Scientists and companies have been participating in animal testing for centuries. 

Animal testing goes back many years to when it was first documented by Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and Erasistratus (304–258 BCE), for reasons varying between curiosity and surgical procedures. 

Despite the advances, which is important to today’s modern world, the act of experimenting on animals just because they were curious, is completely atrocious. 

Animals have done nothing wrong, and the idea that they should be used as test subjects for human products is disgusting. 

If you are testing out new products that are made for human consumption or human purposes, then it is only right to test the products on HUMANS. 

Animal testing has caused many innocent lives to be lost, in order to find things that’d work. 

It’s considered unethical experimentation when scientists use the same tests on humans, but completely ethical when they use the exact same tests on animals? 

That doesn’t make any sense. It’s like they are devaluing animals and disregarding the fact that these animals are not just test subjects that they can do whatever they want with. 

Animals are just as important as humans, and the fact that we claim them for our own use is unnecessary.

 It’s heartbreaking to know that we as humans, believe that we have ultimate domination over animals.

No one likes to be controlled or to be locked up in poor living conditions. No one wants to be in constant fear and treated like they aren’t worthy enough to have a good life, so why do we do it animals? It doesn’t make any sense.

A group devoted to putting an end to tax-payer funded animal research, known as White Coat Waste Project, reported the horrific conditions inside of Veteran Affairs facilities, in early 2018.

One of the founders of the group had said, “We’re talking about tests like taking six-month-old puppies – putting them on treadmills – forcing them to run. Exhausted dogs, inducing heart attacks, sloppy and botched surgeries, restraint devices, drilling holes in their skulls, destroying their brains and charging taxpayers for it.”

I understand if there was absolutely no other option, but the idea that there could be an emergency where you absolutely have to test on animals, is highly unlikely. 

Scientists should test human intended products on human volunteers, or cadavers, or some other way that does not include animal testing.  

It’s no secret that animal anatomy and human anatomy is quite different. So tests that may work on animals, might not always work on humans.

That is why I don’t understand how animal testing is used for human products. The reactions are not always going to be the same.

An article written by the company NAVS (advancing science without harming animals), writes that “Even animals with greater similarity to humans, such as primates, have failed to predict what happens in humans. For example, monkeys treated with a therapeutic antibody (anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody TGN1412) did not predict the potentially fatal immune response that was triggered in humans. The scientific community has also recently concluded that research on chimpanzees, our closest genetic relative, is unnecessary and is being phased out.” 

Imagine yourself in the animal’s situation. Where you are being abused, controlled, and only having an identity as a test subject. 

You wouldn’t want to be in that position, would you? So why do we do that to animals? 

All I’m trying to say, is that we need to stop animal testing and that we need to fix the wrong doings that have been done.  

If we start fixing the problem now, we will get the results of no more unnecessary animal testing, sooner rather than later. 

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the GENESIS staff. Email Lyn Jarrell at [email protected].