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Morgan Alexander
Ms. Coco
English 1001
30 November 2016
Audience: People that dont know much about it, but want to learn about animal testing.
Preface: Before writing this draft I was originally going to just focus on why we use animals for
testing. After doing research and putting them together, I realized I could put the articles into
two categories of challenges and benefits. I feel like focusing on that part is working well with
the flow of my paper. The thing that needs work is the organization, which is really what I plan
to focus more on of after I finish writing the entire paper. the reason I say the organization is
because I havent decided if I should go straight into the benefits since there arent a lot that I
found or if I should wait until after I talk about the challenges. The roadblocks that I faced is that
I might need to find at least one more article on the benefits because right now most of what I
have been finding is challenges. In the conference I want to focus on is how much I should focus
on the benefits since in my research I have found a lot more challenges than benefits. The
questions I have for this draft is if my title is okay. I also wanted to know if it matters about the
lengths of some paragraphs being longer than others. The last question is if I should add more
sentences to the conclusion since I have questions at the end. If I had two more weeks with this
draft, I would improve on making sure my borrowed material and personal were even. I have
learned that quotes are only suppose to take up 20% of the essay.
Animal Testing: Too Challenging?
Many people forget animal testing is happening since its not glorified in the media
because its not a new topic. However, to animal rights activist it is a very big topic to which
they spend most of their time defending. Each side of animal testing has their own opinions on
the matter, but who is really right? While animal rights activist will say there are no benefits
and only challenges. The scientists doing the research will defend the tests saying there are
plenty of benefits. This has brought me to the question: Why are there more challenges than
benefits of disease testing on animals?
Looking at the scientists view points one can see that animal testing has helped find
cures for not only humans, but also the animals being tested. Certain animals, but not all have

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some of the same organs as humans do and react the same that humans would react. For
instance, Sebastian McBride and his colleagues started off using rodents as test subjects to test
for Huntington disease. However, since rodents do not have a long lifespan like humans do,
scientists were forced to switch to pigs and sheep because they have a lot longer lifespan
(McBride 26). The scientists did end up getting to observe the disease because it had time to
develop like it does in humans. They even discovered what else they needed to look for that
causes the disease. Of course the scientists thought that would be enough evidence to prove they
needed to use animals for the testing. Although this is a benefit of animal testing, some will argue
that it is also a challenge. The fact that they actually had to change the animals they were testing
made it a pretty big challenge because they had to start all the trials over again from scratch.
Animal testing is not just in the United States, there are many others that also use
animals like the United Kingdom. Pandora Pound and other professors from different
universities in the UK explain that there is not a lot of evidence that animal research actually
helps humans. The professors observed that most people are okay letting scientist test on
animals because they are on the assumption that it benefits humans. Since they couldnt find
much evidence on the research benefitting humans, the professors decided to do some research
for themselves. They ended up only finding 277 papers that could show some light on evidence,
but instead were only able to use 6 papers. What they found in doing this research was that the
scientists only really published the ones that helped humans and not the ones that didnt do
anything to help (Pound 4). The challenge in all of this is that it is difficult to carry this
information to humans because there could be other experiments that didnt work. People were
then starting to become hesitant in using animal for research all together.

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According to Aysha Akhtar, More than 115 million animals are used worldwide in
experimentation or to supply the biomedical industry. From known knowledge, we dont get
that many cures for vaccines every year. I couldnt even tell you the last time scientists found a
cure for a disease. Just looking at this statistic, one could argue if we should still be using
animals for research or at least if we should be using that many animals. Despite what some may
think, animals do have emotions and just like humans, they can feel pain that is being inflicted
on them from diseases. Those millions of animals that were used and most likely died from the
tests could feel the pain the diseases caused them the entire time they were being tested. The
biggest obstacle in all of this is the fact that we could be morally wrong for putting animals
through pain when they can feel what we feel. Thats the biggest problem animal rights activist
have with animal testing.
On the other hand, some scientists along with professors believe that it would be easier to
do the test on alternative methods. They think it would give better and faster results to finding a
cure or to see how it spreads. Valentina Busin and her colleagues introduced the point of care
technique which not only cost less than using the animals for the test, but they can use more
money on testing many different diseases instead of just a few. Not to mention this kind of
technique can be used for many different tests and not just disease testing. Valentina also admits
that there are challenges to this testing (Busin 1). Every sort of technology has its limitations,
but new technology is always being invented to take the place of the old.
Humans are very different than any other species on earth and should be treated that way
in the field of science. Most people believe that monkeys or apes are the equivalent to humans in
the animal world. However, some diseases are only found in humans and never in other species.
If the disease is only found in humans how are scientists suppose to get an accurate result from

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testing them in animals? It would be one thing if animals could already get the disease, but they
cant because they arent human. For example, keloid disease has only ever been found in
humans, not even human primates naturally develop scar tissue, (Marttala 1). Of course, no
scientist will test on humans because they have laws against that and is illegal. They have to
settle for animals even though it doesnt really make sense. Jaana Marttlaa and others describes
how in order to use animals for the testing, scientist have to take normal animals and turn their
tissue and organs into something that can form the disease (1). All of this is quite a big challenge
to overcome because they are not just putting the disease into the animals this time. The
scientists have to take time out of the study first to plant or rearrange tissue inside the animals.
There has to be a better way right?
Not all animals are good test subjects for diseases to begin with. Each disease has its
own organ or tissue that needs to be a host. If animals dont have the organs that the disease
affects in humans, it is way more difficult to research on the animals. Also like the sheep and
pigs, some diseases need animals that are going to last longer than others. SJ Morgan and
colleagues describe the challenges of using animals for drug safety. Drugs and drug safety
correspond with disease testing because it is whats used to cure these diseases. They state that
there were so many challenges to the testing of drugs for the diseases that they arent even
allowed to use them without a human trial (Morgan 1). If we cant even use the drugs tested
specifically for a certain disease without having humans test them first, how are we suppose to
rely on the tests at all? Before they passed a law saying that humans had to do a trial with the
drug first, we blindly use them assuming they would help cure a common cold or an infectious
disease. Finding the drugs or vaccines for these diseases is easier to do than studying the animals

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inflicted. If we cant even trust the drug without using humans as well, we shouldnt be trusting
the disease testing without humans.
Humans and animals are too diverse of species to be able to test on the other and assume
it would be the same outcome. Clearly there are many challenges compared to benefits of using
animals in disease testing. If there wouldnt be so many challenges and humans benefited more
from the testing, then there probably wouldnt be any big arguments for the case of the animals.
Its like a human relationship, you cant force something that isnt there or working. As humans
if we come across a problem, we figure out different ways of resolving them instead of
continuing to do the same thing over and over again. So why do we continue to use animals for
disease testing when it causes so many problems rather than solutions? Why do we find it
immoral to test on humans that already have the disease inside of them but not animals that we
are placing the disease into? Really we should all ask ourselves one simple question: Do we
really want to keep using animals knowing that millions are being sacrificed each year to not
even get a good outcome?

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Works Cited
Akhtar, A. "The Flaws And Human Harms Of Animal Experimentation." Cambridge Quarterly
Of Healthcare Ethics 24.4 (n.d.): 407-419. Science Citation Index. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
Busin, Valentina, et al. "Review: Opportunities And Challenges For The Application Of
Microfluidic Technologies In Point-Of-Care Veterinary Diagnostics." Molecular And
Cellular Probes 30.(2016): 331-341. ScienceDirect. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
Marttala, Jaana, et al. "Mini Reviews: Keloids: Animal Models And Pathologic Equivalents To
Study Tissue Fibrosis." Matrix Biology 51.(2016): 47-54. ScienceDirect. Web. 10 Nov.
2016.
McBride, Sebastian D., Nicholas Perentos, and A. Jennifer Morton. "Basic Neuroscience: A
Mobile, High-Throughput Semi-Automated System For Testing Cognition In Large NonPrimate Animal Models Of Huntington Disease." Journal Of Neuroscience Methods
265.Current Methods in Huntington's Disease Research (2016): 25-33. ScienceDirect.
Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
Morgan, SJ, et al. "Use Of Animal Models Of Human Disease For Nonclinical Safety
Assessment Of Novel Pharmaceuticals." Toxicologic Pathology 41.3 (n.d.): 508-518.
Science Citation Index. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.

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Pound, Pandora, et al. "Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?." BMJ:
British Medical Journal 2004: 514. JSTOR Journals. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.