BOS 4201 Toxicology - Animal Testing: My Thoughts and Feelings

This assignment presents a student's perspective on the ethical considerations surrounding animal testing in toxicology. The author explores the historical context of animal research and its role in medical breakthroughs, while also questioning the necessity and humaneness of using animals in experiments. The assignment summarizes arguments from both sides, including the biological similarities between animals and humans, as well as the ethical concerns about inflicting diseases and suffering on animals. The student concludes that animal testing should be stopped and suggests alternative methods like cell culture and computer simulation. The assignment refers to course materials related to toxicity testing, dose-response models, and the debate surrounding the use of animals in toxicology. The assignment provides the student's reflections on the subject and cites relevant sources.

My thoughts and feelings about Animal Testing
For more than a hundred years, animals have been used as a research object and helped in
many important medical breakthroughs. If we look into the history of biomedical research,
we can find thousands of examples of animal usage in various experiments. But here also
comes a question; is it really necessary to use animals as a research object? Isn’t this process
inhuman? While supporters say that, animals are a good object and have a biological
similarity with human anatomy. Along with that, the lifespan of animals is shorter than
humans and that is why we can examine them throughout their entire lifespan and in different
stages of their life. Controlling the environment for animals is also very easy and cost-
effective ("CBRA Fact Sheet Why Are Animals Necessary in Biomedical Research?”, 2019).
Others who share different opinions say that many diseases which humans experience,
animals do not experience. Cancer, HIV, heart problems, Alzheimer’s, these diseases are
basically human-related diseases but while conducting an experiment, signs of these diseases
are artificially injected on animals which is not only inhumane, unethical also. They also say
that many animals die because of these experiments and most of the time, the environment
where they had to survive is also pathetic ("Arguments against animal testing | Cruelty Free
International", 2019). After going through both of the arguments, I think we should stop
animal testing as early as possible. Nowadays there are other methods like cell culture and
computer simulation which can provide better accuracy than animal testing. Those methods
are scientific and more reliable also. Besides it, we don’t have any right to control other
species’ life in terms of our own profitability. Nature has created both humans and animals
and both have equal rights to survive in this world with their full potential. So, we should
look beyond animal testing and utilize other methods of drug and medicine testing.

References:
Arguments against animal testing | Cruelty Free International. (2019). Retrieved 9 October
2019, from https://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/why-we-do-it/arguments-against-
animal-testing
CBRA Fact Sheet Why Are Animals Necessary in Biomedical Research?. (2019). Retrieved
9 October 2019, from https://ca-biomed.org/CSBR/pdf/fs-whynecessary.pdf