Animal Testing

(INTRODUCTION) Thanks for accepting! I don’t want to waste too many characters, so let’s go! (ARGUMENTS) ARGUMENT 1 Ever had a family member or a good friend affected by cancer? If you have, then you know the struggle and pain of ever having to try, attempt, push yourself to live and survive it. Some symptoms of cancer are: “-Fatigue -Pain -Skin changes: These signs and symptoms include: Darker looking skin (hyperpigmentation) Yellowish skin and eyes (jaundice) Reddened skin (erythema) Itching (pruritis) -Excessive hair growth - Change in bowel habits or bladder function -Sores that do not heal -White patches inside the mouth or white spots on the tongue -Unusual bleeding or discharge -Unexplained weight loss -Fever -Thickening or lump in the breast or other parts of the body -Indigestion or trouble swallowing -Recent change in a wart or mole or any new skin change -Nagging cough or hoarseness”{1} “it is estimated that around 8.2 million people died from cancer in 2012.” {3} So, obviously cancer is bad. But what is a way that will slow it down? Cures. What has been an effective way to create cures? “Thanks in large part to animal-based research, there is a new molecular and genetic understanding of tumor biology, leading to treatments that set out to more directly kill cancer cells, which are molecularly different from normal cells. Use of this knowledge to design drugs that focus on those abnormalities is called rational drug design, and is seen by many as the currently emerging future reality of cancer treatment — of "kinder and gentler" cancer therapies that only target abnormal cells.” {2} Ever heard of HIV? “ -Soaking night sweats -Shaking chills or fever higher than 100 F (38 C) for several weeks -Cough -Shortness of breath -Chronic diarrhea -Persistent white spots or unusual lesions on your tongue or in your mouth -Headaches -Persistent, unexplained fatigue -Blurred and distorted vision -Weight loss -Skin rashes or bumps” {6} Obviously bad. But what has animal research done to help people with HIV/AIDS? “Research, including work with animal models, continues to develop new medicines with fewer side effects, as well as to create vaccine candidates that may one day make HIV infection preventable. “ {2} I will name one more in depth disease and how animal testing helped. Then I will list (a quite long list of the diseases that have either helped or been fully cured because of animal testing. The last major one is birth defects. Did you know that “Every three and a half minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect in [just] the United States.” {2} Animal testing has helped 2 major baby defects: “Folic Acid - Studies with animals determined that folic acid, a B vitamin, helps prevent serious birth defects of the brain and spinal cord when taken before conception and early in pregnancy. Since this discovery, a public education campaign launched in 1992 has prevented thousands of such birth defects. Surfactant Therapy - One in eight babies in the United States is born too soon. The lungs in many of these premature children are not fully developed. Surfactant is a detergent-like substance produced in the lungs that aids in breathing. Since surfactant therapy became widespread in the 1980s, infant deaths due to respiratory distress syndrome have dropped by over two-thirds. Research supported by the March of Dimes and others continues to seek new, more effective therapies” {2} Now a list of all the other major diseases/disabilities that animal testing has helped: “Heart Disease/Stroke...Diabetes...Parkinson’s Disease...Hepatitis C...Bioterrorism Medical Countermeasures...Epilepsy...Spinal Cord Injuries...Cystic Fibrosis” {2} All of those are extreme and some of them are deathly, but with the help of animal testing we are finding ways to help those struggling with these diseases. ARGUMENT 2: I understand that animals have lives too, and that they also feel pain. I wish they would not have to feel the kind of pain they endure, but we are humans, not animals (We are referring to lab animals. So technically yes, but we are not lab animals.) . And I believe that the lives saved by this research on maybe a mouse or a rat is worth saving millions of human lives. Did you know that 1 million americans are dependant on insulin? But without animal testing, they would be insulin free… because they would be deceased. {4} I am now going to list what would happen if animal testing did not exist. “Polio would kill or cripple thousands of unvaccinated children and adults this year. Most of the nation's 1 million insulin-dependent diabetic individuals would not be insulin dependent – they would be dead. Sixty million Americans would risk death from heart attack, stroke or kidney failure from lack of medication for high blood pressure. Doctors would have no chemotherapy to save the 70 percent of children who now survive acute lymphocytic leukemia. More than 1 million Americans would lose vision in at least one eye this year because cataract surgery would be impossible. Hundreds of thousands of people disabled by strokes or by head or spinal cord injuries would not benefit from rehabilitation techniques. The more than 100,000 people with arthritis who each year receive hip replacements would walk only with great pain and difficulty or be confined to wheelchairs. The 7,500 newborns who contract jaundice each year would develop cerebral palsy, now preventable through phototherapy. There would be no kidney dialysis to extend the lives of thousands of patients with end-stage renal disease. Surgery of any type would be a painful, rare procedure without the development of modern anesthesia allowing artificially induced unconsciousness or local or general insensitivity to pain. Instead of being eradicated, smallpox would continue unchecked and many others would join the two million people killed by the disease. Millions of dogs, cats and other pets and farm animals would have died from anthrax, distemper, canine parvovirus, feline leukemia, rabies, and more than 200 other diseases now preventable because of animal research.” So millions and millions of people dying or a hundred animals dying per disease? And you know what is funny, animal testing can save animals from zoonotic diseases as well! So everyone benefits. And do you know how many diseases are zoonotic? “Many serious epidemic diseases are zoonoses which originated in animals. These include rabies, Ebola virus disease and influenza. In a systematic review of 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans, 61% were zoonotic”{5} Animal testing helps all of us. And again, I wish we did not have to do such tests, but I would rather a mouse die than a person. We are humans and the most valuable lives in nature to us are other humans. And just think of how much good for the world it can do! (CONCLUSION) Thank you for accepting this debate and I look forward to your arguments! DDD (REFERENCES) {1} http://www.cancer.org... {2} http://www.amprogress.org... {3} http://www.cancerresearchuk.org... {4}http://www.txbiomed.org... {5}http://en.wikipedia.org... {6} http://healthportal.srushtisystems.com...