Animal testing should not be banned

Animal testing is defined as the use of animals in medical experiments. It has been vital in almost all major medical advances in the last hundred years for both humans and animals (Trull, F L 2013). The development of among many life-saving or lengthening treatments for example, treatment for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and the many vaccines for most diseases such as cancer and Parkinson’s disease are contributed significantly by animal testing. Most of the animals currently used for animal testing are lab rats that were carefully bred for the sole purpose of being experimented on, like lab rats and different species of monkeys. Thus, the ecosystem will not be disturbed and the scientists can continue experimenting with less guilt of killing innocent animals. However, there are people who object animal testing and request for the banning of animal testing, for fact that it is done involuntarily by the animals and they claim that animals have their own respective rights. Moreover, they proposed that the results from animal testing are not convincing because they are not accurate. Although results from animal testing has not been proven to be accurate, animal testing plays a huge role in medical field therefore it should not be banned because it has the potential to cure illnesses that may affect a person’s life; it also allows the creation of many important medical techniques and most importantly animal testing can save lives. Animal testing is able to help procure remedies for people infected with illnesses that may cause physical impairment. An example of such disease that gradually causes physical impairment and has had its cure obtained through animal testing is diabetes. Moreover, “Duchenne muscular dystrophy” (DMD), which is an inherited muscle wasting disease affecting young boys” has its cure found through animal testing (Medical Research Council 2013). This in turn has saved a few million young boys from being a cripple for life over the past decades. Furthermore, animal testing has helped a lot of people in developing remedies for those who are inflicted with sickness like smallpox using cows as the subject animal during the experiment, because of the particular sickness similar to the smallpox which is cow pox (Pro-Test 2006). However, animal testing has not been proven to give very accurate results and it is a different form of animal torture which does not abide by the animal rights law. Sometimes, drugs and medications made through animal testing do not have any effect on humans or may have side-effects that never appeared on animals. For example,’Vioxx’, a medicine used to reduce pain, inflammation, and stiffness; to manage acute pain in adults; to treat migraines; and to treat menstrual pain, has side effects that can kill people like heart attack(What is Vioxx? 2013). An estimated amount of 88,000 to 139,000 Americans had the listed side effects from consuming Vioxx. The proposed opposing argument is weak because the amount of successful treatments against failures has proven that medicine produced from animal testing are much higher.