Animal Testing in Medical Research: A Literature Review

Running head: Research 1
Introduction to Research
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Research 2
Part 2
Literature Review
Introduction
Animal testing has played a significant function in medical research from antiquity up to today.
However, animal experimentation has been an issue of heated discussion both in the medical
field and from the proponents of animal welfare (Mak, Evaniew, & Ghert, 2014). Several studies
have been conducted to justify the need for the continual use of animal testing but with improved
care on the welfare of animals while others have shown evidence on the flaws of animal
experimentation. Arguments on the reliability of the animal testing and the provision of
appropriate models for human biology among others have been the arguments for and against
animal testing. Therefore, there is a need for a more in-depth review of the current studies to
ascertain whether there is still a place for animal testing in medical research. This review will
examine articles published in the past seven years to make the findings relevant to the current
practitioners in the medical field. The specific themes under focus include the benefits and
drawbacks of animal testing, history of animal testing and its state into the foreseeable future.
Akhtar (2015) conducted a study on the flaws and human harms of animal experimentation by
examining varied evidence for and against animal testing. Despite the existing evidence of the
limitations and unreliability of animal experimentations, the biomedical community are still
confident that they can be overcome. The three primary factors that undermine this confidence
include the differences between the animal models of sickness and human illnesses, the impacts
of the laboratory environment and other factors on the outcomes, and the variations in the
physiology and genetics of the species. These factors are critical and are likely to cause

Research 3
significant harms to humans through misleading safety studies, elimination of effective methods
among others.
The present status of animal testing in medical practice was evaluated by Kehinde (2013) by
assessing the current and potential advancements in the medical field in animal testing and to
determine whether there are still valid scientific benefits for using laboratory animals. Despite
the existing debate against the use of laboratory animals, the benefits far outweigh the
drawbacks, thus justifying the current use of animal testing. It is economical and faster than
clinical trials, consists of minimal ethical constraints than clinical trials, it is a basis for further
research into some aspects of the disease. These findings agree with those of Akhtar (2015) who
also found that animal experimentation may be used into the foreseeable future due to its
significant benefits that outweigh the drawbacks.
Franco (2013) also provided a historical perspective of animal testing in biomedical research.
Scepticism towards animal testing began as early as the 17th century on experiments such as
vivisection. Since then the critics and advocates of animal experimentation have been involved in
a heated debate to the present day. By the 20th century, there was an upsurge of animal liberation
and a call for more human science. It is likely that the historical controversy on animal
experimentation will continue to exist into the foreseeable future but with continuous
development on the improvement of the wellbeing of experimental animals.
The major arguments for the continuous use of non-human primates are reliant on different
ethical frameworks. Therefore, to ascertain the validity of these arguments, the frameworks
which form the basis of the arguments should be assessed. This was the objective of Carvalho,
Gaspar, Knight and Vicente (2018). The authors examined the present ethical frameworks that
provide guidelines for both human and non-human experiments namely: deontology and