Animal testing helps in finding ways to help save lives of animals and humans by testing lifesaving drugs and processes. A few animals tend to react the same way like humans in response to certain diseases and allergies. This helps the scientists find a cure for certain diseases by studying these animals.
* Open heart surgeries, coronary bypass surgery and heart transplantation are some of the procedures that came into existence by carrying out experimentation on dogs.
* Insulin for diabetes, lifesaving antibiotics, etc. have been made by experimenting on animals.
* Animals are not only tested for making lives of humans better, but for the betterment of animals themselves as well. Animal surgeries, animal antibiotics, etc. have all come into existence, due to testing.
* Animal testing helps in figuring out the safety of drugs on humans, before scientists begin the human trail.
* The animal trials help minimize the chances of human death during clinical trials, saving pharmaceutical and medical organizations millions of dollars in compensation.
The principal disadvantage of animal testing is that a significant number of animals are harmed or die as a result of experiments and testing. * Mice and Rats:
More than 100 million mice and rats are killed in U.S. laboratories every year. They are abused in everything from toxicology tests (in which they are slowly poisoned to death) to painful burn experiments to psychological experiments that induce terror, anxiety, depression, and helplessness. Mice and rats are mammals with nervous systems similar to our own. It's not a secret that they feel pain, fear, loneliness, and joy just as we do! * Rabbits: Despite the availability of more modern, humane, and effectivealternatives, rabbits are still tormented in the notorious Draize eye irritancy test, in which cosmetics, dishwashing liquid, drain cleaner, and other substances are dripped into the animals' eyes, often causing redness, swelling, discharge, ulceration, hemorrhaging, cloudiness, or blindness. The rabbits are killed after the experiment is over. * Primates:
Every year in the U.S., more than 125,000 primates are imprisoned in laboratories, where they are abused and killed in invasive, painful, and terrifying experiments. While it is well known that nonhuman primates are sensitive, intelligent beings who share many important biological and psychological characteristics with humans, these very attributes, unfortunately, make them prime targets for experimenters, who treat them as if they were disposable pieces of laboratory equipment. * Dogs: Dogs' status as "man's best friend" offers them no protection from being locked in lonely cages and forced to endure excruciating experiments. Nearly 75,000 dogs, including thousands of homeless animals from shelters, are tormented in U.S. laboratories every year. Dogs are a favored species in toxicology studies. In these studies, large doses of a test substance (a pharmaceutical, industrial chemical, pesticide, or household product) are injected into their bodies, slowly poisoning them.
The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the 2nd and 4th centuries. Aristotle and Erasistratus were among the first to perform experiments on living animals.Galen, a physician in 2nd-century Rome, dissected pigs and goats, and is known as the "father of vivisection."Avenzoar, an Arabic physician in 12th-century Moorish Spain who also practiced dissection, introduced animal testing as an experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients. Toxicology testing became important in the 20th century. In response to the Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster of 1937 in which the eponymous drug killed more than 100 users, the U.S. congress passed laws that required safety testing of drugs on animals before they could be marketed.
