cosmetics it’s a no go for me.” – From Ema
“I feel animal testing is wrong as there are other ways to test for chemicals in substances which do not affect anyone or anything” – From Pippa
“For cosmetics it is bad, for medicine it is good and for research it depends what the research is for” – From Jamie
So to conclude people have different views on whether or not animal testing is right. They have different views for each of the circumstances. For example the people that I spoke to found animal testing for cosmetics unethical whereas if it was for a good purpose, such as a medical breakthrough, they found their views to be quite lenient for it being ethical, IF the animals were treated correctly. However they also said that they would like to see more money going into research for other ways of testing the different drugs and chemicals rather than on the animals. Some people are aware of the fact that there are alternatives out there but as they are not as greatly pushed forward or publicized as animal testing not many people are sure that they are even used. They also think that unnecessary usage of chemicals on animals is unacceptable because how would you like random chemicals sprayed on you just to see if it was safe for someone else?
Why doesn’t the government try to use the alternative methods such as stem cell and embryo testing rather than two animals to test a new drug? Both these things must be more effective due to the fact that it is related to humans whereas animals and humans may and are most likely to react differently to unusual chemicals and ingredients.
Even though you hear a lot about people against animal testing, due to the protests and riots that they hold, even in our local area of Huntingdon, there are also those that are for animal testing. This could be due to the fact that they could have had family members that were very sick, or the fact that it’s only animals that their testing on and not humans, because obviously an animal life is much better lost than a human life. I mean even if you were against animal testing but you were seriously sick would you say no to a drug that could save your life just because it had been tested on animals? But could you imagine them using those chemicals and strange ingredients on your pet at home?
Unfortunately animal researchers say that it will be impossible to eliminate all animal testing but they accept that it is extremely important to reduce the suffering of the animals being tested on, and they will try to use as fewer animals as possible, when more available alternatves become available.
Bibliography and Reliability
For my coursework I used these websites to help guide me:
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- This website is quite reliable as it gives mostly a non bias view point.
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- The problem with this website is that although it is aimed at children it tends to be slightly lean ant towards certain points. Also it hadn’t been updated for quite a long time.
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- Although this website is very against animal testing, it was recently updated so the information would have been a lot more correct about the things that are done now.
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- The information on this website was a bit out dated and parts didn’t really seem relevant anymore.
Also many thanks to the people on the Lush forum and my friends who let me use their quotes in this piece.
