Animal Testing is Wrong! 

    Picture this:  You’re a mouse.  Your just sitting around as happy as can be, running in your wheel for exercise, when along comes a huge needle full of AIDS.  Well, you just can’t say, “No thanks Mr. Aids Scientist, I don’t want any AIDS,” because you are a mouse.  And we all know that mice can’t talk.  So you get injected with AIDS.  Now the scientist is going to try to cure your AIDS by sticking whatever he pleases, wherever he pleases into you.  If he doesn’t cure your AIDS, you die.
    Does this sound bad?  Well, this is a story in which many people against animal testing use to appeal to those who are for it and even those who have not chosen a side.  Many people are really upset about this whole situation.  They don’t  like scientists filling needles full  of whatever they want and sticking them into whatever animal they please. They say animals have certain rights too.  And when Scientists argue the point of the food chain, which they say that the food chain gives humans the right to kill all the animals we want because we’re at the top.  Those against say this theory is a bunch of hogwash because they argue that the food chain refers to feeding on animals not killing them.

 
    “Each year in the United States an estimated 70 million animals are maimed, blinded, scalded, force-fed chemicals, genetically manipulated, and otherwise hurt and killed in the name of science, by private institutions, household product and cosmetics companies, government agencies, educational institutes, and scientific centers.  Substances that we use every day such as eye shadow, soap, furniture polish, may be tested on rats, rabbits,
guinea pigs, dogs, cats, many other various animals.  These tests are mainly used to test the degree of harmfullness of the product and their ingredients.  No antidotes are ever sought so animal tests cannot be used to prevent or treat potential human injuries.”
     Their are eight main points that those against Animal Testing usually point out in their arguments with those who are for it.  To see the eight points click here now. 
    The government still requires experiments on animals before pharmaceuticals can be marketed.  Yet between 1976 and 1985, of the198 new drugs marketed, 102 of them caused toxic effects in humans that required the drugs to either be re-labeled or withdrawn.  From this very important fact opponents of animal testing can argue that
animal test results are so misleading that drugs are often withdrawn after causing death and hundreds of life-threatening allergic reactions in humans.

      Want to Learn more information about animal testing, like what is done to animals in labs?  Well click here now.
 

This page was made by Stacy Kohle, a student at Wayne State College, on April 20, 1999.  If you have any questions or comments e-mail me at stkohl02@willy.wsc.edu.