Animals Should Be Used for Medical Research
Overview
Animals Should Be Used for Medical Research
Human beings use animals for a wide variety of purposes, including research. Animals are used for transportation, for sport, for recreation, and companionship. The approximately 260 million people in the United States keep about 110 million dogs and cats as pets. More than 5 billion animals are killed in the United States each year as a source of food but when it comes to numbers of animals killed for medical research it is lower. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, each year more than 100 million animals—including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. But still, there is a conflict among people about whether animals should be used for researches or not. Also, there are a lot of reasonable facts that explain animals should be used for medical research.
First of all facts about medical research of animals is that animals are used in scientific research to help us understand our bodies and how they work. For example, the mouse has many similarities to humans in terms of anatomy, physiology, and genetics. The mouse genome is very similar to our own. By studying on animals we can understand our biology. Mice are extremely useful for studying complex diseases, such as atherosclerosis and hypertension, as many of the genes responsible for these diseases are shared between mice and humans. Research in mice provides insights into the genetic risk factors for these diseases in the human population. It is easy to manipulate the mouse genome, for example, adding or removing a gene to better understand its role in the body. This provides a powerful tool for modeling specific diseases when a mutated gene is known to play a role in the disease. With this researches, humans can develop new drugs and new ways of treatment owing to information got by animals.
Another benefit of using animals for medical research is that animals can be used to testing new drugs and new treatments. They are used to safely test potential medicines before they are tested in people and to check the safety of other chemicals. Scientists can observe whether new chemicals have harmful effects, such as finding out whether a chemical causes cancer or harms the unborn fetus. With this scientists guarantee their drugs to use on people. It benefited much to people, for example, since 1900 the average life expectancy in the United States has increased by 25 years (U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, 1988). This remarkable increase cannot be attributed only to animal research but animal research has been an important contributor to improved human health.
The other benefit of using animals for medical research is different because using animals for medical research benefits animals too. Many people believe that animal research is done only to benefit humans. What people may not realize is that most of the same research benefits animals. As people receive vaccines against deadly diseases, so do they. As people take antibiotics for their sickness, so do they. People and animals share about 50 of the same diseases. Ranging from asthma and epilepsy to high blood pressure and cancer. Doctors and veterinarians share almost 100 of the same medicines to heal humans and animals. Without animal testing, the prognosis for millions of animals would be simple they would develop diseases or contract viruses that would be untreatable, they would suffer, and eventually, they would die.
Opponents of medical research on animals say that animal testing is unethical and ineffective. But in reality, Research in cows helped create the world’s first vaccine, which in turn helped end smallpox. Studies with monkeys, dogs, and mice led to the polio vaccine. Drugs used to combat cancer, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, hepatitis, and malaria would not have been possible without research with primates. Therefore, it would be fanciful to say that researches on animals are effective. While animal testing benefits people that much it would be unethical not to use them.
In short, there is a conflict among people about using animals for medical research but there are facts that can not be ignored. Animals have been a very good science source for humans. Drugs and vaccines have been developed. Experiments on these creatures have helped humans to understand biology so it can not be said that using animals for medical research is not efficient.