Animal Use In Experiment Today: Should It Be Banned?

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Literature Review on Animal use on Experiments
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November 28, 2017
Introduction
The use of Animals for experimentation has been one of the most controversial topics in the field of science today. On one hand, there are advocates of animal rights stating that even these creatures have rights to be treated fairly. On the other hand, there are also those who think that animal use is simply a “necessary sacrifice” for the sake of innovation and growth, not only of the field of science but also for the society. Nonetheless, there are also those who lie in between the spectrum who thinks that while the use of animals is “inevitable” for the sake of progress, certain limitations should be put in place. In the opinion of many authors, the argument on the middle is the most practical, efficient, and “humane”, when it comes to the issue of animal use on experimentation (Naderi, Sarvari, and Milanifar). Nonetheless, this is also one of the most problematic ones because this elicits the need for a code that would maintain our ability to be able to achieve more scientific innovations and the rights of animals of being treated humanely (peta.org). To further complicate this problem, subsets of more problematic questions – do all animals (regardless of size, the complexity of brain structure, closeness to humans, etc.) deserve the same amount of treatment (RSPCA.Org), how should culture be considered when it comes to writing laws of fair use on animals, and who should provide the laws when it comes to what’s right and what’s wrong in animal use (Naderi, Sarvari, and Milanifar) – further complicates the problem. In the succeeding sections, the author would first provide a discussion of the ensuing debate between the opposing sides. This includes the need for “culturally relativistic” policies in terms of animal use and compromise between the societal and scientific norms, which are usually opposed when it comes to this issue. Nevertheless, the author of this article believes that while the use of animals for experimentation is essential for our scientific progress, certain limitations should be created based on ethical underpinnings of both the local community and that of the international policies.
Animal Rights Equality
According to peta.org, the use of animals should be banned for the fact that they are not reliable measures for the development of medical treatments for human beings. Particularly, they described this method as “wasteful and unreliable”, since treatments which are first tried on animals with a great deal of success have been reported to have a significant margin of error when used for human treatments. In the 2004 study done by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, they found out “92 percent of drugs entering clinical trials following animal testing fail to be approved” (Capaldo). This suggests an “equal treatment” of all animals with regards to the issue of experimentation for the mere fact that trials on them are most likely to reach an inconclusive end. On the other hand, there are also who believes that all animals (with the exception of us), should simply receive equal treatments when it comes to being experimented. Provided that it is for the sake of the bigger whole (scientific progress and innovation) (Badyal and Desai). The reason for this is because despite the significant margin of error, animals are the closest subjects that we can use to test our medicines before approving it for consumption. As according to UnderstandingAnimalresearch.org.uk, the importance of using animals for research is that they also experience a lot of the similar diseases that we experience such as “Cancers, Tb, Flu, and asthma”. These diseases are considered to be amongst the deadliest ones, with flu killing about 23,607 per year on average, based on the estimates of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thus, in line with these arguments, the general overview shows that despite the significant margin of error for “no. of animal treatment–curing efficiency” ratio, there still exists a dire need to prevent the extinction of the human race, which crucially relies upon using animal treatments to do so.
Lying in the middle of this debate are those who think that equality on animal rights should depend on the ‘species’ and its significance for our cultural constructs. One famous example of this would be the case of “Leo and Hercules”, who are captive chimpanzees bein...