Animal Testing

There has been and there still is a huge problem around the globe. Many people have argued about it,and mostly are against it, but somehow the problem seems to persist. Many world recognized companies, pharmaceutics, medics, schools and universities use of this : something cruel, something that is not compatible with the human mind which is animal testing. A horrible way of putting animals through that even with the advance of technology and protests, seems to keep on going, sometimes arising, sometimes decreasing. The issue is that a huge number of animals are being tested every year suffering and diying. This blog will attempt to explain about animal testing and it will go through the different symptoms that animals get, as well as the different alternative ways of testing products that technology provides to companies.

What is animal testing?

Animal testing is taken as a resource for testing products that companies use. Cosmetics, personal care, foods, beverages and household cleaning products are tested on millions of animals every year. Experimental laboratories use animals such as rats, mice, rabbits, guinea pigs and other animals like monkeys, cats, dogs, etc. to test their products. Companies claim and tell people that these tests are done to encourage the safety of their products and ingredients for consumers. Medical laboratories also use the resource of animal testing for the purpose of advancing medicine for medical research. These poor animals get tormented, tortured, agonized by cruel, brutal, monstrous, inhuman tests, and experiments on their little and devil bodies. These laboratories that test on animals are known as "vivisection laboratories". According to the Britannica Academic Dictionary, the definition of vivisection is, "vivisection, operation on a living animal for experimental rather than healing purposes; more broadly, all experimentation on live animals. It is opposed by many as cruelty and supported by others on the ground that it advances medicine; a middle position is to oppose unnecessarily cruel practices, use alternatives when possible, and restrict experiments for necessary medical research (as opposed, for example, to cosmetics testing). Surgery on animals without anesthesia was once common; many people, most significantly Rene Descartes claimed that animals did not really feel pain. The testing of certain chemicals on animals to find the lethal dose still occurs...". This literally means that most of the experiments done at medical laboratories for the purpouse of advancing medicine research, and the testing experiments from companies for testing their products are mostly done to animals when they are mentally conscious. They do not anesthetize the animals for producing such experiments. They just practice these testings while the animals are still conscious of what they are doing to them.

What kind of experiments get practiced on the animals?

The experiments taken on these animals are practically inhuman. In the cosmetics industry, the common test done on animals is known as Lethal Dosage (LD). These, are based on determining the amount of substances that will kill a predetermined number of animals. These animals are forced to swallow, inhale and digest massive amounts of poisonous and toxic substances, as well as they have to suffer the pain of applied caustic chemicals to their very delicate skin and eyes. These are not even close to that they also cut them open and some others force hard plastic tubes down the animals' delicate throats. The results for all these cruel and bestial experiments are that some of the animals, such as monkeys are addicted to drugs and get holes in their skulls. Sheep and pigs get their skin burned off and rats and mice have their spinal cord crashed. They get tumors as big as their bodies, purposely blinded and as if this is enough, all of these cause painful and torturing deaths. The worse thing of all, is that even if companies and laboratories do all these things to these animals, they barely have a good result, because animals have different sensitivity than human beings. Most of these brutal experiments are funded by governments when it comes to medical research. In New Zealand only, 300,000 animals are killed each year from this animal testing purpose. This serious and critical circumstance is embarrassing and shameful for such a small and environmental caring country.

What can be done about it?

Non-animal testing methods are available today. With the advance of technology, many methods have been introduced, which are more accurate, effective and reliable. Every day, more and more companies are switching to non-animal testing methods. To stop animal testing, it is important to not consume or purchase products from companies that do test on animals, and to switch to companies that use other methods of testing instead.

To conclude, animal testing is cruel, inefficient, inhuman. It is impossible to think that animals do not suffer from all those painful experiments they get done on them. The number of animals that die every year because of animal testing is horrifying. The world would be a better place without such things happening. There are plenty of things that people can do about it. The first and most important is to be informed about what kind of products have been tested on animals and not to consume them. This cruelty has to stop!