Pros and Cons of Animal Testing:
Animal testing refers to the use of different animals for testing purposes. Different animals are used as test subjects to study the impact of an experiment on a species. It helps in the research, and creation of medicines, and cures for the diseases. But animal rights groups are against animal testing, while the scientific community is in the support of animal testing. There is a lot of debate going on this subject. Below are a few pros and cons of animal testing.
Pros of animal testing:
Here are a few pros of animal testing.
- An alternative to human testing: animal testing works as a substitute for human testing. Everything that these animals suffer during the testing, humans would have to suffer if they were used as a test subject. That is why the use of animal testing is proving a way for better research without harming humans. Using animal testing, humans can do almost any kind of research from medicine making to testing cures or studying diseases.
- Helps in research: Research requires a lot of work and testing. That is why multiple test subjects are required to properly study the diseases, how they are caused and how they spread within an animal and what is the rate of spread, and many other important questions related to research are answered using these animals as test subjects.
- Helps ensure the safety of drugs: Researching for a cure is one of the things that also requires a large number of test subjects. To use humans as a test subject for something that has not been proven to work efficiently is extremely dangerous and that is why every medicine and drug is first experimented on animals. Then if this drug is proven harmless and beneficial it is experimented on the humans.
Cons of animal testing:
Here are a few cons of animal testing.
- Animals die: A lot of animals that are used for animal testing die. This is because experimented medicines and research work is mostly dangerous and has the potenital to cause permanent harm and even kill the animals. That is why animal right group want the scientists to stop using these.
- Animals suffer: Apart from the animals death, a lot of animals suffer permanent damage to their bodies,brains and body parts. This causes these poor animals to suffer throughout their lives. This suffering can be as small as a body part that was cut during experiment, to a large scale trauma to the memory. Some animals are also kept in the places that are not suitable for the animals. Animals also suffer in these places.
- Not 100% effective: The animals and humans are not 100% same, so the experiment that worked on an animal is not 100% effective for the humans as well. It also involves multiple risks. Meaning that the medicine that was effective for a mice in the lab, it may not be as effective on the human subjects in the real world.
