I will be answering the question: is animal testing right or wrong? To be able to answer this question, in my case study I will be including scientific information about animal testing, arguments that animal testing is right, arguments that animal testing

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                                        Page 2; Introduction

                                        Page 3 - 4; Scientific Information

                                        Page 5; Arguments for

                                        Page 6; Arguments against

               Page 7 - 8; Huntingdon Life Sciences

                                        Page 9; my opinion

                                        Page 10; Conclusion

                                        Page 11; Bibliography

Introduction;

I have chosen animal testing to base my case study on. I will be answering the question: is animal testing right or wrong? To be able to answer this question, in my case study I will be including scientific information about animal testing, arguments that animal testing is right, arguments that animal testing is wrong, my opinion and finally a conclusion.

        

Animal testing is when experiments are done on non-human animals. In the UK, the standards are strict regards to animal testing. Animal testing occurs when there is no viable alternative to the methods.

Animal testing is used for many, many products and the British law says that any new drug used for medicine must be tested on at least two different types of live mammal. One of them has to be a large non-rodent type animal. Drugs have to be tested on animals first to make sure that the drug works and it doesn’t hurt human beings. Some of the things that animal testing has been used for to be developed are; household products, food additives, paint, industrial chemicals, pesticides etc.

During animal testing, different laws protect all the lab animals from cruelty whilst they are being tested on, however the controls have not stopped some scientists from abusing animals which can make the animals very stressed.

Organisations such as the RSPCA have a list of companies who do and don’t test products on animals.

Animal testing is carried out in three stages which are; firstly, the drugs are tested using computer models and human cells grown in the laboratory. Several substances fail this test because they damage cells or don’t work. Next, the drugs that pass the first stage are tested on animals. It is illegal to test cosmetics and tobacco products on animals and in the UK new medicines have to undergo these types of tests. An example of a test done is a test which involves giving an amount of the substance to animals then monitoring them carefully for any side effects. Clinical trials are used when drugs have passed animal tests. Drugs are tested on healthy volunteers to check that they are safe. The substances are then tested on people with the illness to ensure they are safe and that they work.

Scientific Information

  • In the United States every year, 5 billion animals are used in the food industry compared to the 18 million used in research.

  • Mice are the most widely used animal in research labs. The year 2000, there was 1,607,000 mice that underwent experiments in the UK.

  • European statistics show that nearly 1.87 million mice were used in 2005 and nationally in the UK there was 2.81 million and the figures rose in 2006 to 2.95 million animals.

  • More than 2.5 million live animal experiments were authorised in 2000 in Great Britain.

  • The RSPCA in the UK used to destroy 1000 on average unwanted or sick animals each month but in the USA the figure was nearer to 1.2 million a month.
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  • Statistics show that every 3 minutes an animal dies inside Huntingdon totalling 500 innocent lives everyday.

  • Huntingdon Life Sciences is one of Europe’s biggest testers on animals and they kill approximately 75,000 animals each year with 87% of these animals being rodents.

This pie chart shows the different percentages of animals which are tested on during animal testing. Looking at this pie chart, it shows that 53% of mice were used for animal testing ...

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