Running Head: ANIMAL TESTING

ANIMAL TESTING: A DEBATABLE ISSUE

Paulette Ramirez
University of Texas at El Paso
Proff. Paul Laprade
RWS 1302: Literature Research Paper

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Abstract
Since 500 BC, animals have been used in scientific and medical research. All the
medical improvements have arisen from animal testing. However, a dispute came up
concerning that, as animals have limitations in their lifespan or metabolic rate it leads to
unreliable results which threatens human health safety. On the other side, people claim that
animal testing is integral in order to obtain new biomedical discoveries. In this overview
the definition of animal testing, two historical events that have accounted animal testing,
ethical justifications, and some policy options are discussed. This report concludes that
there are alternatives that can attain accurate human data and that nullification of animal
testing is not relevant to every scientific field.

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Introduction
Since 500 BC, animals have been used in scientific and medical research. Despite
the fact that these testing have brought progresses to the medical field, people have come
up with the concern about animal testing righteousness, if it is morally right or if it is
considered an illicit action, if it is necessary to continue experimenting with animals or not.
If human beings should now be part of the experimentation process or due to biomedical
ethics researchers cannot make a human suffer. This research paper the following four
questions are going to be briefly discussed regarding the issue of animal testing:
1.
2.
3.
4.

What defines animal testing?

What historical events have occurred with animal testing?
Is animal testing ethically justifiable?
What policy options are available regarding animal testing?

This overview provides the two sides of the problem were pro-animal testing argues that it
is integral in order to have biomedical discoveries whereas the contrary side claims that
animals have inherent limitations and they drive to misleading results affecting human
safety.
What Defines Animal Testing?
It starts off with the development of a question, or hypothesis, that scientists address
in their research studies in order to observe certain phenomena. It is here where the
observation takes place and they conduct clinical observations, in vitro and animal
experiments. As animals share many similarities and characteristic that humans have, they
are subjected to many testing associated to pathology, physiology, pharmacology, behavior,
and many more. Animals are artificially induced with the disease (Aping Science, 1995),
manipulative procedures and surgery may be [also] necessary (Guidelines for the use

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of animals in research, 1992, p.3) and then the observations are performed to attain the
objectives of the research.
Scientific research does not deal too much with human subjects due to the fact that
guidelines such as the Nuremberg Code, Declaration of Helsinki, and some more provide
protection to human research subjects. Ferdowsian & Beck (2011) withhold that these
guidelines were established after the experiments performed during the Nazi German
regime and the Tuskegee syphilis study that abused human research in an exploitive way
(p.2).
Nonetheless, laws protecting animals in research have also been established because
it is widely acknowledged that animals can experience pain and distress [as well]
(Ferdowsian & Beck, 2011, p.2). According to Guidelines for the Use of Animals in
Research (1992), the Ethical and Animal Care committees developed several guidelines
that deal with choice of species where animals should be employed according to the
question being tested, the smallest number of animals should be used; pain and discomfort
should be minimized during the procedures with the aid of anesthesia, endangered species
should not be employed. The animals used should come from a reliable institution, the
conditions where these animals are kept should be adequate and meet recommended
requirements, and lastly if animals are to be killed after the procedures it should be in a
humane manner (p.3-5). However, these guidelines are not always carried on as should be
done, Ferdowsian & Beck (2011) argued that the majority of guidelines operate on
presumption that animal research should proceed [to] benefit humansand that the
number of animals used has not significantly declined over the past several decades (p.1,

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2). This means that as long as animals provide benefits to human health outcomes the
guidelines can be neglected.
According to Ferdowsian &
Beck (2011), recent estimates
suggest that at least 100 million
animals are used each year
worldwide and the number has
not decreased significantly over
the last years. In addition, more
than 90% of the animals used in
research are excluded from the U. S. Animal Welfare Act, and this animal pool is comprised
of the majority being birds, rats, or mice as could be appreciated in Figure 1 (p.2).
What Historical Events Occurred with Animal Testing?
The medical field has shown improvements and failures throughout the total
outcomes from animal testing. Around the 1940s the polio disease hit the United States
young population, infecting mostly children where half of them were under the age of ten
years of age. In response to this disease investigators developed animal models to test the
hypothesis, especially with monkey usage, that would helped them to determine whether
the virus was present in certain human tissues (Aping Science, 1995). Withholding this
knowledge of the infected tissue, medical doctors and scientist could develop an efficient
vaccine that would target that tissue. Aping Science (1995) says that, in 1940, researchers
found that polio virus thrived in the alimentary tracts of humans, like in the case of the

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chimpanzees [models]; this discovery along with human experimental data, [like]
growing polio virus on human intestines led to the vaccine development in 1948 (p.22).
In addition to this historical event, there was another incident around the 1960s.
According to a report by the New York Times during that decade a new drug was
discovered and launched to the market. Thalidomide, the new drug that was used as a
sedative and also [used to] arrange other ills (Motion picture) was distributed in Germany
and America by the German Company. Without too much investigation about the drug
effects, the pharmacy market was entrusted with the fact that no matter how much
thalidomide a rat ate, it will not kill it (Brynner, Motion picture). No prescription was
required to purchase it and the company claimed that pregnant women could take it.
Months later, children were born with missing lymph or lymph deformities. This event
armed a scandal against the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) due to its negligence
towards further research on Thalidomide effects. Animal testing showed positive feedback
on the use of the drug, but human subjects were severely affected.
Is Animal Testing Ethically Justifiable?
The big concern with this issue questions the inquiry about how relevant animal
experiments are to human health outcomes [?] (Ferdowsian & Beck, 2011, p.2). A
pharmaceutical study conducted on animals in Britain obtained a 90% drug failure to reach
the market in 2001. Combes et al. (2003), discuss that one of the major causes of these
unfavorable results is because animal studies is extrapolating the results to humans.
Species differences in routes of metabolism can cause problems and also discuss that
the species lifespan, weight, metabolic rate, cell division and body surface area can
influence the results of studies which leads to uncertainty on human health safety (p.4).

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Animal testing has too much risks when it deals with making an association between
animal and human outcomes, even though of the hundred similarities both species are
different. Ferdowsian & Beck (2011), say that various clinical conditions demonstrated
that animal studies have been poorly predictive and have raised questions about whether
animals mimic the treatment responses seen in humans (p. 2-3). This make researchers to
look for other alternatives that could rely on human data.
Jones (2006), claims that animal testing is essential to avoid a human disaster and
should not be annulled. He supports his idea by complaining that the Thalidomide fallacy
occurred because too little animal research was done; the drug was not tested on pregnant
animals, so this made researchers to be unaware of the damage that it would cause. After,
the scandalous tragedy in the 1960s with Thalidomide, the drug was tested on pregnant
animals and they perceived the same birth defects as the affected children. Jones argues that
if these test were performed earlier, the drug would have never been suggested for human
use. It was after this incident that animal testing became a legal requirement in Britain to
avoid any misconception (p.34). In simpler words, doing animal testing is a window to
observe some of the effects that a drug or a chemical can cause in a living organism.
What Policy Options are Available regarding Animal Testing?
Every event or incident that occurs with animal testing helps to improve the process
of how does the experimentations should work. This can be achieved by changing
guidelines or innovate new alternatives, and along the last decades new options have been
developed. Combes et al. (2003), suggest that in vitro and silico methods can replace
animal models while also improving the relevance and reliability of results (p.4). In the
toxicology field, Ferdowsian & Beck (2011) embrace the idea that in vitro and

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computational methods predicts the effects with more accuracy than animal testing.
However, they limit this notion to be used in the research field because it is more difficult
to approach to the outcomes systematically because research questions are much more
diverse than toxicology (p.3). This can demonstrate that not in every scientific field it is
reliable to stop operating with animal subjects. Regarding testing in the cosmetic field
Dunnuck (2015) gives some policy options that can be accounted to replace animals for
example the Draize test that resembles human skin, the Eyetex that resemble the reactions
of the human eye, the use of computers, and also the in vitro testing (online). Another
option that is available instead of using animals is human biology drug tests presented by
Archibald & Coleman (2012) and they claim that it should promise precious insights into
the functioning of the integrated human system not result into a tragedy due to unreliable
animal data (online).
People who is involved in the scientific field knows about what alternatives could
exist to work along animal testing, however people who goes shopping and buys products
is not aware of what alternatives exist regarding animal testing. Five surveyed subjects
were asked if they knew any option concerning animal testing, and it is surprising that none
of the surveyed people knew any of the choices previously mentioned. They all disagree
with the fact that companies and laboratories use animals to do research and
experimentation yet they all mentioned that those animals are killed in vane and in a
inhumane manner (F. Gonzalez, A. Rodriguez, F. Jimenez, D. Bustillos & K. Carbajal,
personal communication, October 23, 2015)
In conclusion, this issue has too much to say from both sides as well as too much to
solve. Without animal testing a drug cannot be tested on a living organism, and human

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rights protect people from getting deprived of their wellbeing state. Animal models are
essential to approach human diseases and cures like was the case of the polio research.
Then, if too little animal research is done it can become in a tragedy incident like the case
of Thalidomide drug. It is convincing that even though animals and humans share many
similarities the reaction effects are going to be different for both species. This is why
nonhuman options are being developed to obtain more accurate data for human systems.
There are too many methods still to discover in the near future that could provide further
scientific and animal welfare advantages.

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References
Archibald, K., & Coleman, R. (2012). A humane solution. New Scientist, 216(2895), 32-33.
Canadians Support Animal Research [Motion picture]. (2014).
Combes, R. D., Berridge, T., Connelly, J., Eve, M. D., Garner, R. C., Toon, S., & Wilcox, P.
(2003). Early microdose drug studies in human volunteers can minimize animal testing:
Proceedings of a workshop organised by Volunteers in Research and Testing. European
journal of pharmaceutical sciences, 19(1), 1-11.
Dunnuck, H. (2015). Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing. Retrieved September 10, 2015,
from http://www.lonestar.edu/stopanimaltesting.htm
Ferdowsian, H. R., & Beck, N. (2011). Ethical and Scientific Considerations Regarding
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Guidelines for the use of animals in research. (1992). In M. Stamp Dawkins & M. Gosling
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Jones, L. (2006). Pro animal testing. New Internationalist, (393), 34-35.
Personal communication (2015, October 23). Animal Testing [Online interview].
Primate research's role in medical history. (1995). In Aping Science (Vol. 5, pp. 21-22). New
York, NY: Medical Research Modernization Committe.
The Shadow of the Thalidomide Tragedy | Retro Report | The New York Times [Motion picture].
(2013). YouTube.