Many industries use animal testing to research the effects of their products on humans. What are the arguments for and against animal testing? What is your opinion?

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Name: Nguyen Vu Thanh Thu                Date: 16/11/2005

Assessment Event 4: Academic Essay

Topic: Many industries use animal testing to research the effects of their products on humans. What are the arguments for and against animal testing? What is your opinion?

ANIMALS TESTING

Every product that released to the market has been tested safety for consumers. The cosmetic and medical products have been tested on animal to assure they are safe on human. However, it is illegal to test on a human being, therefore, some laboratories tested on animals and there are arguments over this topic.

People are strongly opposed animal testing in laboratories for industrial purposes, especially animals’ right organisations such as PETA. According to Dixon (2000, Animal Rights, )   animals can think and feel pain. Laboratory testing involves dangerous chemical and surgical practices on animals which painful to them. An example of this is in 1944, when John Draize, an American Food and Drugs Administration toxicologist, experienced an eye irritancy test on rabbits. The experiment involved dropping chemical into one eye of a rabbit; the other eye is for control. The rabbits were kept in cages and treated badly. It took at least three days to appear any sign of eyes damages such as redness, blindness, ulceration or cloudiness. After record the results, the rabbit will be killed. But testing on animals is not a necessary procedure to test a product. Many huge cosmetic and personal care companies, for example, L’Oreal, Gillette and Colgate-Palmolive and Revlon cosmetic, have stopped using animal testing for their products several years ago. Beside, animals are being mistreated in most laboratories. They usually be chained and kept in cages for months. In Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia provides pictures of animals being torture and chained in cages. Experiments on animals are not always accurate, they have errors and failures. According to Dixon (2000, Animal Experiment, ) nearly half the medicines have been approved in the US and UK had withdrawn off the market because of side effects even though they had been tested on animals before.    

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On the other hand, animals testing have benefits in improving humans’ lives. Animals have to suffer the pain because of chemical testing; their sacrifice will find a cure for thousands of patients all over the world. Animal testing involves development of medicines to some diseases such as antibiotics, HIV drugs, and insulin and cancer treatments. Other testing methods like using human tissues are expensive and not advanced enough. One important reason to use animals for drug and cosmetic tests is animals are similar to human, especially chimpanzee, because some of the animals have similar DNA to humans. An example ...

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