Total Quoted Words are 150 words!!! Time - 9:16/47/59
According to Francis S. Collins, Director of the National
Institutes of Health found on the ProCon.org website on
November 16th of 2014, “Each year, more than 100 million
animals; including many house-hold pets, such as, mice, rats,
dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, and birds, are killed
in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training,
curiosity-driven experimentation, and cosmetics testing.”
Animal testings have become the norm in many research
companies and organizations, but the question stands. Are we
respecting the eminent rights of animals through these tests?
The answer is no. Animal testing is unacceptable, and we must
take action to eliminate it. In order to persuade you that we are
not respecting animals when we test them in such a manner,
first we will examine the inhumane elements of animal testing.
Then we will take a look at how unpredictable animal testing
is. And finally, we will discover how we, as consumers, can help
the cause by insisting on alternative methods to testing on
animals.
First, Let’s examine the inhumane elements of animal
testing. As of 1966, the United States passed the Animal
Welfare Act, which is a federal law that addresses the standard
of care animals receive at research facilities; however, this is
clearly not enough protection. The AWA excludes roughly 95%
of the animals tested upon, and Labs are not required to report
non-AWA protected animals. According to the Humane Society
International, which is an organization working to protect
animals around the world, animals used in experiments are
compelled to consume products, or quite opposite, are
deprived of substantial amounts of food and water. Test
animals endure prolonged periods of physical restraint, and
the infliction of burns or other wounds to study the healing
process. An example of such cruelty is the Draize eye test,
which is celebrating it’s morbid 70th anniversary and is most
commonly used by cosmetics companies, such as Maybelline.
According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine, a non-profit organization that promotes alternatives
to animal research, during this test, rabbits are immobilized in
stocks with their eyelids held open by clips to evaluate the
irritation caused by shampoo and other products. The FDA's
own investigators have concluded that the Draize test is
"plagued" by a lack of reproducibility, and that there lacks a
clear relationship between rabbit and human eye responses. In
short, rabbits are not humans. On March 26th of 2014,
Maybelline responded to a video bloggers’ animal testing
concerns. In their response, they did not deny their
participation in animal testing, but did indicate they were in
the process of assessing alternatives to animal testing. What
exactly is Maybelline assessing, when there are alternatives
that other companies; such as, Bath & Body Works, Bare
Essentials, and Este Lauder, are currently using today to make
cruelty free beauty products. If the tests conducted and
treatments of the animals were printed on the label of the
products you use most days, would you continue to use them?
Next we will take a look at how unpredictable animal
testing is. The reality is that over the past decades the majority
of animal experiments do not contribute to improving human
health, and the value of the role that animal experimentation
plays in most medical advances is questionable because
animals respond differently and unpredictably. A 2013 study in
Archives of Toxicology stated, Animal-based toxicity testing,
which causes severe suffering, distress, and death for the
animals used, is typically performed without anesthesia or
analgesics and is of questionable, if any, scientific value. Also,
direct comparisons of mouse versus human data puts strong
doubt on the usefulness of animal data as key know-how to
predict human safety and wellness. The testing of just one
substance alone, be it a potential drug or toxic chemical, can
involve using up to 800 animals and cost over $6 million.
Embryo- toxicity involves the toxic effects of a substance on the
development of an embryo. In these studies, pregnant animals
are killed just prior to delivery, and the fetuses are examined
for any sign of toxic effects by the test substance. A standard in
vivo test, which is an experiment that is done in the body of a
living organism, was once described as little more than “a
ritual mass execution of animals. Furthermore, the 1950s
sleeping pill, thalidomide, which was tested on animals prior to
its commercial release, caused 10,000 babies to be born with
severe deformities. If human trials were conducted, instead of
trusting embryo-toxicity, this dilemma wouldn’t have
happened, or there would have been a significantly reduced
statistic.
Finally we will select some alternatives to animal testing.
We should be following other world leaders, like those in
Europe, who not only completely banned animal testing for
cosmetics, but also banned the sale of any new cosmetics
tested on animals anywhere in the world from entering the
country, by reexamining the experimental process of testing
products. Cutting-edge non-animal research methods are
available, such as: micro-dosing, which is the administering of
doses too small to cause any adverse reactions, can be used in
human volunteers. According to Paul Locke, of the Johns
Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing,
an establishment highly involved in the replacement of animals
with in vitro methods in the medical field, “40% of drugs fail in
human trials because the traditional studies conducted in
animals do not accurately predict how the drug would behave
in humans. In 2009, the international drug regulators endorsed
the use of micro-dosing in early clinical trials to improve the
speed and safety of drug development. Another method is
sophisticated computer models, which can predict the toxicity
of substances without experimenting on animals, and also in-
vitro studies, which are based on artificially creating human
cells and tissues. According to the article “Saving the Animals:
New Ways to Test Products” published on The New York Times
website on September 12th of 2014, “These methods have been
shown time and again to be more accurate than crude animal
experiments.” More importantly, you can help this cause by
openly expressing your opinion on the matter with the “Be
Cruelty-Free” pledge today, which says no to cosmetic animal
testing in the United States and worldwide. All you have to do
is put pen to paper. Another way to help is to urge more
than 350 U.S. universities to prohibit severe suffering in
animals at campus laboratories. Even further, you can find out
where your school stands, and how to make a difference.
Ultimately, demand that your tax dollars and charitable
donations not be used to fund experiments on animals. Help
fight for the cause by asking your Members of Congress to cosponsor the Pet Safety and Protection Act, which would put
random dog and cat dealers out of business, and redirect
funding into the use of clinical, in-vitro, and computermodeling studies rather than laboratory animal testing;
otherwise, who are we to tell companies, such as, S.C. Johnson,
Band-Aid, and Clorox, who continue with their barbarous ways
and relentless testing, that their actions are out of line.
The first step to any predicament is to educate people.
Now that we have taken an in depth look at the quandary of
animal testing, we have mastered that step. The more people
are educated the sooner something can be done to save the
animals. With this knowledge in hand, I’m sure you will agree
that animal testing is unacceptable, and we must take action to
eliminate it. In order to convince you, first we examined the
inhumane elements of animal testing. Then we took a look at
how unpredictable animal testing is. And finally, we selected a
few, safer, alternatives to testing on animals. Keep in mind,
more than 100 million animals are killed each year because of
various testing, but it doesn’t always have to be that way.
Remember, you are the difference in making the changes you
want to see.
Works Cited
Animal Testing Pros and Cons. 2014 йил 29-January. 2015 йил 7-January
<http://animal-testing.procon.org/#background>.
Collins, Francis M.D., Ph.D., Director National Institutes of Health. Animal
Experiments: Overview. 2015 йил 9-January
<http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animals-usedexperimentation-factsheets/animal-experiments-overview/>.
Jensen, Meghan. Persuasive Speech Proposal. 2012 йил 6-November. 2015 йил 15January <https://sites.google.com/site/mmjense/persuasive>.
Weldon, Holly. Animal Testing Outline. 2014 йил 11-December. 2015 йил 7-January
<http://www.studymode.com/essays/Animal-Testing-Outline-66065851.html>.