Contreras 1

Jonathan Contreras

Professor Collins

ENGL 1301

31 October 2017

Animal Experimentation

Experimenting on animals is a highly discussed topic but how did animal

experimentations begin? What if all the food, medicine, and cosmetics that are used and

consumed on a daily basis could cause harm to the one consuming them?. Imagine trying to live

in a world that everything that one uses and consumes has no warning labels or has not been

tested, that everything could harm or possibly kill you. In 1906 the United States congress passed

the original Food and Drugs Act that did not require any testing for products before they are

released into the market. After the act was passed incidents like mascara causing blisters and

ulcers occurred. There was also a medicine that had a chemical added to make it sweet and easy

to eat for children but the chemical ended up being diethylene glycol an ingredient commonly

found in antifreeze. This drug claimed the lives of one hundred seven people but mostly children.

All the incidents of illnesses and deaths led to that in nineteen thirty eight the federal food, drug,

and cosmetic act (FDCA) was passed which made it mandatory to test products before released

to the market (Zurlo). Since the products now needed to be tested companies needed something

to test on which led to animals being used. Experimenting on Animals has become an important

topic because some believe that animals should not be treated as test subjects and others dispute

that new results for different fields cannot be obtained without animal testing.
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Animal Experimentation has been undeniably fruitful through the years helping with

finding the toxicity of cosmetics and medicine. The use of animals in experiments has resulted

many breakthroughs. Insulin was discovered with the help of dogs having their pancreass

removed. Many Diseases have been easier to treat from the help of animals for instance breast

cancer, cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases that would create a very long list.

The creation of medical equipment like pacemakers, cardiac valve substitutes, anesthetics, and

other helpful medical tools were created from animal testing. Many diseases that would have

claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people if animals were not tested on. Many treatments for

diseases that were not previously tested on animals resulted in the illness or birth defects of many people

(procon.org)

The testing of products on animals can vary from cosmetics to medicine. There are many

common problems that occur when using animals as test subjects. A commonly used animal is

the rat. But a huge problem is that when a product is given they are given in large doses that are

not experienced in real life situations when humans are in contact with the products. Another

large issue is that many of the rats being used are inbred so the results can stay constant but

humans differ in the amount of damage that each individuals body can handle so that lets the

results be less reliable. Pharmaceuticals toxicity tests in rodents can only prove a forty three

percent of accuracy in human toxicity tests so that means that they are inaccurate sixty seven

percent of the time. Carcinogenicity tests use 400 rats or mice who are fed a substance to see if

they develop cancer. These tests last two years, cost 1 million Euros each and have been shown

to be highly unreliable (crueltyfreeinternational.org). Since there many aspects of the animals

that differ genetically the test usually cause a lot of stress and pain for the animals being tested

on.
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There is an alternative to animal testing that is being used, animals are still being used but

in smaller quantities. The thing they are using for tests are called human cell systems and a

pathway of toxicity. A pathway of toxicity is a cellular mechanism that, when sufficiently

perturbed, is expected to result in an adverse effect at the cellular level and may lead to an

adverse health effect for the organism. So rather than the black box approach of dosing an

animal with a chemical and looking at the end result (death, cancer, or organ failure, for

example)(Zurlo). This new approach makes you measure the differences in the molecules

caused by the chemical. This way lets you know if the damage is reversible, irreversible, or if it

impairs or kills the cells. But if that data is still lacking something that is not popping up than

they test the product on an animal but even than they are more knowing of the chemical when

they begin the test on the animals, rather than if they had directly tested on the animals. The need

for animals will be reduced exponentially.

Testing on Human cell systems and Finding a pathway of toxicity, are an alternative to

animal testing but the down fall of it is that it is still in its premature stages of testing and will

take some years for the pathways of toxicity to be completed probably decades. The completion

will result in large amounts of data that will need to be handled and organized. Even though it

might take some time for the completion of the pathway of toxicity it will come in extremely

helpful when completed. It cannot be denied that testing on animals has been extremely helpful

throughout the past century and many discovery would not have occurred if not for animal

experimentation.
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Work cited

Zurlo, Joanne. No Animals Harmed: Toward a Paradigm Shift in Toxicity Testing. Hastings

Center Report, Nov. 2012, pp. 2326.

Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing? Procon.org,

Procon.org, animal-testing.procon.org/.

Types of animal testing. Cruelty Free International, Cruelty Free International,

www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/why-we-do-it/types-animal-testing.